Below, we’ve assembled a list of the top 10 most influential female artists alive today. These women have left an incredible mark on the art world, and while their importance to the current scene is important, their impact will no doubt be felt for generations to come. Cindy Sherman Courtesy of Cindy Sherman Cindy Sherman made a name for herself through intricate self-portrait photography. Taking advantage of her skills as a costume maker and make-up artist, Sherman’s early work began exploring identity by using the artist’s body as the canvas. Her work frequently explores the place of women in the media and cultural landscape. Untitled Film Stills (1977-80) saw Sherman dressing as B-movie characters. In Centerfolds (1981), she upended the expectations of the male gaze, presenting complicated female characters where one might expect titillating, sexualized images. Her latest work speaks directly to the tools we use to communicate with each other. She now takes self-portraits using her phone, manipulating the images using multiple “face tuning” apps. The results are provocative and often disturbing. Tracey Emin Courtesy of Tracey Ermin Tracey Emin is no stranger to controversy. Her work is striking and confrontational, as well as deeply autobiographical. Her work reaches across an enormous array of mediums, from drawing, painting, and sculpture to neon text, film, photography, and sewn appliqué. Some of her installations made major waves in the art world. She premiered Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 (1997) at the Royal Academy of London. The work is a tent that visitors can enter into, and on the walls are appliquéd the names of, you guessed it, everyone the artist had slept with. It serves as a kind of haunted space, especially in the greater context of Ermin’s work that challenges the role that sex plays in the perception of women. She has gone on to be a professor at the Royal Academy of Arts and a prolific, widely influential artist of our time. Yayoi Kusama Courtesy of Wikimedia Yayoi Kusama is an artist working in sculpture and installation, as well as many other mediums. She became a fixture of the 1960’s counterculture, organizing happenings where participants were nude and covered in painted polka dots. Beginning in 1963, Kusama began creating her Infinity Rooms, a series of installations in which the walls of the rooms were covered in mirrors with colorful balls of light hanging at different lengths from the ceiling. The effect is the perception that the room of lights goes on forever. Her public installation work continues to appear across the world, including Brazil, Japan, Singapore, and beyond. Marina Abramović Courtesy of Wikimedia Marina Abramović is likely the most important and influential performance artist of our time. Her newsworthy works have captured the attention of the artworld for decades, and she isn’t done yet. The Artist is Present (2010) saw Abramović sitting at a table at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. Visitors were invited to sit across the table from Abramović. This went on to become the largest performance art exhibit in MoMA’s history. On top of her amazing career as an artist, she is also a philanthropist and a supporter of young artists through her Marina Abramović Institute. Judy Chicago Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum Judy Chicago is a major name in the worlds of both art and feminism, with her career striking a path that unites them. Many of her unique techniques are borrowed from boat building, auto body repair, and similar disciplines — what the artist calls the “macho arts.” The Dinner Party (1979) is likely Chicago’s most important work to date. It shows a dinner table set in a triangle, with 39 places set for female heroes, both real and mythical. The dinner plates are all hand-painted homages to the woman who is seated there. The sprawling ambition and bold statement continue to fascinate and inspire people today. Shirin Neshat Courtesy of Wikimedia Shirin Neshat is an Iranian-born New York artist primarily working in photography, film, and video. Her work often focuses on the dichotomies, both socially constructed and eternal, that make up our world: Isamic and Western culture, male and female, public and private. Her film Women Without Men (2009) received the Silver Lion award at the Venice Film Festival. The film, based on the novel by Shahrnush Parsipur, depicts events during the British and American backed coup in Iran that overthrew their democratic government and installed the Shah as monarch in 1953. Vija Celmins Courtesy of SFMoMA Vija Celmins works in paintings and drawings, creating photorealistic pieces. She is celebrated today as one of the leaders in realism, though she pushes her work into almost abstract places by focusing on visual rhythm and the exclusive use of gray tones. Her early breakthrough saw her making exquisite replications of photojournalism, making masterful use of grayscale in her painting. These works highlighted how much of our world view at the time was dictated by black-and-white photographs and disseminated through the media. She has gone on to focus on sweeping visions of natural spaces and events. Much of her current work shows us starry skies, ocean waves, and other large and small scale views of the natural world. Bharti Kher Courtesy of Wikimedia Bharti Kher is an artist working sculpture, installation, and painting. Her work often speaks to realities of inhabiting a body as well as issues around culture. Perhaps her most popular work is The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own (2006). The piece depicts a full-size female elephant collapsed on the ground, covered in the traditional bindi — a mark made on the forehead among followers of Hinduism representing the third eye. By bringing together these two images of India, Kher creates a vivid embodiment of the country. Marlene Dumas Courtesy of Wikimedia Marlene Dumas is an artist working in the Netherlands who is known as one of the first three living women to sell an artwork above the $1 million mark. The notoriety is well deserved. Her work is always in ceaseless exploration of human moods and social conditions. Her paintings often eschew direct representation and instead make suggestions of emotional states. Her work often distorts faces and specifics, driving down into the heart of her subject. She continues to be a major name in the art world today. Dumas’s prolific career continues to challenge viewers and evoke what it means to be alive. Julie Mehretu Courtesy of Forbes Julie Mehretu works in painting, drawing, and printmaking, often focusing on the socio-economic realities of our time. Her meticulous work is precise but ultimately deeply felt, mapping out the psychology of people in the urban environment. Her pieces often take on an enormous scale, often two stories tall. Mehretu describes her mark-making process as one that charts the movements and interactions of people in their own societal context. While her compositions can be overwhelming and grand, when viewers take the time to look at it in detail, they often find surprising narratives emerge.

