BySiddhi Jain

January 31, 2020 (IANSlife) In a dark room at the ongoing India Art Fair in the national capital, one of Indias biggest art events, shines through an illuminated figurative painting by Raja Ravi Varma, the indisputable father of modern Indian art. What is interesting is that it is the only Raja Ravi Varma painting in the entire Fair, and the gallery presenting it has nothing else on display.

Amit Vadehra from the presenting Crayon Art Gallery said that they chose just one work to give the painting the importance it deserves. "We used special lighting in a dark space with a bench inspired from the 1700s," he told IANSlife.

Raja Ravi Varma (1848-1906) is India's most celebrated classical painter of the modern era, best known for his fusion between European academic style with mythological themes from Puranas and other Hindu texts. 

His exhibited painting �Vishnu on Sheshnag' is an iconic and seminal representation of Raja Ravi Varma's work, depicting the classical iconography of the deity represented here with his wives, Goddess Lakshmi and Goddess Bhumi on either side, on the seat of the Sheshnag, the snake king.

Also known as Shesha, the snake king is depicted in delicate fashion, in Varma's renowned painterly style.

Also on view is the painting's oleograph on paper, a more affordable version of the coveted painting.

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Siddhi Jain can be contacted at siddhi.j@ians.in

Editing by Aditi Roy and N. Lothungbeni Humtsoe