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拍品专文
Aldeburgh Bathing Machines is one of three closely related watercolours that Ravilious exhibited in his landmark exhibition at the London gallery Tooth & Sons, in May 1939. Studded with classics, the exhibition delighted critics and collectors alike, and the appearance of any of the twenty-seven works at auction today is an event. On a personal note, I should add that I selected Aldeburgh Bathing Machines for the 2015 exhibition of Ravilious watercolours at Dulwich Picture Gallery.
Unlike his teacher Paul Nash, who enjoyed writing accompanying texts to his paintings, Ravilious made no public comment about his work. What we know of his aims, inspiration and experiences we must glean from correspondence and sources such as his wife Tirzah’s autobiography Long Live Great Bardfield. These tell us that, having concentrated on design work in 1936/7, Eric set forth at the beginning of 1938 on a mission to paint watercolours for the show at Tooth’s the following year. Of his winter sojourn in Capel-y-Ffin, Wales, we have ample evidence. Likewise his summer trip to Rye Harbour and autumn visit to Bristol. At present, however, his weekend in Aldeburgh remains almost undocumented, save for a passing remark in a letter informing us that he spent an uncomfortable couple of nights in the Suffolk town at the end of August, sleeping on a sofa.
Evidently he rose early, because of the three watercolours of bathing machines two are illuminated by early morning sunlight. In this case Ravilious has taken up the artistic challenge of looking directly into the sun, an approach he first adopted when working alongside his friend and fellow artist Edward Bawden in the early 1930s. Lit from behind, the striped bathing machines appear strange and other-worldly, particularly when seen in context with the curious foreground arrangement. It is perhaps difficult for us to see today, but both Bawden and Ravilious were considered modern by their contemporaries, and the latter’s interest in relics and curiosities was driven less by nostalgia than by a fascination for unusual forms.
Nevertheless, the Aldeburgh bathing machines were a colourful throwback to a more modest age. From the mid-18th century, when the Hanoverian kings began making sea bathing fashionable, these delightful contraptions became an essential feature of every respectable town beach. A bather wishing to swim would enter the bathing machine at the top of the beach, change in privacy, and then hang on tight as it was pushed down to the sea. After bathing they would climb aboard to be winched up the beach, whereupon they would re-emerge clothed once more. Such was still the custom in Eastbourne when Ravilious was growing up, but by the 1930s bathing machines were rare, and he clearly made the most of this discovery.
By the time he visited the Suffolk town Ravilious had achieved a mastery over the medium of watercolour that few of his contemporaries could emulate, and the present work is executed with an impressive economy. Thus the winch handle in the foreground draws us into the picture, while its shadowed underside provides the dark tone needed to contrast with the brightness pervading the middle ground and distance. This in turn is achieved by stippling the barest minimum of pigment onto the paper to suggest the sunlit surfaces of shingle and sea. Where we look through the open doors of the bathing machines themselves a strip of interior shadow makes the sea beyond appear to blaze.
A fascination for the effects of light, particularly at dawn, inspired Ravilious greatly in his later years, and by the summer of 1938 he was developing his own approach combining elements of Impressionism with rigorous design. The sky in this instance shows the distinctive layering of patterned pigment and delicate pencil lines that seems to have been his own invention, reflecting his wider preoccupation with the balancing of line and pattern. Rarely are his compositions without strong – though often delicate – lines to hold everything in place, a role performed quite naturally here by the hawser wires running down the beach.
Rare too is the Ravilious watercolour that doesn’t make us feel that something rather strange is going on, and this is no exception. As if the bathing machines were not in themselves odd enough, he appears to have introduced to the composition a chicken – not a creature ordinarily associated with the seashore. So anomalous is this bird that at least one commentator has wondered whether this might be a rare – possibly unique – instance of Ravilious acting the Surrealist. In fact, while the composition may exaggerate the strangeness of the scene, the chicken itself is (we now know) perfectly at home. It is a seaside relic like the bathing machines: a vending machine, surmounted by a model chicken, from which holidaymakers could purchase chocolate eggs.
We are left, then, with a watercolour that celebrates the simple pleasures of summer by the sea. Eighteen months later Ravilious would be standing in the pale dawn on another beach, observing the defusing of a magnetic mine (see Dangerous Work at Low Tide (1940). But for now the shingle of Aldeburgh was not a line of defence but a place to enjoy a carefree day in the sun.
We are very grateful to James Russell for preparing this catalogue entry.