RtistiQ

19 Apr 2022

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Anna Laifalight - Digital artist since 2009. Based in Kyiv, Ukraine. RtistiQ: What is your current situation Anna? Anna: From the very beginning of the war on February 24, my family decided to stay in Kyiv. But, on the 21st day of the war, I moved with my daughter to a quieter area in western Ukraine to my parents since there were explosions in our district and a large nine-story residential building was damaged not far from the house where we live in Kyiv. My husband and many other families with children still remain in their homes in Kyiv, and constantly testify about the explosions. RtistiQ: Explain more about your art. Anna: I mainly create digital art in Adobe Illustrator. That’s why it is easy for me to take everything necessary for it with me to another place: my laptop, my wacom tablet and an external hard drive. I have been working as a digital artist since 2009. My first collaboration as an artist was with stock agencies such as Shutterstock, Creative market, Adobe stock. Lately I saw that my artworks were used around the Globe in different projects, including many commercial ones. Some of them you can be seen here: https://www.laifalight.com/custom-design . I started to get freelance orders for art from different countries from time to time. In 2020 I launched my own site https://laifalight.com where I decided to represent only exclusive artworks. Although I have never arranged personal exhibitions, I found my art printed on canvases, book covers, murals, paper glasses, and textiles worldwide. "The series of beautiful streets with fashion people '' has become my "visit card" and has been created by me in my own way since 2010. RtistiQ: What do you think of NFTs? Anna: The use of the technology (NFT / Blockchain) provides a great opportunity for fairness to the authors, as this will help to avoid theft of digital works. Thank you for supporting artists from Ukraine in such a difficult time of the war. Our country and people are in great need of support.

