As I was looking at The Ramayana art depictions on Artstor, I was surprised to find that none of the works looked like I would have expected them to. Although the story has supernatural elements in it, I honestly just pictured Rama as a stereotypical African tribe member one would see in a movie. Granted, I realize my imagined version of Rama makes no sense since this is an Indian Epic and not an African one. Still, I much prefer the image I created in my head as opposed to the image created in this painting. It looks too peaceful and simple; The Ramayana is not a simple story. The starry sky and full moon set a tranquil, almost romantic vibe. The nice tree on the left is not special. It is not large or cool looking; it is just a simple tree. The mountain Rama and his brother are sitting on looks pretty. It swirls like ice cream would on an ice cream cone. I realize that is a bit of an odd way to think about it but regardless of how it is explained, it looks nice. It is not a rugged mountain that these two men are forced to spend the night on because they have no where else to go and they are too sad to look for anything better. Rama and Lakshmana’s search for Sita is not easy; it is filled with pain and sometimes doubt. There should be nothing pretty about it. I see a weird looking tree on the right that is not pleasant looking but it is not weird looking enough to be special. Most importantly, Rama and his brother look way too content. A man who has had his wife abducted by a scary creature with too many heads partly due to his own foolishness should not look content. His brother should not look content since he was the one who left Sita alone when Rama had told him to stay with her. At least Lakshmana is looking at Rama in the picture. This makes sense to me since Lakshmana has an extreme emotional dependence on Rama, “I am alive only when I am with you; a forest or a marble palace is all the same to me” (Narayan, 53).
The men are the most colorful things in the painting so most of the attention is on them which also makes sense since they are two main characters in the story. Rama and Lakshmana are two different colors which I find very interesting. I am going to assume that the artist chose to make them different colors to emphasize the difference between mortality and divinity. Rama is described as an incredible man that people grow to rely heavily on in their life. He has an actual divine quality to him, “Rama displayed the tribulations and the limitations of the human frame and it was necessary from time to time to remind him of his divinity” (150). Lakshmana, while being very brave and loyal, is merely human. Although the two men are brothers, the division between them is obvious and in the artist’s eyes, should be very visible. This may be the only element of the poem that I agree with. The painting is much too simple to represent what it is supposed to depict. It is missing chaos. Nothing grabs my attentions very much. It is just disappointed to see this after reading such an eventful story like The Ramayana.