Eric Ravilious: Landscapes & Nature

by Ella Ravilious

Eric Ravilious was a designer, painter, printmaker, and illustrator best known for his war work and depictions of the English landscape, particularly the South Downs in Sussex. Often described as a particularly “English” artist, key to his style was an ability to convey in watercolor the nuances of the British climate. Eric Ravilious: Landscapes and Nature explores his appreciation of the natural world and the techniques he used in a variety of media to convey its various elements.


Drawing on the V’s collections, more than one hundred beautiful images capture Ravilious’s deep enjoyment of everything in nature, from grassy hills, owls, greenhouse geraniums, and snow, to rainy seas, airport-runway puddles, and tideswept beaches. This book reveals common themes running through his work, such as weather, plants, animals, and birds, as well as Ravilious’s love of depicting signs of human presence in the landscape, including rusting machinery, ships and aircraft, and his famous illustrations of hillside chalk figures.


Although best known for his watercolors, Ravilious was also inspired to learn wood engraving by seeing the V’s Samuel Palmer exhibition of 1926. Due to encouragement by his tutor Paul Nash and later to financial pressures, Ravilious turned his hand to a wide variety of creative work, from designs for ceramics, glass, furniture, murals, and textiles, to illustrating books, pamphlets, and posters.

Genres: Nonfiction, Art

144 pages, Hardcover

Published October 24, 2023

Reviews

[Ape · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first came across Ravilious when I picked up some notecards of trains and a chalk horse on a hillside, followed swiftly by a chapter in one of Robert Macfarlanes books. This book is actually written by Raviliouss granddaughter and works as an introduction, but wasn't enough for me. There is an introductory biography, of which I would have liked to read a lot more, and then plates of his work. Well, a sample of. Some ceramics, some linographs, watercolours and a heck of a lot of woodcuts. I am particularly interested in his paintings of landscapes, especially the Downs, of which there are only a couple. This issue is more of my expectations rather than with the book.

One thing (well, of many) I reflected on was that a lot of this work is coming up to being 100 years old. Part of me still thinks of 100 years being the victoriana era, which is silly as my maths isn't that bad.

I do like his work. There's a quiet, illustration style about it. Longing for times now gone (that may well be the 2023 viewpoint on it).

[Martin Pilkington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eric Ravilious is still an underrated British Artist. He’s better known now than he was, say, 10 years ago but he could be appreciated by even more people.

This is a lovely book which would be a good introduction to the sort of work Ravilious produced during his too short life, he died in 1942, aged 39 on a RAF flight in Iceland.

Along with his wife Tirzah Garwood, Edward Bawden and others Ravilious was, in my opinion, one of the leading inter-war artists, and one who deserves wider promotion.

[Paul Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would have liked to have seen more of his watercolours and war work and fewer woodcuts; as well as more biographical detail. It is nonetheless a nicely produced book and a useful introduction for anyone interested is this very English and accessible artist.

[PJ Ebbrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Opened my eyes to the wonderful art of Ravilious, it has a lot of his work I had not seen but I might have been interested earlier, it was more delicate than I wanted. However, this book shows a wider range of his work, and was enchanting.

[Greg Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great introduction to one of our most under appreciated artists.