RtistiQ

08 Apr 2022

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As ARTnews had put it, ‘It’s about uniting to save lives’. Spare rooms, free doctors, addition of terminals by satellite broadband service providers to help keep the people of Ukraine online… support has been outpouring by people, companies, governments and other organisations like the IMF. The fascinating power of community and sheer generosity is breathtaking in crisis situations. And this time there is something else too. Since the conflict began, the relatively young non-fungible-token (NFT) community joined forces to harness the power of the new age through blockchain & crypto to raise aid. It was definitely off to a good start and continues in a positive vein. From the international community to the Ukrainian private and government bodies, many joined hands in several initiatives to help. In this article, we will highlight some of them: NFT ‘Museum of war’ Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's minister of digital transformation, has spearheaded the country’s push to raise funds in crypto assets and distributed ledger technology. Just this week, March 30, the Ukrainian government turned to the metaverse and launched an NFT ‘Meta History: Museum of war’ to help fund the fight. The country’s Ministry of Digital Transformation has minted 54 NFTs to raise awareness and support the Ukrainian military and civilians. The tokens will be taking the form of artists' illustrations linked to major events in the war. The mission statement was stated as “to preserve the memory of the real events of that time, to spread truthful information among the digital community in the world and to collect donations for the support of Ukraine.” This article by fortune provides further details: https://fortune.com/2022/03/29/ukraine-selling-nfts-war-bonds-meta-history-museum/ https://donate.thedigital.gov.ua/ On March 14, Ukraine launched the website above to allow people around the world to make crypto donations. By amassing the first donations at the beginning of the conflict, the organisation has raised more than $71 million. Vogue Ukraine & Vogue Singapore Can fashion and art, especially digital, be anything beyond frivolous? The good news is yes. Traditional infrastructures and institutions are under attack in a war situation and cryptocurrency can become even more useful as a medium. Vogue Ukraine and Vogue Singapore set up an initiative with six Ukrainian and Ukrainian-based artists and designers. The exclusive collection was put up on Opensea and included works from Anna October, Anton Belinskiy, DressX, Gunia Project, Ienki Ienki and Gudu. Each NFT was available in 50 editions at 0.5ETH. All proceeds were donated to ‘Save The Children Ukraine’. TIMEPieces TIMEPieces, the web3 community and NFT initiative from TIME put up a collection of unique artworks from the community’s artists inspired by the spirit of the Ukrainian people. Each artwork had a starting bid of 0.22ETH, with 100% of proceeds supporting humanitarian & relief efforts for Ukraine. Many generously donated their works to build a better future for the Ukrainian people. Swimmer Cindy Ong launched NFT collection Malaysian swimming champion and world masters champion Cindy Ong launched a NFT project on Opensea on March 20 to raise funds for the people of Ukraine. Charity NFT Art Auction for Ukrainian Artists by RtistiQ Last but not the least, the exclusive #NFTArtForAid NFT auction of works by Ukrainian artists will be available on our platform - RtistiQ from 7-10 April. 50+ artists and over 1000 NFTs. The NFT drop will feature works from Tatyana Binovska, Irina Loktionova, Nataliya Bagatskaya, Laifalight, Anastasiia Palashynska, among others. RtistiQ will not charge any commissions to the artists part of this auction. Additionally, by enabling the smart contract on RtistiQ, the artists are granted a 10% resale royalty. Minting will happen on Polygon and we hope that the funds raised will be a significant vehicle for a life changed for the better for the artists we have been working so closely with. The global NFT journey has only just begun. The consensus on the value of NFTs has remained controversial. Those who believed in it thought that the primary utility was an investment in the metaverse, or the proto-metaverse. However, the above use cases show there are more and the technology is likely to stick and accompany us all into the future. References:https://www.artnews.com/art-news/news/ukraine-nft-artist-projects-1234621221/

