Face value: Ravi Varma's portraiture and the project of colonial modernity

Abstract

By exploring the portrait genre as the modular form in Ravi Varma's artistic oeuvre, this article explores the question of modernity in Ravi Varma's art. It argues that unlike the work of others artistes of nineteenth century India, Ravi Varma was uniquely positioned in that his modernity is not a product of 'critique', but of a different negotiation with both tradition and the 'West'.