RAVILIOUS, ILI SVETLOST
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Nekom slučajnošću, dan u kom sam otišla da pogledam slike Erika Ravilious-a bio je omeđen s jedne strane opštim izborima u Britaniji, a s druge proslavom sedamdesetogodišnjice Dana Pobede Evrope. Nemoguće je razdvojiti taj redosled događaja. Umetnost ne postoji u vakuumu: ono što vidimo je selekcija usmerena onim kako se osećamo. U ovom trenutku Evropa deluje kao da ide unatraške: rastuća ksenofobija u Velikoj Britaniji i spazmodične komemoracije evropske antifašističke prošlosti otvaraju, baš kao Raviliousovi predeli, privremeni plato svesti o široj perspektivi koja inače izmiče.
Svetle panorame koje je Ravilious dočarao tokom svog kratkog života su i same nestale, postepeno bledeći pod teretom svetskih promena. Zeleni vidici Saseksa, morski pejzaži pod kišom ili osvetljeni mekim oblacima, prozračni enterijeri i mrtve prirode – ove slike gotovo sasvim lišene ljudskog prisustva deluju humanije od mnogih egoističnih narativa naše stvarnosti. Raviliousovi akvareli i litografije nisu izolovani od realnosti, nego potpuno uronjeni u mir apstraktne jednostavnosti. Oni ne nude medikaciju za oči i srca umorna od realnosti, nego prostor za širu navigaciju kroz maštu i sećanje.
Erik Ravilious je rođen 1903. u Londonu, ali se rano seli u Istborn (Eastbourne) u Saseksu. Odrastanje u Saseksu ostavlja trajno obeležje, vidljivo na karakterističnom plošnom svetlu preko livada, kome se stalno vraća. Ravilious je studirao umetnost u Istborn školi za umetnost i nastavlja na Kraljevskom koledžu za umetnost, gde se sprijateljuje sa Edvard Bavdenom, Henrijem Murom i Pol Nešom. Od 1925. predaje na Istborn školi za umetnost, gde upoznaje i svoju buduću suprugu, talentovanu grafičarku Tirzu Garvud. U narednih nekoliko godina Raviliousova karijera je u usponu: slede izložbe akvarela, brojni objavljeni drvorezi, oslikani mural u trpezariji Morli koledža, kao i predavanja na Kraljevskom koledžu i Raskin školi u Oksfordu. Takođe sa oduševljenjem istražuje krečnjačke doline Južnog Daunsa, fasciniran njihovom čistoćom.
Predeo sačinjen od krede, obeležen belim stazama, iz kog isijavaju neolitske figure, kog je Kipling opisao kao “zaravan spreda zapeta kao luk a straga uzdignuta kao kit” uticao je na Raviliusovu percepciju prostora i slike. Književnik i prirodnjak Robert Makferlejn, koji je i sam hodao tim predelima, opisuje Raviliousa u knjizi Divlja Mesta:
“Ravilious… Daunsman, sledbenik starih puteva i pruga, ljubitelj beline i svetlosti, i vizionar svakodnevice … ‘Dauns’, jednom je napisao,’je osmislio moj pogled i način slikanja, jer boja pejzaža je tako divna a dizajn tako očigledan.’ Išao je u ekspedicije, spavao pod otvorenim nebom, pratio satima linije Daunsa, njegovih grebena, reka i tragova… Od kasnih 1920-ih do kasnih 1930-ih Ravilious je slikao napuštena polja i padine brda, napuštene mašine na farmama, vodenice, ograde… i staze. Staze ga fasciniraju. … Radi sa rasterećenom četkom, što omogućava belini papira da dođe do izražaja, kao kraška kreda.
“Putevi kroz Dauns opterećuju Raviliousovu maštu, a tako i svetlost Daunsa, padajući bela na zeleno, evocirajući ‘čudne magije’ koje je spominjao Angus Vilson. Svetlost Daunsa je karakteristična po svom sjaju, po tome što poseduje kombinaciju bisernog odsjaja krede, vlati trave i bliskost mora. Ako ste hodali niz padine Daunsa zimi, poznato vam je kako svetlost ima čudnu moć da poravnava plan – tako da razbacani toponimi deluju kao da su podjednako udaljeni. Ovo je harizmatični fatamorgana Daunsa: fenomeni se pojavljuju kao poređani na iskošenoj ravni, koju presecaju staze. U tom smislu svetlost Daunsa je srodna svetlosti polarnih regiona, koja obično pada ukoso i podjednako je bistra. Svetlost i staze: poravnavanje (svetla) i dozivanje (staze). To su karakteristične kombinacije Raviliousa kao umetnika.”