RtistiQ

01 Apr 2022

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Art and war can sound complete opposites - war oppresses and destroys while art creates. But they actually coexist and war is a crucible of art. Art has been used in war situations in a number of ways…before, during and after. Why? Because art is an influencer of thought that reaches all segments of societies and sends out a powerful message for or against warmongering. It provokes, so it can change the way people feel and think. War art can be made to support it, oppose it, to demoralise opponents and to recover from the catastrophe of it. Artists blend colours, textures and patterns to depict wartime ideologies. Art has been carved from the wreckage of the battle - bullets, shell casings and other debris - often producing unsettling accounts of the calamity. Tools of cruelty have been turned into swords of compassion and the dead have also lived on in the hands of the artists. Political leaders – monarchs, dictators and democrats have commissioned artists to create propaganda in order to garner support and to urge the public to make material sacrifices and take risks. These artists have depicted the opposing side as aggressive and brutal in order to stimulate critical reflections of animosity for the opposing side. To evoke a sense of nationalism and pride among the citizens, they have depicted battlefield victory and glory. On the other hand, anti-war organisations have commissioned artists to subvert sympathy for wars. Also, some artists have been official appointees in war situations, sent by their governments to create a record of what was going on or to offer visual slogans to aid morale. The lessons of art and war are entwined, and art stands as a constant reminder of the hard learnt lessons of the past & present, and the direction of the future. As we stand now in 2022 with Russia’s war on Ukraine entering the second month, RtistiQ has decided to use art and the power of technology to run an NFT art auction of the works of Ukrainian artists to raise money for them. These artists are suffering the horrific consequences of the assault in Ukraine. It is a pragmatic but a different use case, and we hope it can help garner support for these artists thanks to a world of cyber-liberate population. It is also an opportunity for the speculators of this initiative to own tradable and investible alternative assets which ought to prosper in times to come. Refer to our blog article: Sending Help to Ukrainian Artists In This Hour of Maximum Need Through A Charity NFT Art Auction to learn more about the whys of this initiative by RtistiQ We hope through RtistiQ we can continue to use our platform in innovative ways to power the future of art experience around the world while the world is signalling the move to a web3.0 era. References: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/remembering-americas-official-artists-war-180952321/ https://politicalviolenceataglance.org/2018/01/05/five-ways-art-and-war-are-related/

RtistiQ

31 Mar 2022

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The multifaceted work of Ukrainian artists has been welcomed by art buyers and collectors at home and throughout the world. But the war on Ukraine has ravaged the lives of these talented and driven artists and for the entire country as well. The events taking place feel unreal. Civilians have been forced to flee their homes and leave behind what they own due to this humanitarian crisis. Is seeing it in the news enough to make a difference? We think not. The crisis demands that we stand with the people who are being impacted by it and act in our capacities with a human-centric approach. So many Ukrainian artists have lost their homes, families and everything they had. They have lost the paintings they have worked so hard to create. Their paintings were both sources of inspiration and income, and now these precious pieces are gone or destroyed. The RtistiQ team had announced last week an upcoming non-fungible token (NFT) Drop of Women Artists, but given the current situation, we have decided to postpone it for a few weeks and instead give our fullest support to the Ukrainian artists right now. Art is in our spirit and in our destiny and to support these Ukrainian artists, RtistiQ will be launching a charity NFT art auction of their works. This is a corporate social responsibility initiative auction that will run from 7-10 April. Bidding is open to everyone. There will be no commissions charged to the artists in this auction and the entire mint cost and transaction cost will be borne by RtistiQ. It is urgent and these artists need emergency aid, shelter & supplies, and that’s where the proceeds from this first-ever charity auction of NFT artworks by RtistiQ will go. We at RtistiQ aim to give Ukrainian artists hope through our online art platform. As we raise money for a noble cause, we hope that the world can show it’s support for the Ukrainian artists by participating in this deed. We are ready to step up their art into the digital world so that the world can experience the metaverse first-hand - and in the process raise vital funds for these artists who are now in dire need of them in this particularly critical time.

RtistiQ

17 Mar 2022

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Lawrence Wong, Singapore's finance minister, announced today that "prevailing income tax rules will apply" to Income derived from non-fungible token (NFT) transactions. He stated that the tax treatment and economics "will be determined based on the nature and use of the NFT." According to Wong, some individuals may also derive capital gains from such transactions. Those profits won't be deducted because the country does not have a regime of taxing capital gains. Different countries have been releasing Taxation plans for NFTs and Crypto Assets, including Australia, the United States of America, and India. The announcement has clarified the Taxation regime for NFT transactions treated as Income or Capital Gains to be considered under regular tax brackets in Singapore. On the other hand, India has taken a different approach with a proposed higher tax bracket of 30% for any Crypto and NFT transactions. Blockchain-based NFTs serve as tokenized cryptographic assets to represent ownership of unique items. The acceptance of crypto is growing globally within the mainstream. Also, NFTs gained prominence from the end of 2020 and took a significant leap in 2021 with a transaction volume estimated at $41 Billion. Singapore has one of the lowest income tax rates in Asia. The country offers several tax breaks and boasts a relatively lower corporate tax rate and top personal tax bracket, plus it does not levy taxes on capital gains. However, the country has plans to raise income taxes for the high earners.

