HMS Glorious in the Arctic 1940

Eric Ravilious made this watercolour painting of the HMS Glorious in the Arctic at some point in his short life. I can imagine him, peering out at the scene, trying to capture something of the magnitude of the scene before him. Look at the way he’s rendered the light on the water – with a series of tiny hatching marks. What does that repetitive gesture mean? Maybe it’s about the rhythm of the waves, the way light flickers and dances on the surface. There is a sense of scale, but it is a scale that feels knowable and domestic in the same breath. The sky is full of aeroplanes and Ravilious has populated the painting with different focal points, each demanding attention in different ways. The effect is to create a layered, all-over composition that’s less about a single view and more about a way of seeing. Ravilious was a war artist, lost at sea during the Second World War. This is a painting about movement, about ships and planes, but it's also a painting about the stillness that proceeds such dramatic moments.