From the time Raja Ravi Varma: Encounters With The Botanical was conceptualised and executed in April 2019, in association with the Srishti Institute of Art, Design and Technology, it has taken a course of its own, so to say.
Evolving into one of the most sought-after talks conducted by the Foundation, this project has been included as one of the components into a five-week course called “Plants in Context” for the Foundation year students at Srishti. Under the guidance of Geetanjali Sachdev, Dean of Post Graduate Studies at Srishti, the Foundation conducted two day-long lectures at the Headquarters for different batches of students from the Institute. These sessions are accredited courses by Srishti, giving them up to 3 Credits.
Designed, ideated and taken through the course by Archana Shenoy, the first talk on January 23 involved 20 students from the Foundation course who have taken up the Bachelor of Arts (Professional Program).
The interactive session was a delight as Archana expertly conducted the session and held the students in thrall with her knowledge on the subject, stemming from long hours of exhaustive research.
The fresh-faced youngsters, without little or no prior knowledge of Ravi Varma or his works, lapped up the session and plunged into the interactive theme with several observations, questions and remarks that enlivened the proceedings.
An out-of-classroom experience, they went away enriched with the Botanical elements in Ravi Varma’s works, a subject that had until then been unknown to them.
BVoc
Given the excellent response from the students to the first talk, Srishti asked the Foundation to conduct a second talk, albeit with the BVoc Program, (Bachelor of Vocation) batch on February 17.
Markedly different from the first session, Archana Shenoy conducted a talk/course on Patterns in art, primarily focussing on Ravi Varma’s works, while navigating the second batch of 24 students through the great artist’s paintings and the "patterns" that seemingly go un-noticed by many.
For good measure, Archana, who in her previous session had compared Ravi Varma’s works with his peers especially from the Bengal School of Art, identified several patterns between several artists of different genre. She explained the subtle nuances of patterns and how Ravi Varma intelligently weaved a pattern and brought them to life on his canvas in myriad ways.