Recreating Raja Ravi Varma

He is synonymous with images that became the basis of India's earliest cinema. Raja Ravi Varma, the ‘father of Indian modern art’ broke several traditions in his journey to iconicism. Hello! Revisits the intrepid artist’s journey, recreating four immortal portraits by him, with protean actress Aditi Rao Hydari stepping into the frame as muse.

THE RAVI VARMA CONNECT…

“Growing up, we were surrounded by art, textiles, music, dance, and I have seen Ravi Varma’s paintings from the time I was very young… I could always spot a saree that I had seen in a Raja Ravi Varma painting. In fact, my maternal grandfather was the Raja of Wanaparthi, and around the time of Independence, he made it his mission to encourage weavers from Wanaparthi, to continue making the traditional weaves of the region, even while many sarees were being printed or made to modern style. So he used to pull out old sarees – the kind you would see in these Ravi Varma paintings – and give it to them and say ‘keep true to your traditions.’ So one of the sarees we have shot with, I have an original one in the same weave and style, in black colour, featuring rudraksh booti. We used a red one in the same style from Sanjay Garg. But I wish I had brought my own heirloom one!”

A DREAM COME TRUE OR PAST LIFE?

“I always wanted to do a shoot like this, and when your team asked me to do this, I was like, thank you! I have seen a lot of his work… even as a child, I used to look at a lot of calendar art. Even in my work life today… a lot of Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s frames are reminiscent of the feel of Raja Ravi Varma’s paintings. It was very, very natural to be drawn to this world.”

RECREATING THE MAGIC OF ANOTHER TIME