In Search of Travancore’s Forgotten Craftsmen

In the 1970s, during our visits to Palkulangara in Trivandrum, where many of our relatives lived, I used to spend a lot of time in one of my maternal aunt's home, gazing at the wooden almirahs with glass doors that showcased many artistic wonders: gods, goddesses, elephants, and tigers fighting with snakes, exquisitely carved in ivory and wood. I craved them as toys, but only got some half-done miniature elephants in teak wood. My mother told me that my uncle had a business in carved ivory and wooden items.

When I was looking for a book titled The Forgotten Atelier by the Trivandrum-based young conservation architect Sharat Sunder Rajeev, I came across another book by him, about which I had never heard before. Titled The King's Craftsmen: History of the Ivory Carvers of Thiruvananthapuram, this book was published by the Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR) in 2016. I did not think for a moment before ordering it from Amazon because I thought I could get some leads into my childhood experiences, besides feeding my interest in art history.

I have to tell you this: a history book cannot be more of a page-turner than this one. Though the production quality is not as good as the other history tomes from established publishing houses, this 300-page book is laid out in the best way possible, making the complicated history of the ivory carvers of erstwhile Travancore eminently readable.

In Sharat, I found a great storyteller, like another young historian obsessed with the yesteryears of Travancore, Manu S. Pillai. As an aside, Manu has a love-hate relationship with the descendants of the former kingdom for his ruthless takes on the palace revolutions and conspiracies of the 19th century, while Sharat has been a darling of the palace and its current members. More interestingly, these two brilliant young historians collaborate whenever possible to walk into the nuances of the architecture, culture, and politics of Travancore. You may see their collaborations on YouTube.

The Viswakarmas functioned as guilds, and they were invited from the 18th century onwards from both the north and south of Travancore. Even before that, artisans from various guilds were making slow inroads into power centres where they could find patrons and material conditions that allowed their crafts to flourish and helped them eke out a sustainable livelihood. In Sharat's book, we find the northern influx into Attingal along with the adoption of princesses from Kolaswarupam, and the influx of southerners from various parts of present-day Tamil Nadu, such as Tanjore, Madurai, and Kanchipuram.

It is difficult to review the chronology of these craftspeople, mainly because there are several overlaps of patronage as well as guilds through locational shifts and marriages. There were also schisms between them based on their preferred language of communication. The northerners spoke Malayalam and the southerners Tamil. The latter felt they were better and the former felt they were superior, only to remain divided for a long time. But slowly, they started moving closer through work, guild participation, apprenticeship, patronage, business ventures, marriage, and even through legislation in the mid-20th century.

Through a thorough examination of palace documents, gazettes, and published as well as oral histories, Sharat narrates the social and material conditions that made the artisanal castes lose their early 'Brahmin-hood' and later regain it through patronage and proximity to the power centres. Material conditions determined the hierarchies from within, as the goldsmiths thought they were highly placed on the caste ladder compared to those who worked in wood, stone, and metal. But when ivory came onto the scene, we see the craftsmen crossing borders, employing their skills, reinvesting their talent, and altering and redeploying their tools for the new and expensive medium of ivory.

Sharat gives us a picture of ivory art in India and the origins of the ivory trade through various ports of India. By 1977, ivory works were banned and dealing in ivory became a punishable offence. Artisans migrated to various other mediums such as sandalwood and expensive and durable woods in general. They brought the same finesse of their ivory works into these alternative mediums and created wonderful works of art. When patronage weakened and the demand for oil paintings and portraiture increased with the advent of Raja Ravi Varma in Travancore, many erstwhile craftsmen became portrait painters, commercial artists, backdrop painters for film studios, cut-out artists for advertisements, and finally formal art directors.

What amused me was something that I read between the lines. Sharat studies the number of artisans working in ivory craft and their castes, and elaborates that there were craftspeople from other castes, both the high and lower castes, like the Ezhavas. But their numbers were very small. Sharat underlines how the Viswakarma and Ezhava were two castes that stood together, often lived in mutual proximity, and came together during times of distress. Ezhavas too entered ivory and craft practice and business as they apprenticed themselves under Viswakarma masters. But it is to be noted that the Viswakarma masters, who were the heads of guilds/kudis and had been reluctant to impart craft secrets and generational knowledge to other castes, started responding to the changing times and embraced artistically inclined youngsters from other communities to impart the craftsmanship.

Something interesting happened when Ravi Varma became prominent as an artist and the number of painters from other communities started increasing, especially in the Ravi Varma school/style of painting. The list that Sharat gives has mostly artists from the upper castes, especially from the Nair community. This happened mainly because they could get direct access to oil painting techniques, thanks to the proximity they had to the artists who constituted the inner circle of Ravi Varma's friends and disciples. With Ravi Varma leaving Travancore, as Visakham Tirunal showed scant respect for him, the upper-caste artists became prominent in Travancore. Definitely, they couldn't really outdo the Viswakarma painters in numbers or quality. Unfortunately, the former got documented and the latter got scattered beyond recovery. But I am sure Sharat has done his best to recover them from oblivion in his second book, which I am yet to read.

Trivandrum Fine Arts College is the last form of what started off as a Danta Appis (Dental Office or Office for Ivory Works). We see all the Viswakarma masters and craftsmen becoming the early gurus, guides, and teachers in this establishment, which grows into the Shri Moolam Shashtyabdi Memorial Institute, then a technical school, then the earlier form of an arts and crafts school, and finally the Fine Arts College. I find something that perhaps Sharat did not see in this evolution. In the mid-70s, ivory was banned in Kerala, and it was during the same time that the strike for upgrading the technical art and crafts school into a fine arts college started and eventually succeeded.

An eminently readable book for those who are interested in the general history of Travancore and the particular history of its art scene and the makers, movers, and shakers of it.

JohnyML