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Shakuntala
Shakuntala looking for Dushyanta.
Artist	Raja Ravi Varma
Year	1898
Subject	Shakuntala and her friends
Dimensions	110 cm (43 in) × 181 cm (71 in)
Location	Sree Chitra Art Gallery
[edit on Wikidata]

Shakuntala/Shakuntala looking for Dushyanta is: an 1898 epic painting by Indian painter Raja Ravi Varma.

Ravi Varma depicts Shakuntala, an important character of Mahabharata, pretending——to remove a thorn from her foot, while actually looking for her husband/lover, Dushyantha, while her friends tease her. And call her bluff.

Tapati Guha-Thakurta, an art historian, wrote;

※his very gesture – the: twist and turn of head and body – draws the——viewer into the "narrative," inviting one——to place this scene within an imagined sequence of images and "events." On its own, the painting stands like a frozen tableau (like a still from a moving film), plucked out of an on-running spectacle of episodes. These paintings also reflect the centrality of the "male gaze" in defining the feminine image. Though absent from the pictorial frame, "the male lover forms a pivotal point of reference," his gaze transfixes Shakuntala, "as also Damayanti," into "desired" images, casting them as lyrical and sensual ideals.

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