James Russell curated the 2015 exhibition Ravilious at Dulwich Picture Gallery, and the current exhibition Century, at the Jerwood Gallery, Hastings. His latest book is The Lost Watercolours of Edward Bawden (Mainstone Press, 2016).
Unlike his teacher Paul Nash, who enjoyed writing accompanying texts to his paintings, Ravilious made no public comment about his work. What we know of his aims, inspiration and experiences we must glean from correspondence and sources such as his wife Tirzah’s autobiography Long Live Great Bardfield. These tell us that, having concentrated on design work in 1936/7, Eric set forth at the beginning of 1938 on a mission to paint watercolours for the show at Tooth’s the following year. Of his winter sojourn in Capel-y-Ffin, Wales, we have ample evidence. Likewise his summer trip to Rye Harbour and autumn visit to Bristol. At present, however, his weekend in Aldeburgh remains almost undocumented, save for a passing remark in a letter informing us that he spent an uncomfortable couple of nights in the Suffolk town at the end of August, sleeping on a sofa.
Evidently he rose early, because of the three watercolours of bathing machines two are illuminated by early morning sunlight. In this case Ravilious has taken up the artistic challenge of looking directly into the sun, an approach he first adopted when working alongside his friend and fellow artist Edward Bawden in the early 1930s. Lit from behind, the striped bathing machines appear strange and other-worldly, particularly when seen in context with the curious foreground arrangement. It is perhaps difficult for us to see today, but both Bawden and Ravilious were considered modern by their contemporaries, and the latter’s interest in relics and curiosities was driven less by nostalgia than by a fascination for unusual forms.
Nevertheless, the Aldeburgh bathing machines were a colourful throwback to a more modest age. From the mid-18th century, when the Hanoverian kings began making sea bathing fashionable, these delightful contraptions became an essential feature of every respectable town beach. A bather wishing to swim would enter the bathing machine at the top of the beach, change in privacy, and then hang on tight as it was pushed down to the sea. After bathing they would climb aboard to be winched up the beach, whereupon they would re-emerge clothed once more. Such was still the custom in Eastbourne when Ravilious was growing up, but by the 1930s bathing machines were rare, and he clearly made the most of this discovery.
By the time he visited the Suffolk town Ravilious had achieved a mastery over the medium of watercolour that few of his contemporaries could emulate, and the present work is executed with an impressive economy. Thus the winch handle in the foreground draws us into the picture, while its shadowed underside provides the dark tone needed to contrast with the brightness pervading the middle ground and distance. This in turn is achieved by stippling the barest minimum of pigment onto the paper to suggest the sunlit surfaces of shingle and sea. Where we look through the open doors of the bathing machines themselves a strip of interior shadow makes the sea beyond appear to blaze.
A fascination for the effects of light, particularly at dawn, inspired Ravilious greatly in his later years, and by the summer of 1938 he was developing his own approach combining elements of Impressionism with rigorous design. The sky in this instance shows the distinctive layering of patterned pigment and delicate pencil lines that seems to have been his own invention, reflecting his wider preoccupation with the balancing of line and pattern. Rarely are his compositions without strong – though often delicate – lines to hold everything in place, a role performed quite naturally here by the hawser wires running down the beach.
Rare too is the Ravilious watercolour that doesn’t make us feel that something rather strange is going on, and this is no exception. As if the bathing machines were not in themselves odd enough, he appears to have introduced to the composition a chicken – not a creature ordinarily associated with the seashore. So anomalous is this bird that at least one commentator has wondered whether this might be a rare – possibly unique – instance of Ravilious acting the Surrealist. In fact, while the composition may exaggerate the strangeness of the scene, the chicken itself is (we now know) perfectly at home. It is a seaside relic like the bathing machines: a vending machine, surmounted by a model chicken, from which holidaymakers could purchase chocolate eggs.
We are left, then, with a watercolour that celebrates the simple pleasures of summer by the sea. Eighteen months later Ravilious would be standing in the pale dawn on another beach, observing the defusing of a magnetic mine (see Dangerous Work at Low Tide (1940). But for now the shingle of Aldeburgh was not a line of defence but a place to enjoy a carefree day in the sun.
We are very grateful to James Russell for preparing this catalogue entry.
James Russell curated the 2015 exhibition Ravilious at Dulwich Picture Gallery, and the current exhibition Century, at the Jerwood Gallery, Hastings. His latest book is The Lost Watercolours of Edward Bawden (Mainstone Press, 2016).