Tribute to Raja Ravi Varma's Inspiring women of Indian Mythology

As a poet writes poems to pay ode to people they admire, artists pay their homage/tribute by painting. The celebrated Malayali artist Raja Ravi Verma discovered this form of paying tributes and I am grateful for Ganesh's informative talk at NGMA which helped me realize this.

Thanks to him and the National Gallery of Modern Art( NGMA ) I came to know that, today marks 125 years of completion of the Ravi Varma Fine Art Lithographic Press. Click here for context

Lawyer and art collector Ganesh V Shivaswamy

Attending his well-researched informative presentation today got me curious to learn a bit more about India's great artist Raja Ravi Varma. 

Hence, I turned to the growing omniscient knowledge source of our era, that I am aware of which is accessible a mouse clicks away ~  Google Arts and Culture and these following lines caught my attention.

Raja Ravi Varma was a celebrated Malayali Indian painter and artist. He is considered among the greatest painters in the history of Indian art for a number of aesthetic and broader social reasons. Firstly, his works are held to be among the best examples of the fusion of European techniques with a purely Indian sensibility. 

Attending this lecture made me realize that I needed to read more about the great people of India. As opposed to limiting myself to Europian intellectuals like Leonardo da Vinci whose autobiography I have been reading. 

Birth of Shakuntala - Vishvamitra rejects the child and mother because they represented to him a lapse in spiritual pursuits and his earlier renunciation of domestic/king's life.^[8] Painting by Raja Ravi Varma (1848–1906)

Ganesh (in today's talk) points us to observe the positions of both the characters in this composition by the great artist Raja Ravi Varma. He explained the concept of Hierarchy of spaces used in our Indian dance form Kathakali, and how Raja Ravi Varma employs it in all his compositions. As per this hierarchy, the person playing the dominant role appears on the left side of the stage, and the one playing the submissive role on the right side. He further explained how Raja Ravi Varma uses this hierarchy of space concept in all his compositions.

As per folklore (Click here for more), the beautiful apsara Menaka (the mother in the painting) leaves the innocent new-born infant on the bank of river Malini and goes away. Rishi Kanva happens to find this infant and below are some references from Wikipedia.

Rishi Kanva says: 

And beholding the new-born infant lying in that forest destitute of human beings but abounding with lions and tigers, a number of vultures sat around to protect it from harm. I went there to perform my ablution and beheld the infant lying in the solitude of the wilderness surrounded by vultures. Bringing her hither I have made her my daughter. And because she was surrounded in the solitude of the wilderness, by Sakuntas (birds), therefore, hath she been named by me Shakuntala (bird-protected).

The great poet Kalidasa portrays the infant's character and life in the sacred text:

Abhijnana Shakuntala 

Kalidasa's Shakuntala is crafted as an epitome of virtue, modesty, subservience, and sacrifice. These characteristics are meant to conform to the perception of "the feminine ideal of Indian women: in a patriarchal culture. The Shakuntala of Mahabharata is a remarkable woman who does not conform to the dictate of a patriarchal society. She belongs to the fifth century, and yet she represents the contemporary "feminine ideal of Indian women." Perhaps she is timeless. Click here for source

Shakuntala looking back to glimpse Dushyanta by Raja Ravi Varma (1898)

Coincidentally, Shakuntala is the mother of Emperor Bharatha, after whom our country is named :).

Ending the post with these closing thoughts ...

As a poet writes poems to pay ode to people they admire, I feel artists pay their homage/tribute via paintings. I am unsure if there is a word in the English language for this form of expressing tribute to someone. If so, I would be grateful to you for enlightening me.