Pejzaž Dounsa odgovara na sve njegove estetske potrebe. On ih studiozno slika, postepeno razvija tehniku suve četke i blago zakrivljenu perspektivu koja spasava jednostavne pastoralne scene od preterane idealizacije. Inovativna perspektiva, kompozicije sa krupnim objektima u prvom planu i delikatnim udaljenim objektima na horizontu deluju svetlo i sveže, izgrađeni kontrolisanim potezom na finoj teksturi papira. Njegov izraz ostaje naivan usled jasne pojednostavljene opservacije, ali pogledan izbliza fascinira varijacijama i složenočću. Raviliousova deskriptivna preciznost asocira na radove srpskih naivaca, ali dok su njihovi predeli gusto naseljeni seljacima i jarko obojenim životinjama, Ravilious slika prazninu ljudskog odsustva. U radovima kao sto je Oprema za Demontiranje Bombi (1940) alati i mašine su pune života, ali figure (napr. u slikama Parohija, 1935. ili Mesara, 1937) ostaju bezlične, anonimne, dekorativne. Sa izuzetkom po kojeg portreta, jedini put kada sagledavamo ljudska lica su ratne litografije iz serije Studije Podmornica serija 2: Kontrola ronjenja (c. 1940-41). Čak i tada ronioci su skriveni iza teških odela, a lica komandira razlomljena u svetlosti i sene.
S početkom drugog svetskog rata 1939-te Ravilious je imenovan za zvaničnog ratnog umetnika, prvo u sklopu Kraljevske mornarice a onda RAF-a. Poslednje tri godine života provodi sve bliže severu, prema Arktičkim svetlostima koje ga privlače. Stradao je u blizini Islandske obale 1942. Kao ratni umetnik, Ravilious ostaje veran usamljeničkim studijama prostora, tražeći mirne prostore i specifične uglove. Ove studije napuštenih mesta i momenata pred akciju su potresnije nego što bi bile slike ljudi u borbi. Slike kao što je Perspektiva Piste (1942), Obalska Odbrana (1940) ili Uragani u Letu (1942) pretvaraju banalne scene rata u lirske trenutke ispunjene lepotom.
Pola veka godina kasnije Ravilious bi možda postao Ričard Long ili Hamiš Fulton, radeći direktno na otvorenom. (U izvesnoj meri, on koristi elementarne materijale u nižem ključu u svojim drvorezima.) Uprkos raznih tema i impulsa, Ravilious ostaje povezan s prirodom i svetlošću, dramatičnim i poetskim mogućnostima pejzaža i fundamentalnom ulogom prirode u ljudskom životu. Ova svest, smelost i sloboda izdižu Raviliousa od hladnoće većeg dela engleskih pejsažista. U svetlu brendiranja koje se trenutno odvija u svetu umetnosti, anahronistička forma akvarela nudi slobodu posmatranja, nesmetano od pritiska plemenskih spekulacija i pretencioznosti.
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Alexandra Lazar
RAVILIOUS, OR LIGHT
I went to see the works of Eric Ravilious on the day bookmarked with, on one side, the UK general elections and on the other the 70th anniversary of Victory of Europe. It’s impossible to separate those events. Art canćt exist in a philosophical isolation, what we see is a selection guided by how we feel. Right now, Europe feels like it’s going backwards: the rising xenophobia in Britain and spasmodic commemorations of the heroic European past offer, just like Ravilious’s landscapes, a temporary plateau of an unobstructed awareness of a larger perspective.
The luminous panoramic views that Ravilious captured during his short life have themselves disappeared, fading gradually under the burden of the century. The vistas of green Sussex landscapes, seascapes under driving rain or illuminated with soft clouds, airy interiors and still lifes, often void of human presence, feel more warmly human than most of contemporary self-centered narratives. These calm works are not sealed off from reality, but immersed in peacefulness abstract in its simplicity. Ravilious is not simply a Prozac for the eyes and hearts worn out by the reality, but a wider space for navigating both imagination and memory.
Eric Ravilious was born in 1903 in London, but his family moved to Eastbourne, Sussex when he was four. It was his growing up in Sussex that has left a lasting mark on his art, which often depicts the flat pale light over meadows. Ravilious studied art at the Eastbourne School of Art and at the Royal College of Art, where he befriended Edward Bawden, Henry Moore and Paul Nash. By 1925 he was teaching part-time at Eastbourne School of Art where he met his future wife, talented engraver Tirzah Garwood. For the next several years Ravillious was busy with his budding art career: before he was thirty, he had several exhibitions of watercolours, published numerous wood engravings, was commissioned to paint murals in the refectory at Morley College and was teaching part-time at Royal College and Ruskin School in Oxford. He also enthusiastically explored the chalk grasslands of South Downs, whose purity fascinated him.