RtistiQ

11 Mar 2022

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With the advent of the 19th century, Indian art underwent significant changes in production and distribution with the first daguerreotype photography, Battala woodcut prints, Kalighat paintings, and lithographs. Now art came to be mass-produced, and Raja Ravi Varma led this movement through his oleographs. Largely credited as the man who brought the Gods home, Raja Ravi Varma redefined iconographic and aesthetic idiom in classical Indian art. Ravi Varma gave new meaning to collecting and owning art through his lithographic Press. This pioneering step made it possible for the common man to own a piece of art produced by the incredible Raja Ravi Varma! Credited for many-a-firsts, Raja Ravi Varma was world-renowned as the pioneering Indian painter that focused on perspective. He was also famous for using oil paint in his artworks. He led the pathbreaking approach by depicting Hindu gods and goddesses in a human form. His stories, settings, and scenes were replete with those of Hindu mythological works like Ramayana, Mahabharata, and the Puranas. We can say that he was the first Indian artist to gain widespread international fame at a time when painters and artisans largely remained either anonymous or unidentified; and the first to make his work available not just to a specific class of patrons but also to ordinary people by way of his oleographs. Artists and connoisseurs started converting canvas-based artworks into oleographs or chromolithographs in the 1830s. Europe was the first destination that saw the setting up of printing presses that made colorful lithographic art prints. Its demand soared on the back of commercialization in the 1860s. The process behind such reproduction was intricate. It helped artists to replicate on paper the brush strokes, textures, paintings, shades, hues, and colors of an oil painting. This held particular appeal to leading artists like Raja Ravi Varma. Until then, his artworks were available only to an exclusive group of affluent people. With these lithographs, the painter could expand access to his religious imagery far beyond his existing clientele. Raja Ravi Varma started The Ravi Varma Fine Art Lithographic Press in 1894 at Girgaum, later moving to Ghatkopar in Bombay, and finally shifted it to Malavli, near Lonavala, in 1899. The Press was the most extensive picture printing establishment in India and the most innovative. Along with hand-coloring, the process involved using as many woodblocks or litho-stones to match the colors and tones to transfer the image. It would take several months to produce an oleograph, depending on the number of colors in the original work. There is an interesting anecdote behind this work. The renowned painter was advised by Dewan Sir Tanjavur Madhava Row. He had a simple idea to meet the massive demand for replicas of his artworks. The painter could send his works to Europe, where his paintings could be replicated as oleographs. As it happened, this move led to a widespread clamor for Ravi Varma's works. Later, the painter and his brother Raja Raja Varma decided to set up and operate a press. For this, they took the help of Fritz Schleicher. He was instrumental in establishing the media and looking after its operations. In this venture, Ravi Varma partnered with a local entrepreneur, Govardhandas Khataumakhanji. The Ravi Varma Fine Art Lithographic Press commenced its operations in July 1894 with a chromolithograph, "Birth of Shakuntala" (Shakuntala/Sakoontala Janma). Two months after that (September 1894), the Press rolled out the oleographs of Lakshmi and Saraswati. This was considered highly radical for its times. This was because of a rampant tradition of restricting specific classes of society from accessing religious methods and places of worship. With the production of these two lithographs, several religious restrictions were crossed, thereby unilaterally democratizing all classes' equal access to the images of their beloved gods and goddesses. These images and many of those produced subsequently became objects of socio-religious and popular culture. The viewers conversed with these lithographs daily following a concept of 'darshan' ('seeing' a religious object) and 'prayer,' 'making these chromolithographs exceedingly important and relevant in the socio-cultural lives of households. The oleographs printed here were very popular and continued to be published in thousands for many years, even after the death of Raja Ravi Varma in 1906. Later, as each piece became unique and more valuable, many of Ravi Varma's oleographs were embellished with zardozi (gold and silver metallic threads), sequins, glitter, and beads. In today's day and age, these rare lithographs are prized collectibles. Check out the digital reproductions of these lithographs and more on our website: https://art.rtistiq.com/en/nftdrop/raja-ravi-varma-nft-auction. Raja Ravi Varma, Birth of Sakuntala (Shakuntala Janma) Image courtesy: Google Arts & Culture; Raja Ravi Varma Heritage Foundation Raja Ravi Varma, (Lakshmi) Image courtesy: Raja Ravi Varma Heritage Foundation Raja Ravi Varma, (Saraswati) Image courtesy: Raja Ravi Varma Heritage Foundation

