The painting was created in France in 1875 and exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1875, where it was listed as no. 514. It was commissioned by the French Ministry of Fine Arts. The work later became part of the French state’s collections and was ultimately transferred into the ownership of the City of Toulouse in 2004, where it is held by the Musée des Augustins.
French artist Fernand Cormon produced this colossal historical painting entitled The Death of Ravana in 1875. Rather than showings the climax of Rama's battle against Ravana as portrayed in the Ramayana, this image instead documents the scene directly after, and depicts, the subsequent devastation and the grief incurred thereof. In the centre lies the slain Ravana with the figures draped over his body the women weeping and wailing. Their body language,facial features and their intertwined bodies themselves all serve to transform this aftermath from one of victory into one of total despair and grief.
Cormon piles the foreground with physical proof of carnage; bodies, jumbled weapons, tattered clothing and evidence of the blood spilt. Bodies that are shown through the interplay of extremes of light (skin) and shadow (hair) or bright crimson and ultramarine hues contrasted with dull earthy tones. Beyond this the landscape sprawls out towards the very moody blue-grey clouds which make the atmosphere itself as oppressive as the sorrow filling the foreground. Cormon directs the eye to these human damages, avoiding a simplistic portray of Ravana as a slain foe.
I found the ambiguity of the painting most striking; in the Ramayana Ravana represents the evil character to be vanquished, but his death here isn't portrayed as a straightforward win for the forces of good. The painting instead draws a parallel in showing how death leads to bereavement, demonstrated with the masses of women clustered above the body of Ravana. The figures within this artwork emphasize the consequences of violence, particularly in the suffering that those surviving it, must endure. The work was produced during an era of French art that celebrated European nineteenth-century history painting and was greatly fascinated with using ancient foreign settings as the context for its pieces, Cormon chose to represent this epic by working in a European nineteenth-century visual style, creating and elaborate and theatrically staged representation of violence, passion, mythology and mourning at the end of a battle as opposed to its climax.
The composition masterfully employs a dramatic, dark palette punctuated by striking highlights on the mourning women. Cormon captures deep sorrow, vulnerability, and despair as the defeated demon king lies dying, surrounded by his grief-stricken wives and attendants weeping over him.
