Eric Ravilious at the RWA

There are four separate small exhibitions on at the RWA at present, all interesting.  We are lucky to have the gallery on tap next to college, and to have free access.

The Ravilious exhibition is related to the publication of four books on Ravilious's work, by James Russell who also gave an illustrated talk about Ravilious and his circle.

Apart from admiring Ravilious' work,  I have a particular interest because my aunt, Peggy Angus, was one of Ravilious' close friends, and rented the shepherd's cottage, Furlongs, on the South Downs. This painting of Furlongs, seen from the track up from the village of Glynde,  was done by Peggy Angus.

And this, of the interior, by Ravilious.

Both these images, more about the Furlongs link, and most of the remaining images on this blog-post, are to be found on James Russell's blog here.

Ravilious used a fairly limited palette of cool, pale colours in almost all his work, and he used a fairly dry brush technique,  The effect is images which are both clear and tentative, and his works have a consistency of style. and feel.

This is done from the hill above Furlongs, where Peggy used to hold huge and noisy bonfire parties in midsummer at the dry despond on the slopes of Mt Caborn, above the house.

I went to Furlongs several times as a child and later as a student, and also to stay with another elderly aunt who lived in Brighton.  The interior of the cottage was dark and wonderful, no electricity, no mains water or gas, cooking on cal or gas or the range, sometimes, and an 'Elsan' look in the outhouse int eh garden.  The vegetable patch was much enriched by the results of the outdoor loo!  The walls of the cottage were adorned with murals and paintings straight onto the whitewash, and as a child I loved tracing the painted cats climbing apple trees all the way up the twisting cottage staircase.

Later, visiting Furlongs as a student,  probably in 1973, I went with Peggy one day to visit Duncan Grant at Charleston.  I didn't really take in, at the time, how privileged I was to have met him and visited the house while he was still living there.  I do remember, however, the riot of colour, and the painted wood panelling on doors and walls and around the fireplace in the sitting room

(Image copied from here)


As children, we used to go down to Brighton by train from Stapleton Road station, and Ravilious' painting of the inside of an old train carriage, in the days before there was a corridor down the length of the train, is highly evocative.  This image has been reproduced as a greetings card, and when I sent a copy to my brother Bill a year or two ago, he said it brought not just tears to his eyes, but the smell of the smoke from the steam engines to his nose.

Back to the RWA exhibitions:  The Ravilious exhibition is one of four.  Among the others,  is a show of woodcuts, mainly, by Peter Reddick, who was the founder of Spike Island studios in Bristol's harbour side.  His work was immensely detailed, especially some of his book illustrations.  Meticulous attention to line and tone, what a painstaking process it must be.  There were several watercolours as well, which were interesting to compare with the Ravilious, because they had a smiler feel and used a smilier range of colours and techniques.