RtistiQ

18 Feb 2022

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Raja Ravi Varma, who brought the gods to life, imparted an ethereal aura to royalty and redefined feminine beauty with his timeless paintings. Overcoming flatness, flaccidity, and a lack of movement in the subject of earlier painting styles, Ravi Varma breathed a new life into classical Indian painting through his skillful combination of western academic realism and Indian narrative style. His creations, both mythological and social, evoke an emotional response in the viewer as they reveal myriad emotions on canvas, the psychological reactions of these emotions through their body language, gestures, and facial expressions. Though it is difficult to pick one iconic work of a painter whose works are ubiquitously known for their beauty and grace, colors, strokes, and finesse, his famous piece The Coquette (circa 1893) is an accurate representation of Ravi Varma's unique visual vocabulary filled with different registers of sensation, sensuality, symbolism, subtle metaphor without heightened drama, and a range of modes and meanings which resonate with social, cultural and artistic patterns. A beautiful woman holds a gooseberry as she looks directly at the viewer. Cast in an enigmatic and seductive avatar, the unknown woman clutches the edge of her saree as she playfully offers the fruit to the onlooker. Such was the admiration for this composition that the artist created another similar work titled Lady with a Fruit (1894), now housed at the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi. Admittedly, this could have been a popular theme at the time since other artists like Sekhara Warrier also played with the piece of a woman and fruit and came up with versions such as Lady with Fruit Plate (1890). However, Warrier's depiction of an upper-caste Nair woman holding a plate full of plump orange-like fruits is similar to and different from Ravi Varma's The Coquette. The woman in Warrier's work is a Nair woman dressed in a transparent white methukattu (or mundu) since they were not permitted to wear a blouse or an upper garment as per their religious customs. Gazing languidly at the viewer, Warrier's Nair woman is more 'real' and earthly - a regular privileged woman from 19th-century Kerala. At the same time, Ravi Varma's Coquette is a softer, more delicate, and ethereal 'Apsara-esque' woman who is boldly seductive. Perhaps this is why the other two paintings have specific titles, as there are not many subtle and suggestive hints. Still, The Coquette is special because it is a more layered interpretation of the ideals of femininity and womanhood. The visible difference in modeling the faces and bodies of both women is also not lost on the viewers. Interestingly, even the Lady with a Fruit is considered slightly paler compared to The Coquette regarding the composition's details and richness. On closer examination of the style of the two paintings, one would realize that The Coquette has been painted with a high level of precision and detail. At the same time, Lady With A Fruit appears to be a more hurriedly made work, as the stroke work in the painting is remarkably different. This evocative and powerful image opens up various possibilities regarding what Ravi Varma was trying to convey through this work. The word "coquette" is defined as "a woman who likes to attract attention by behaving as if she is sexually interested in people, in a pleasant but not serious way." If the tilt of her head, her slightly parted red-tinged lips, and the provocative look in her eyes depicts the woman's cheerful flirting, the exquisite jewelry, the green velvet blouse laced with brocade, and the translucent pink silk saree embellished with gold threads speak of her upper-class status. Gooseberry is said to have grown from the drops of Amrit, the heavenly nectar that fell from the abode of gods. Thus, a beautiful fair-skinned woman holding a gooseberry could be Ravi Varma's modern visual re-interpretation of Vishnu's Mohini avatar in an imaginative combination of eroticism and innocence. Or, she could be a Ravi Varma prototype of an earthly Apsara (celestial nymph) tantalizing her viewers with the fruit-bearing nectar of immortality. Or, it could be the artist's way of indicating the woman's pregnant state. As the genuine modernist he was, Raja Ravi Varma glorified women as Goddesses and the Goddesses as women. The Coquette seems to be an attempt in a similar vein without the overt sexualization or meaningless glorification of a young woman featured in the portrait. Even today, Ravi Varma's depiction of the Indian female form leaves us spellbound as his Devis, Nayikas, Apsaras, Maharanis, and many unknown women effortlessly transcend the real and the ideal. It seems like this painting was Ravi Varma's tribute to these women as he imparted each of their most distinctive qualities to this nameless woman called The Coquette. This painting is a part of the first-ever Exclusive Raja Ravi Varma NFT Auction. Check more on the auction details and join our waiting list here. Ravi Varma Coil Tampuran, The Coquette, Travancore, circa 1893 (Image courtesy: Raja Ravi Varma Heritage Foundation) Raja Ravi Varma, Woman Holding a Fruit, late 19th century (Image courtesy: National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; Google Arts & Culture) Sekhara Warrier, Lady with Fruit Plate, 1890 (Image courtesy: Raja Ravi Varma Heritage Foundation; Google Arts & Culture)

