A Young Airman
Print
1933 (made)
1933 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
The Neo-romantic artist and designer Eric Ravilious, who studied under Paul Nash at the Royal College of Art, was instrumental in bringing about a renaissance in British printmaking in the 1920s and 1930s. This small wood engraving is typical of his lyrical style, which was influenced by early German and Flemish woodcuts and the work of British engraver Thomas Bewick (1753-1828). In hindsight, the rather menacing subject - the shadow of a plane falling on a hill - seems to foreshadow Ravilious's untimely death. An official war artist from 1939, he died when his plane crashed during a sea rescue mission off the coast of Iceland in 1942.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Title | A Young Airman (assigned by artist) |
| Materials and techniques | Wood engraving |
| Brief description | Wood engraving by Eric Ravilious to illustrate 'Fifty-Four Conceits' by Martin Armstrong. Great Britain, 1933. |
| Physical description | A wood engraving showing a small biplane flying over a hill surrounded by deciduous and palm trees; the plane's shadow covers part of the hill. |
| Dimensions |
|
| Style | |
| Marks and inscriptions | 'Eric Ravilious' (Signed by the artist in pencil, below and to the right of the design.) |
| Historical context | Eric Ravilious was one of the leading Neo-Romantic artists in the 1920s and 1930s. He was instrumental in bringing about a renaissance in British printmaking (particularly wood engraving), producing engravings for the Golden Cockerel, Curwen and Nonesuch presses. In the late 1930s, before becoming an official war artist, he lived in the village of Great Bardfield, Essex, whose residents included fellow neo-Romantics Kenneth Rowntree, Edward Bawden, and Michael Rothenstein. |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Summary | The Neo-romantic artist and designer Eric Ravilious, who studied under Paul Nash at the Royal College of Art, was instrumental in bringing about a renaissance in British printmaking in the 1920s and 1930s. This small wood engraving is typical of his lyrical style, which was influenced by early German and Flemish woodcuts and the work of British engraver Thomas Bewick (1753-1828). In hindsight, the rather menacing subject - the shadow of a plane falling on a hill - seems to foreshadow Ravilious's untimely death. An official war artist from 1939, he died when his plane crashed during a sea rescue mission off the coast of Iceland in 1942. |
| Bibliographic reference | 'The first book Ravilious illustrated in 1926 was Desert: A Legend by Martin Armstrong. 54 Conceits [by the same author] is a collection of his sardonic verses concerned principally with death and dying [...] Thr engravings are used in most cases to illustrate two or three verses. Ravilious provides an engraving with a strong connection to one of the verses (almost always the first one) and the title for that verse has been used as a working title for the engraving. [...]
A Young Airman
1933
The engraving is printed on page 12. It is used again, apparently unchanged, as an illustration in The Poems of Thomas Hennell, and a version is used as a decoration on the Wedgwood Travel crockery.
A YOUNG AIRMAN
I loved to slide between earth and sun,
Laughing at sulky Death, till Death, as one
Who loses patience with a teasing fly,
Brought me to earth and in this earth I lie'
Jeremy Greenwood, Ravilious Engravings, The Wood Lea Press, Great Britain, 2008, p.178-179 |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | E.555-1972 |
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| Record created | May 11, 2006 |
| Record URL |
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