Shakuntala Removing a Thorn from Her Foot

Before discussing the painting "Shakuntala Removing a Thorn from Her Foot" (1898), it would be more appropriate to have an idea about Shakuntala and the reason for her significance because without doing so one cannot fully appreciate the painting. Shakuntala is initially a character from the Mahabharata. She is also the daughter of the rishi Vishvamitra and the apsara Menaka. According to some legends, Lord Indra, fearing the powers of the rishi Vishvamitra, asked the apsara Menaka to seduce him and break his meditation, which had ultimately resulted in Meneka falling in love with Vishvamitra and then her bearing him a daughter. However, when Vishvamitra realizes that Menaka was sent there purposely to tempt him, he curses her, and since she knew that she must return to Lord Indra’s court, she eventually abandons the child. The child is discovered by Sage Kanva, who takes care of her as if she were his daughter and she'd given the name "Shakuntala" as she grows up in the forest, away from royal life, surrounded by nature, animals, ascetics, rivers, trees, a world entirely different from the courtly world of kings and politics. However, one day King Dushyanta comes into the forest while hunting. He sees Shakuntala there, and the two fall in love. Here, it is important to mention that their relationship becomes really important, because it is their son Bharata, who later becomes the ancestor of the Kuru dynasty. Nevertheless, the significance of this story should be attributed not to the maha-kavya, but to the way Kalidasa treated this story centuries later by transforming it into the Sanskrit play "Abhijnanasakuntalam" which can be translated as "The Recognition of Shakuntala". And it is this version that we know today, where Kalidasa expands the emotional and romantic side of the story far more than the Mahabharata does, turning it into this amazing drama about desire, memory, separation, longing, and reunion. This becomes even more interesting when this play becomes an object of extreme interest in India as well as Europe following its translation into English and German languages in the eighteenth century, with many writers and Orientalists becoming infatuated with it. Nonetheless, returning to the particular scene depicted in the painting, it takes place in Act 1 of Kalidasa's play in which Dushyanta has already met Shakuntala in the hermitage and a mutual attraction exists between them, although they have not yet openly come forward as lovers. So this is still basically the phase of hidden desire and awkward first love. In the play, Shakuntala makes an excuse for herself that she is removing a thorn out of her foot so as to turn around in order to sneak a glance at Dushyanta without being detected by her companions. She obviously does not wish to give away what she is up to, and Kalidasa being the exceptional poet that he was, chooses to describe this little instance playfully, wherein she stops walking under some pretext in order to steal another glimpse of him. And Raja Ravi Varma, the artist of this beautiful painting, captures exactly this tiny emotional moment, where even though Dushyanta is absent from the canvas, his presence is entirely felt, and in fact, the entire painting exists because she is looking back at him. If we only consider the artist himself at this point, Raja Ravi Verma is one of the most renowned artists in the history of Indian art; and despite the prevalent Indian painting traditions in India, he'd brought into his works a certain level of naturalism which was mostly popular among European art culture, and now Indian Gods, epic heroines, scenes from Sanskrit literature, women from the Ramayana and Mahabharata, all of them were portrayed with so much physical realism that people had never seen in Indian painting traditions before. Similarly, if we look at this painting, from anatomy, perspective, natural lighting, to depth and texture, all of it makes these figures look physically believable. Ravi Varma had learned from these techniques and adapted them into Indian subjects. Instead of painting Greek myths or Christian scenes like European artists did, he painted Shakuntala, Damayanti, Lakshmi, Saraswati, Sita, and other Indian figures using those same methods of realism, something that in itself makes him equally significant. Now if we consider this painting in detail, then what appears first is the posture. Shakuntala bends slightly downward, pretending to remove the thorn from her foot, but her upper body twists backward toward the unseen Dushyanta. This twist is the emotional centre of the entire painting. Ravi Varma freezes a moment of hesitation; she wants to look back, but she also wants to hide the fact that she is looking back. Even the way her expressions are painted is remarkable as there is clearly a hint of desire written on her face, but with a sense of shyness and minimization. Even her companions become important here, as one of them seems aware of what is happening, as she gestures teasingly, almost exposing Shakuntala's excuse, creating a sense of movement and narrative flow within a single still image. The landscape is also important here as the artist does not paint the forest as some dark threatening wilderness, instead he paints it as calm and fresh. The trees are softly presented around the figures and the open natural space is likely intended to show the freshness and almost purity of first love. There is also balance in terms of the use of colours. The saffron and cream colour clothing of Shakuntala forms a nice contrast against the greenery of the forest. There is no excess colour that could make the painting look too flashy. Ravi Varma applies light and shades softly and gradually, following the rules of European realism in the process. It includes modelling of the flesh, wrinkles in the clothes, spatiality in the background, and attention to detail. At the same time, the jewels, fashion, gestures, and literary inspiration remain Indian, where the entire emotional coding of the scene, from modesty, and indirect desire, to romantic longing through gesture instead of direct declaration, all come from Sanskrit dramatic aesthetics and the concept of "shringara rasa." However, there is another aspect that has emerged recently, which has complicated the painting further. A lot of feminist and modern art historical readings have questioned how Ravi Varma painted women. Scholars have argued that while his women are dignified and central, they are also often idealized and framed for visual pleasure. In this painting, even though Dushyanta is absent, the entire scene is still shaped around his presence and anything related to Shakuntala, whether it is her beauty, body posture, emotional vulnerability, or longing, are all constructed through the idea of being looked at. Then, some scholars have also connected this to the idea of the "male gaze," where women are essentially structured as objects of desire within the existing patriarchal systems of looking. In "Shakuntala Removing a Thorn from Her Foot", Shakuntala therefore becomes both the subject of emotion and the object being viewed, not only by Dushyanta, but also by the viewers, and of course, also by the larger social imagination shaped through colonial-era art. But at the same time, the painting can't completely be reduced to objectification either, because Shakuntala is not entirely passive in the scene and is actively desiring, actively looking, and actively participating in love. The emotional agency is still hers. So the painting appears to be in this middle space where romance, femininity, nationalism, beauty, and patriarchy all overlap. Which could also be one of the factors for why this painting is discussed even today. Overall, "Shakuntala Removing a Thorn from Her Foot" is not so fascinating because something extremely revolutionary is happening (technically it is if we consider the style) but literally, it is just a woman pretending to remove a thorn so she can look back one more time at someone she has fallen for. But even in this simple gesture, lies embarrassment, attraction, hesitance, desire, and curiosity all together. And it is Raja Ravi Varma who'd taken this brief emotional moment from Kalidasa's play and turned it into something visually unforgettable. The painting, therefore, becomes not just an illustration of literature but a bridge between classical Sanskrit drama, colonial Indian modernity, European realism, Indian aesthetics, and later even feminist criticism. And maybe that is the reason why it keeps returning in discussions of Indian art history again and again.