Landscape made of chalk, cut by paths, marked by neolithic figures, described by Kipling as ‘our blunt, bow-headed whale-backed Downs’ has inspired Ravilious’s perception and painterly technique. The writer and naturalist Robert Macfarlane, who walked the same landscape, re-imagines Ravilious in his book The Wild Places:
‘Ravilious…Downsman, follower of old paths and tracks, lover of whiteness and of light, and a visionary of the everyday…”The Downs”, he wrote once, “shaped my whole outlook and way of painting because the colour of the landscape was so lovely and the design so beautifully obvious”…He made expeditions, slept out and walked for hours following the lines of the Downs, their ridges, rivers and tracks…From the late 1920s to the late 1930s Ravilious painted: deserted fields and Downland hillsides, abandoned farm machinery, waterwheels, fences – and paths. Paths fascinated him. He had read deeply in the work of Edward Thomas, revered the work of Samuel Palmer…He worked with a lightly loaded brush, allowing the white of the paper to show through, like chalk.
‘The paths of the Downs compelled Ravilious’s imagination; so did the light of the Downs, falling as white on green, and evoking “the strange downs magic” of which Angus Wilson once spoke. The light of the Downs is distinctive for its radiance, possessing as it does the combined pearlescence of chalk, grass blades and a proximate sea. If you have walked on the Downs in high summer or high winter, you will know that Downs’ light also has a peculiar power to flatten out the view – to render scattered objects equidistant. This is the charismatic mirage of the Downs: phenomena appear arranged upon a single tilted plane, through which the paths burrow. In these respects the light of the Downs is kindred with another flattening light, the light of the polar regions, which usually falls at a slant and is similarly fine-grained. The light and the path: the flattening (the light) and the beckoning (the path). These are Ravilious’s signature combinations as an artist.”
The Downs landscape answered all his aesthetic needs up until the war. He worked meticulously, gradually developing the dry brush technique and the slightly skewed perspective, which saved the pastoral scenes from looking too idealised. The innovative perspectives of the grasslands, aerial and seascapes, compositions featuring large foreground objects and distant objects on the horizon are light and playful, built with controlled passes of brush on a very fine grain paper. His brushwork remains naive in its robust, simplistic observation, but on the closer inspection the variations and complexity of the method are fascinating. Its precision in describing every detail reminds of the works of Serbian naive artists (especially the rather academic Edward Bawden working in his studio, 1930), but where they are densely populated with village folk and brightly coloured animals, Ravilious remains almost void of human presence. His tools and machinery (like in Bomb Defusing Equipment, 1940) are vivid with life, but the figures (in works such as The Vicarage, 1935, or The Butcher’s Shop, 1937) are faceless, anonymous, decoratively generic. Aside from a rare portrait, the only time we are allowed to see faces are his wartime lithographs Study for Submarine Series 2: Diving Controls (c. 1940-41). Even there the divers are hidden by their heavy suits, commanders’ faces broken in sheets of light and darkness.
In 1939 Ravilious was appointed as an official war artist, and he served first with the Royal Navy and later with the RAF. In the last three years of his life he was drawn further north, towards the Arctic lights, and he perished off the coast of Iceland in 1942. As a war artist, Ravilious stayed true to his solitary studies of people-less spaces, seeking quiet corners and specific isolated views. Somehow these studies are even more moving than depicting people in combat. Especially works such as Runway Perspective (1942), Coastal Defences (1940) or Hurricanes in Flight (1942) where scenes of war are turned into lyrical moments filled with beauty.
Were he born half a century later, Ravilious might have become a Richard Long or Hamish Fulton, producing works directly within the environment. (To some extent, the raw materials were at play in a minor key in his woodwork.) Throughout various themes and impulses, he seems to remain connected with nature and light, dramatic and poetic possibilities of landscape and the fundamental role that nature plays in humanity’s existence. This awareness, as well as the boldness and freedom of his best works, lift Ravilious from the coldness associated with some English landscape painting. In the light of the branding game currently taking place in the art world, the anachronistic, quaint form of watercolour painting offers greater freedom of observation undaunted by the pressure of tribal speculations and pretentiousness.
