kerala culture

Kerala is a southern most state of India. Kerala can largely trace its non-prehistoric cultural genesis to its membership (around the 3rd century CE) in a vaguely-defined historical region known as Thamizhagom — a land defined by a common Tamil culture and encompassing the Chera, Chola, and Pandya kingdoms. At that time, the music, dance, language (first Dravida Bhasha — "Dravidian language — then Tamil), and Sangam (a vast corpus of Tamil literature composed between 1,500–2,000 years ago) found in Kerala were all similar to that found in the rest of Thamizhagom (today's Tamil Nadu). Later, Keralite culture was elaborated upon by centuries of contact with overseas lands — yet all through this time, its cultural heritage remained defined by its antiquity and organic continuity.

Raja Ravi Varma (April 29, 1848- October 2, 1906) was an Indian painter from Kerala who achieved recognition for his depiction of scenes from the epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana. His paintings are considered to be among the best examples of the fusion of Indian traditions with the techniques of European academic art.

Varma is most remembered for his paintings of beautiful sari clad women, who were portrayed as very shapely and graceful. His exposure in the west came when he won the first prize in Vienna Art Exhibition in 1873. After a successful career as a painter, Raja Ravi Varma died in 1906 at the age of 58. He is generally considered as one among the greatest painters in the history of Indian art.