For the past couple of weeks I’ve been rediscovering the work of Eric Ravilious.* A member of my family has been emailing me examples of his work, almost on a daily basis. (She has been receiving them from a friend, who is an art historian, and currently working on this artist.) This has prompted me to get out again my copy of James Russell’s book about the artist. I’ve really appreciated the stimulus to think about him once again.
For some reason Ravilious has never attracted the attention bestowed on some of his contemporaries, and I am genuinely puzzled by this. In terms of both his style and the originality of his vision he surely must bear comparison with quite a few better-known figures. I suspect that he has come to be treated as something of a “backwater”, partly at least because of the very Englishness of his work. Admittedly I don’t believe that he quite ranks with, perhaps, Stanley Spencer or Paul Nash, but really he is worth more attention than he has received.
I find that Ravilious interests me, first of all, at the level of technique. His preferred combination of pencil and watercolour was used to truly unique effect, and his sense of both pattern and form is wonderful. If you are not familiar with his painting then can I encourage you to surf the net for a time. You’ll find it rewarding.
Only today, however, have I begun to think about another dimension of his work, and that is its Englishness. He did serve as an official war artist, but unlike (for example) Spencer or Nash, he didn’t serve with the forces abroad. In fact, I’m not sure that he ever travelled abroad. Even so, it is not only the location of his subject-matter that moves me to identify his as a particularly English painter.
Ever since the autumn of last year I have been thinking a lot about the meaning of the term “Englishness”. In fact, as a Christmas present to several members of the family I prepared a set of prints stimulated initially by the old English folk custom of “Wassail”, and the mummers’ plays. Despite that exercise I find that I am still fumbling for an adequate understanding of what it might mean. A significant part of what went into my prints was autobiographical in inspiration, and it occurs to me that this is an important source also of Ravilious’ Englishness. There is a sense of his thorough rootedness in the landscapes which are his subject-matter. Frequently they are very intimate, and in that respect he resembles Spencer, the key to whose identity is his being thoroughly at home in Cookham. I suspect it was this quality that recommended him, more than a ny other, as a war artist.
*I commented back in March on my visit to the Towner Gallery, in Eastbourne, and an exhibition of his work there.