Born on April 29, 1848, in Kilimanoor, a small hamlet in the southern state of Kerala, Ravi Varma belonged to a family of scholars, poets and artists. Noted in his family were, among others, Vidwan Koil Tampuran, author of the famous Kathakali work Ravana Vijayam; Raja Raja Varma, who painted after the Tanjore style; and Uma Amba Bai Tampuratty, who, composed Parvati Swayamvaram, a work for the Tullal dance.
As only a small boy, Raja Varma filled the walls of his home with pictures of animals and acts and scenes from his daily life, which though irked the domestics, were noted by his uncle, Raja Raja Varma as the signs of a blossoming genius. The uncle, himself a Tanjore artist, not only gave the first drawing lessons to Ravi Varma, but also took a keen interest in his further training and education with the help of the ruling king, Ayilyam Thirunal.
When a young boy of 14, Ravi Varma was sent to Thiruvananthapuram where he stayed at the Moodath Madam house of the Kilimanoor Palace and was taught water painting by the palace painter Rama Swamy Naidu. Here Varma’s talent was nurtured by the personal interest of Ayilyam Thirunal who exposed him to the famous paintings of Italian painters. Ravi Varma was convinced that mass reproduction of his paintings would initiate millions of Indians to real Art, and in 1894 he set up an oleography press called the Ravi Varma Pictures Depot. For photo-litho transfers, the Pictures Depot relied on Phalke's Engraving & Printing whose proprietor, Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, became famous as dadasaheb of Indian Cinema a few years later.
In 1894 and 1888, Ravi Varma and his younger brother C.Raja Raja Varma took a tour around India, in search of images and landscapes for inspiration. On his return from the second tour, Ravi Varma painted a batch of pictures especially for reproduction at his new press, the Picture Depot. The aristocratic orientalism in his imagery was now replaced by a little more folkish, more iconic and more marketable forms, and also seen was a crises of gender identity of contemporaneous European forms. The Calendar-Art thus brought-forth by Ravi Varma has been the origin of gaudy god-pictures by ultramodern litho presses for decades.
Raja Ravi Varma died of diabetes on October 2, 1906, in his Kilimanoor Palace home overflowing with friends, relatives, dignitaries and the media. Yet, the rich heritage of the fragrance of his paintings continues to charm and influence the art of India.