Best in show
Eric Ravilious: Tea at Furlongs, watercolour and pencil on paper, 1939. Dulwich Picture Gallery, London James Russell
“Although this is a lovely summery work, the artist Eric Ravilious usually felt more at home capturing chillier scenes.
As his career developed in the mid-1930s, he was conscious of all the landscape painting that had gone before, and he wanted to make work that was different.
So, because of their bleached- out and desolate appearances, he decided to depict early morning winter landscapes.
It was only as he grew more confident as an artist that he started tackling sunnier themes, like this one.
It’s curious that, while this is now seen as a quintessentially Ravilious painting, it is illustrating a subject area that he approached only when he felt his skills were up to the task and just as his peace-time career was coming to an end.
This painting appeals to me on many levels. On the face of it, it’s an unpretentious rural scene. It’s teatime and there’s an eccentric umbrella being used as a sunshade. The glorious Sussex Downs can be seen in the background.
The garden was part of Furlongs, a cottage where Ravilious had enjoyed many happy times in the 1930s. It was rented by Ravilious’s friend Peggy Angus, a fellow painter and designer. He had spent a few weeks there in 1939 with some friends.
All were aware that war was imminent, and would most likely change the world as they knew it. If you look closely, you’ll see the painting is charged with this atmosphere. The lines and shapes make everything appear quite crooked.
The chairs look impossibly slender, as if they’d break under the slightest pressure, and everything is glowing, despite no obvious light source. There’s a sense that everything is in limbo – the bread will never be cut, the butter will never be spread and the tea never poured.
And then there is the sky. Just a year on, in 1940, the Battle of Britain was fought in the skies above the fields depicted here in the artist’s very distinct visual language.
Ravilious’s son, James, born the same year that this picture was painted, later recalled returning to Furlongs as a child and seeing the D-Day squadrons of gliders flying overhead on 6 June 1944.
In December 1939, Ravilious became an official war artist and in August 1942 he was posted to an RAF base in Iceland. The day after he arrived he volunteered to join an air-sea rescue mission in terrible weather.
The plane set off but failed to return. The plane, with its four crew members and Ravilious, was never found. Ravilious was one of just three war artists to die on active service. It was a terrible loss and the tragic event gives this picture an even greater resonance. But I think Ravilious died doing what he loved.
And, right to the end, he was pushing himself into new areas and putting his beautiful art to fresh uses.”
Interview by John Holt. Ravilious runs at the Dulwich Picture Gallery until 31 August
As his career developed in the mid-1930s, he was conscious of all the landscape painting that had gone before, and he wanted to make work that was different.
So, because of their bleached- out and desolate appearances, he decided to depict early morning winter landscapes.
It was only as he grew more confident as an artist that he started tackling sunnier themes, like this one.
It’s curious that, while this is now seen as a quintessentially Ravilious painting, it is illustrating a subject area that he approached only when he felt his skills were up to the task and just as his peace-time career was coming to an end.
This painting appeals to me on many levels. On the face of it, it’s an unpretentious rural scene. It’s teatime and there’s an eccentric umbrella being used as a sunshade. The glorious Sussex Downs can be seen in the background.
The garden was part of Furlongs, a cottage where Ravilious had enjoyed many happy times in the 1930s. It was rented by Ravilious’s friend Peggy Angus, a fellow painter and designer. He had spent a few weeks there in 1939 with some friends.
All were aware that war was imminent, and would most likely change the world as they knew it. If you look closely, you’ll see the painting is charged with this atmosphere. The lines and shapes make everything appear quite crooked.
The chairs look impossibly slender, as if they’d break under the slightest pressure, and everything is glowing, despite no obvious light source. There’s a sense that everything is in limbo – the bread will never be cut, the butter will never be spread and the tea never poured.
And then there is the sky. Just a year on, in 1940, the Battle of Britain was fought in the skies above the fields depicted here in the artist’s very distinct visual language.
Ravilious’s son, James, born the same year that this picture was painted, later recalled returning to Furlongs as a child and seeing the D-Day squadrons of gliders flying overhead on 6 June 1944.
In December 1939, Ravilious became an official war artist and in August 1942 he was posted to an RAF base in Iceland. The day after he arrived he volunteered to join an air-sea rescue mission in terrible weather.
The plane set off but failed to return. The plane, with its four crew members and Ravilious, was never found. Ravilious was one of just three war artists to die on active service. It was a terrible loss and the tragic event gives this picture an even greater resonance. But I think Ravilious died doing what he loved.
And, right to the end, he was pushing himself into new areas and putting his beautiful art to fresh uses.”
Interview by John Holt. Ravilious runs at the Dulwich Picture Gallery until 31 August