RtistiQ

11 Feb 2022

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An artist ahead of his time, Raja Ravi Varma pushed the boundaries of Indian art and image-making and in many ways redefined iconography. The artist who belonged to the same time as some of the greatest European artists of the time like Paul Gauguin, Édouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, and was most likely influenced by it is likely his style was influenced by artists such as Vermeer, Raphael, Rembrandt, and David, Ingres, Ravi Varma pioneered salon art in India; remarkably having never travelled outside the country or trained in an art school. Deliberately moving away from buxom anatomies, large-sized heads, droopy eyes, gaudy costumes and jewellery, heightened chiaroscuro effects, dark misty landscape settings, and palatial backgrounds, Ravi Varma’s realistic interpretations and portrayals of gods and goddesses and historical events left a deep indelible impression on the popular visual culture even to this day. From his early Tanjore-style bejewelled paintings to mass-produced oleographs, Ravi Varma brought many popular stories to life with an illusionistic flair that mirrored the society of his time. Having mastered the oil medium he adapted Western Academic naturalism to “pure Indian sensibilities”, an example being Édouard Manet’s Olympia being adapted into Ravi Varma’s Reclining Nair Lady. In the artwork, we see a fair-skinned affluent Nair woman recumbent on a velvet couch being attended by her dark-skinned maid as she gazes directly at the viewer. Believed to have been modelled on the heroine of the popular Malayalam novel Indulekha by O.C. Menon, the painting alludes to Manet’s masterpiece of a nude woman (Olympia) lying on a bed and her black female servant bringing her flowers. The orchid in her hair, bracelet, pearl earrings and the oriental shawl on which she lies are symbols of wealth and sensuality. Since Ravi Varma operated in a different socio-cultural milieu he transfigured an unabashed Olympia into a fully-clothed but equally bold Indulekha. Coming up with his unique visual storytelling, the artist offers us a peek into the world of erudite and worldly Indulekha. Painted in 1902, the heroine is shown as an educated woman fond of reading and capable of holding her own, unlike other Raja Ravi Varma sensual mythological and sometimes coy heroines. Published in 1889, O.C Menon’s Indulekha dealt with societal constraints on the romantic love of a young educated Nair woman in 19th century Kerala. In order to portray Indulekha’s fiercely independent spirit, Ravi Varma supplanted Olympia’s boudoir to an upper-caste woman from the Malabar region of India. As someone who painted many women from aristocratic and noble families, Ravi Varma’s works were documentation of their lifestyle and their society. In this painting, a quintessentially Malayalam heroine Indulekha can be seen wearing a mundum neryathum (a two-set upper and lower garment that eventually evolved into a saree), kasu malai (garland of coins), ruby-studded gold bangles, earrings and necklaces, and the top knot on her hair is bedecked with flowers, while her servant almost merges into the background as she fans her mistress. The naturalistic finesse and three-dimensional quality lend a sense of volume and perspective to this composition where we can feel the gauziness of the Nair lady’s mundum neryathum. She lies atop a narrow bed covered with a silk throw and a blue pillow. Like Olympia, the Nair lady also holds the gaze of the viewer while languidly resting her head on her hand. As much as the painting draws inspiration from Monet’s Olympia it also borrows narrative elements of Company paintings of aristocratic men and women, nawabs and bibis and their retinue of servants and handmaidens minus the inherent exoticisation. In many ways, this painting combining European influence and native tradition was reflective of a newfound redefinition of the modern Indian woman without any of the shocking elements of Olympia. At a time when Victorian prudishness was seeping through the cracks of Indian society, Ravi Varma chose to model his young and educated heroine on a controversial figure proving once again that he was the first Modernist when it came to Indian art. Édouard Manet, Olympia, 1863 (Image courtesy: Wikimedia Commons) Raja Ravi Varma, Reclining Nair Lady, 1902 (Image courtesy: Google Arts & Culture) The dark-skinned attendants to fair-skinned mistresses Left: Olympia Right: Reclining Nair Lady Left: Olympia Right: Indulekha This genre defying painting features in the first ever Exclusive Raja Ravi Varma NFT Auction. Click the link here to participate in the First Ever Raja Ravi Varm NFT Auction .

