I do hope that as many of you as possible managed to get to the Ravilious exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, superbly curated by James Russell. I had the good fortune to be taken there by Only Daughter as a Father's Day Treat, followed by lunch at one of my favourite watering holes, La Brasserie in South Kensington. O Lucky Man!
Anyway, the other day I was sifting through my archive looking at images for a forthcoming project and found the above photograph. Two or three years ago I went and looked at the Westbury White Horse, hoping to find the exact spot where Eric Ravilious had painted it (top). What I should've done of course was to have taken a reference print with me, but I didn't. So on my return home I was immensely gratified to discover that one of my pictures had the location pretty much nailed down, probably where that inquisitive sheep is standing. I waited for a train to be in the same position as in the painting, but when a diesel horn alerted me to one arriving I realised that Ravilious had exaggerated the size of the train for dramatic effect, although in exactly the same spot. There is a companion painting that shows the White Horse as seen from inside a railway carriage, the kind of double exposure that I sometimes get obsessed by. The thought that someone could look up from a newspaper in a train and see someone on the brow of the hill looking down and. '...how their lives would all contain this hour' as Philip Larkin had it in The Whitsun Weddings.
5 comments:
Lovely post Peter! The Rav exhibition was indeed superb at Dulwich, what a splendid gallery. Glad it is not just me who goes on field trips to Ravilious locations.... I visited the Firle greenhouse the other week, it's hanging on in there! TTFN Dickie
Most enterprising of you to have gone up there and looked at it from the Ravilious angle - and, yes, pretty much the Ravilious viewpoint too. Close enough to see that he tweaked the line of the hills a bit as well as the size of the train. Nice photograph too.
Thank you Dickie & Philip. I am intrigued by the thought of the still extant Firle Greenhouse!
It's a stunning photo, and subtly different in mood to the Ravilious painting. Lovely to see them together.
Thank you very much Sue. I think I might have a go at some other Ravilious chalk figures.
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