Not on display
- Artist
- Eric Ravilious 1903–1942
- Medium
- Graphite and watercolour on paper
- Dimensions
- Support: 451 x 324 mm
- Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Purchased 1940
- Reference
- N05164
Display caption
Ravilious saw himself as part of a long tradition of English landscape painters, and his use of flat watercolour recalls the work of John Sell Cotman in the early nineteenth century. However, his pictures often subvert tradition as much as echo it. His depiction of the countryside in the rain is familiar, but the low viewpoint makes the image disconcerting. This emphasises the mass of the hill and provides an unusual view of the White Horse cut into the chalk at Uffington in Berkshire, one of Britain’s most ancient sites. It was, perhaps, the surprisingly abstract depiction of the White Horse that attracted modern artists.
Gallery label, September 2004
Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.
Catalogue entry
N05164 THE VALE OF THE WHITE HORSE c. 1939
Inscr. ‘Eric Ravilious’ t.r.
Watercolour, 17 3/4×21 3/4 (45×55·3).
Purchased from the artist through the Leicester Galleries (Knapping Fund) 1940.
Exh: Eastbourne and Brighton, 1948 (35); Arts Council, 1948–9 (49); Sheffield, 1958 (16).
This appears to be the White Horse on White Horse Hill, Uffington, Berkshire. The current view is that it was probably made as a tribal emblem towards the end of the first century B.C. or the earliest part of the first century A.D. The design resembles the animal figures of Iron Age times and similar horses are to be found on coins of British tribes of that date, including the Atrebates of Berkshire.
There is a watercolour by the artist of the chalk horse and rider at Weymouth in the Massey Collection, National Gallery of Canada.
Published in:
Mary Chamot, Dennis Farr and Martin Butlin, The Modern British Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, London 1964, II
Features
Lure of the wild: Watercolour II
The artist Francis Towne’s near abstract eighteenth-century watercolours of Swiss glaciers were to inspire Eric Ravilious more than a century ...
Explore
- architecture(42,290)
- monuments(1,403)
- chalk figure(5)
- monuments(1,403)
- emotions, concepts and ideas(16,926)
- universal concepts(6,508)
- history(1,986)
- universal concepts(6,508)
- nature(46,524)
- places(42,589)
- UK countries and regions(25,025)
- England(19,759)
- England, South East(6,097)
- England, Southern(9,228)
- UK counties(20,143)
- Berkshire(753)
- UK cities, towns and villages(13,117)
- UK countries and regions(25,025)
You might like
Arthur Lett-Haines The Dark Horse
1934
David Jones Study of a horse, possibly for ‘Lord of Venedotiia’
[c.1945–50]
David Jones Study of a horse, possibly for ‘Lord of Venedotiia’
[c.1945–50]
Eileen Agar Sketches of four abstract shapes, including a giraffe or horse
date not known
Paul Nash The Messerschmitt in Windsor Great Park
1940
William Roberts The Horse Dealers
1955
Eileen Agar Abstract sketch of a horse rearing
date not known
Paul Nash Tench Pond in a Gale
1921–2
William Roberts Ferry Crossing, Study for ‘The Ferry’
c.1944
Nigel Henderson Photograph of a horse
[c.1949–c.1956]
Eileen Agar Tracing of a man on a horse
date not known
John Nash The Blenheim
1947
David Jones The Terrace
1929
John Nash Avoncliffe from the Aqueduct
c.1926
John Skeaping Horse
exhibited 1934