RtistiQ

04 Feb 2022

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Two Ajanta-Esque courtly women enjoying the splendours of spring, a couple riding an autorickshaw on the streets of Kolkata, a group of villagers on pilgrimage, Alaskan migratory birds visiting the Taj Mahal, an installation mimicking the complicated Tangaliya weave, and a surreal Dandi March - this Republic Day we bring you a comprehensive collection of Indian art cutting across India's various artistic traditions and practices. Often considered colourful, bright, filled with complicated symbolism and tangential delineations, the indigenous and contemporary arts of India are often about it’s people and the thousands of stories that make up this unique landscape. Perhaps this is why a Bhaskar Chitrakar Kalighat painting can find a place next to a Binoy Varghese canvas; Shamim Akhtar’s abstract model of Kerala monsoons alongside Nitesh Chaudhuri’s pahadi farmers makes absolute sense. Delineated broadly through different schools, styles, and unconventional juxtapositions, this particular set of artworks experiment with a diverse range of Indian art-historical antecedents and arrive at certain abbreviations that placed them in a keen, tangential relationship to the contemporary visual language. 1. Ashik Alikhan, Two Alaskan Birds Visiting Taj (Image link: https://art.rtistiq.com/en/art/painting/two-alaskan-birds-visiting-taj In a picture-perfect moment of East meets West, two migratory birds fly all the way from Alaska to visit the famous Taj Mahal. See more of this painting here 2. Bhaskar Chitrakar, Riding in a Tuk Tuk (Image link: https://art.rtistiq.com/en/art/undefined/riding-in-a-tuk-tuk) This Kalighat pata painting by Bhaskar Chitrakar explores contemporary Calcutta via familiar characters - the Bengali Babu and his wife. The wealthy couple traverses through the busy streets of Calcutta (now Kolkata) in an autorickshaw exploring the city that has changed rapidly since the last time they ventured out. 3. Elancheziyan S., Spring (Image link: https://art.rtistiq.com/en/art/painting/spring15) Inspired by the famed Ajanta paintings, artist Elancheziyan takes us back to the glorious era of Rashtrakutas where we see noblemen in the company of courtly women with the beautiful architecture bringing the background. 4. Nitesh Chaudhari, Suddenly (Image link: https://art.rtistiq.com/en/art/undefined/suddenly) Inspired by the works of iconic Abanindranath Tagore, artist Nitesh Chaudhuri takes us to a quaint village on the foothills of the Himalayas. A lone woman is reaping the overgrown crops as we take in the bucolic surroundings around her 5. Sanjay Kumar Rajpoot, Dandi Salt - II (Image link: https://art.rtistiq.com/en/art/painting/dandi-salt---ii) A reflection of our current circumstances, artist Sanjay Kumar Rajpoot transcends history, politics, society and nature to bring alive the momentous Dandi March and the very act of defying the Salt law by Mahatma Gandhi had it occurred in present-day and age. Discover more of our eclectic Indian art collection here.

RtistiQ

26 Jan 2022

5 min to read

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