Raja Ravi Varma's legacy and influence

On display until October 2026, ‘The God of Small Things: Faith and Popular Culture’ explores how images of the divine circulate through everyday life. The exhibition brings together art from across India and South-East Asia to consider how divine figures move between temple, home and the public sphere, and how popular culture has shaped — and been shaped by — religious iconography.

At the centre of the exhibition is a group of works by Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1906), often described as India’s first modern artist. Ravi Varma’s synthesis of Indian mythological subjects and European academic realism transformed the visual culture of his time.

In 1894, Ravi Varma founded India’s first chromolithographic press in the country’s capital, Bombay (now Mumbai). Using advanced German printing technology, he reproduced his paintings as oleographs — vibrant lithographic prints, varnished to resemble oil paintings. Affordable and easily distributed, these prints made Hindu imagery accessible at a time when temples were restricted based on caste and gender. Ravi Varma’s depictions of Hindu gods and goddesses, inspired by epic narratives such as the Ramayana and Mahabharata, presented divine figures in a relatable, humanised style that became widely influential.

Many of the works by Ravi Varma included in ‘The God of Small Things’ were further transformed through hand-applied embellishment and the time-honoured craft of zardozi, a type of elaborate embroidery practised in parts of West, Central and South Asia that uses metal thread to create ornate designs. These additions to Ravi Varma’s prints were not merely decorative; they were intended as marks of care, affection and reverence for the deities depicted. The challenge for conservators preparing the works for display at QAGOMA was to stabilise fragile materials while honouring the histories embedded in these interventions. This inspired deeper consideration of the conservation opportunities within such a broad collection of Ravi Varma oleographs.

The works in ‘The God of Small Things’ illuminate how myth and spirituality remain active forces, continually reimagined by artists. These works by Raja Ravi Varma demonstrate that, in the spaces between the personal and the public, and between the ritual and the everyday, divine and devotional iconography is thriving.
 

Abigail Bernal is Curator, Contemporary Asian Art, QAGOMA.