Damayanti and the Swan

Raja Ravi Varma was the first Indian painter to work in the Western academic oil-on-canvas tradition. He painted Hindu mythology in the naturalistic style of European history painting. This is the moment from the Mahabharata where Princess Damayanti of Vidarbha, alone in her garden, is approached by a magical golden swan who has flown from King Nala to tell her about him. She will fall in love with Nala without ever meeting him. Ravi Varma's paintings entered mass reproduction as lithographs, and became the visual template for how Indians would picture their own gods. Now at Sri Chitra Art Gallery, Thiruvananthapuram @sri_chitra_art_gallery