Art
ERIC RAVILIOUS'S HELICOPTER Gustav Temple heads for the Sussex hills in search of the landscape of Eric Ravilious
A
h, Ravilious! He really did make rather lovely tea towels, didn’t he? If you happen to live in Eric’s stamping ground of East Sussex, you cannot escape from his imagery. Every gift shop in Lewes is bursting with Ravilious prints, postcards, tote bags, fridge magnets and tea towels. The latter is particularly ironic as, by all accounts, he didn’t keep his kitchen very tidy. And he only popped into Lewes once, in the 1930s, to grab some antique chairs from a junk shop and haul them back on the train to Furlongs, a house near Glynde occupied by fellow artist Peggy Angus. Angus lived in rustic splendour in this tumbledown cottage in the middle of nowhere, with no electricity, gas or running water. It became the artistic hub of a group of painters, printmakers and ceramicists, some of whom would go on to be seen as the key players in the emergence of British modernism. Charleston House, a furlong or two away across the Downs, was home to another
artistic circle centred around Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf. Peggy Angus once spotted Woolf wafting past Furlongs, but contact between the two groups was never established, the Charleston set, apparently, being more likely to discuss problems with the servants than what shade of green best captured Mount Caburn. It was essentially a class division, the Ravilious set being more ruggedly bohemian and given to midnight nude dancing than the Bells and Grants. While Virginia Woolf complained to the district council about the new cement works that spoiled her view, Ravilious and Angus were delighted by them and made frequent visits to paint them. Eric’s idea of a nice day out was to stand for hours in the rain on a bleak spot on the Sussex Downs, capturing the essence of the landscape in an original way that would end up on thousands of tea towels. If a tea towel were ever used at Furlongs, it would have been to wipe the paint of a brush.
120
