Coastal Defences 1940

Eric Ravilious made this watercolour, Coastal Defences, using dry brush techniques and a muted palette. See how he builds up the forms of the landscape with layers of grey and ochre, scratching into the paper to create texture and depth, almost like he's digging into the earth. There's this real sense of materiality, like you could reach out and touch the rough surface of the land. The luminous streak of light in the sky is made with washes, while the horizon line is sharply rendered by a linear stroke. I'm reminded of Paul Nash, another English artist who painted landscapes charged with a strange, haunting atmosphere. Both Ravilious and Nash find beauty and drama in the ordinary, transforming familiar scenes into something mysterious. With its attention to process and willingness to embrace ambiguity, Coastal Defences captures that sense of art as an ongoing experiment, a conversation between artist, medium, and viewer.