THE WESTBURY HORSE 1939

Eric Ravilious made this artwork titled "The Westbury Horse," and what strikes me is how he takes a landscape and turns it into this playful, graphic space. I imagine him out there, maybe with a little watercolor set, trying to capture this huge chalk horse carved into the hillside. It's like he's wrestling with how to make something so monumental fit onto a small piece of paper. See how he uses these tiny, almost scratchy lines to build up the hills? It's a kind of obsessive mark-making that gives the whole scene a real sense of texture. And then there’s that train chugging along in the background, a little touch of modernity against this ancient, almost mythical landscape. For me, it's all about the conversation between Ravilious and the landscape; a reminder that artists are always in dialogue with each other and the world around them.