School series 56

 MYSURU: WHERE RAJA RAVI VARMA MEETS THE WORLD

There are museums that preserve history.

And then there are museums that seem to open a window into an entire civilisation.

The Jayachamarajendra Art Gallery, housed in the magnificent Jaganmohan Palace in Mysuru, is one such place.

Jaganmohan Palace was built in 1861 by Maharaja Mummadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar. The palace was converted into a museum in 1915 and today houses an extraordinary collection of paintings, musical instruments, royal objects and other works of art.

But for me, its greatest attraction is its collection of Raja Ravi Varma's paintings.

RAJA RAVI VARMA — THE ARTIST WHO CHANGED INDIA

Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1906) brought something revolutionary to Indian art.

He combined the techniques of European academic oil painting—perspective, realistic anatomy, light and shadow—with subjects drawn from India's own imagination: the Ramayana, Mahabharata, Puranas and the lives of India's gods and heroes.

For the first time, figures that had lived for centuries in temples, manuscripts and oral traditions could appear before ordinary people as almost living human beings.

Sita, Damayanti, Shakuntala, Krishna and Saraswati were no longer distant mythological figures.

They had faces.

They had expressions.

They seemed to breathe.

THE ROYAL CONNECTION

The Mysore court became an important patron of Ravi Varma.

The Jaganmohan Palace gallery today has 16 original Ravi Varma paintings, including Malabar Lady, Sairandhri, Victory of Meghanatha, Lady in Moonlight, Sucking Child and Harishchandra.

Standing before these paintings, one can almost imagine the Mysore court of another age—where art was not decoration but an important part of royal culture.

And this is what makes the Mysuru collection special.

We are not simply looking at paintings by a famous artist.

We are looking at a moment when Indian art was changing.

FROM PALACES TO ORDINARY HOMES

But Ravi Varma's greatest revolution happened outside the palace.

He realised that a painting could reach only a few people, but a print could reach thousands.

His establishment of the Ravi Varma Press transformed the way Indians encountered art. Chromolithographic prints reproduced his paintings in colour and carried images of Hindu gods, goddesses and mythological scenes into homes across India.

Art was no longer confined to royal courts, galleries and wealthy homes.

It entered ordinary Indian households.

It entered prayer rooms.

It entered popular culture.

And perhaps that is the most extraordinary legacy of Raja Ravi Varma.

He did not merely paint India. He helped India see itself.

A PERSONAL CONNECTION

There is something particularly fascinating about this story for us.

The Ravi Varma images that travelled across India through prints eventually became part of the visual world of countless Indian homes.

So when we see a Ravi Varma image today, we may not be looking at an original painting.

We may be looking at the descendant of an extraordinary nineteenth-century idea:

Take great art out of the palace and put it into the hands of the people.

That is why Ravi Varma remains so important.

He stood at the meeting point of royalty and the common man, tradition and modernity, Indian mythology and European technique, original painting and mass reproduction.

And in Mysuru, inside the old Jaganmohan Palace, that story can still be seen on the walls.

Perhaps that is the real museum.

Not just a collection of objects—

but a glimpse of how India learned to carry its own stories into the modern age.