CNN-IBN Book Club features Deepanjana Pal, Art Writer with Time Out Mumbai, and author of the recently-released The Painter. The book is based on the work of famous artist Raja Ravi Varma.
Amrita Tripathi: Why did you choose Raja Ravi Varma as the subject of this book?
Deepanjana Pal: Say "Raja Ravi Varma" to someone and chances are they will nod knowingly. But if you ask them to tell you what they know about him, most often they will mention his Lakshmi and mumble something about his paintings showing up as calendar art. He's a sketchy figure and yet he's famous, which is a curious mix and a perfect starting point for a biographer. Also, the times that he lived in are very interesting - the birth of the idea of a unified India, the beginnings of Swaraj. Considering the current threats of Balkanisation, it's almost like seeing a negative image of India except that Ravi Varma's times were a little more than 100 years ago. Finally, I saw the very long trailer for the film inspired by a fictionalised telling of Ravi Varma's life that Ketan Mehta made.
It made me realise how important it is to have the facts of his life in one place. There's a lot of work done on his art but very few biographies. Invariably, the one that people refer to is one that was written back in the 1980s and was commissioned by the Government of Kerala.
Amrita Tripathi: Give us your take on his work.
Deepanjana Pal: I wanted to write something that would give the reader an idea of the person that Ravi Varma was. The idea was to write a book that would remember Ravi Varma the way people who knew him personally did. It would also look at his art in the context of the times in which he lived. The one thing it was not meant to be was academic because there's enough academic writing on Ravi Varma. I saw Ravi Varma as a geek (and not just because I'm a geek as well) and I figured I wanted to take him out of the world of academia and into the real world.
Amrita Tripathi: Share a little more about your book.
Deepanjana Pal: We're so used to the idea of bad-boy artists and provocative art that it was very interesting to look back at a time when Ravi Varma as an artist was attempting to do the exact opposite. Ravi Varma strived to create art that would not be provocative because he was trying give art respectability. So he ends up being a curious mix of modernity and conservatism: he won't go abroad for fear of losing caste but he would pore over European art magazines and postcards of nude models. He didn't drink but he was a party animal. He said he didn't physically touch money because being money-minded was considered plebeian but he also established himself as the most expensive portrait artist of the times.
Amrita Tripathi: Would this be of interest to "non-art" type people too?
Deepanjana Pal: I really, really hope so. As someone who was a "non-art type" till three years ago, I know precisely what it's like to read a book that seems very smart and feels impenetrable. I've tried to write this book as a story of a man who was a painter and the idea is to tell a story engagingly. It isn't meant to be esoteric by any stretch of imagination.
(The Painter will be released in New Delhi in February 2010. Send us your questions or comments right here.)
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