Shakuntala

By 1898, Raja Ravi Varma had done something new in India: he was telling the old Sanskrit epics in the language of European oil painting, with real weight, real fabric, real skin. Here he takes a scene from Kalidasa's ancient play about Shakuntala. Walking off with her companions, she stops and pretends to pull a thorn from her foot, when really she is stealing a last look back at Dushyanta, the king she has fallen for, while her friends tease her for the excuse. Ravi Varma later set up a printing press, and cheap coloured lithographs of images like this one reached ordinary homes across the country. For many Indians, the way they still picture the gods and heroes of these stories was shaped in part by his brush.