Review: Eric Ravilious: Drawn To War

Eric Ravilious: Drawn to War is the story of Eric Ravilious, a half-forgotten English war artist who 70 years later was rediscovered and hailed as one of English art's greats. Featuring Ravilious fans Alan Bennett, Ai Weiwei and Grayson Perry.The documentary Eric Ravilious: Drawn to War tells the story of an artist whose life might easily have been one of those depressing stereotypes. Like Mozart, Keats and Van Gogh before him, his major success was not to happen until many years after his death.Though, unlike the usual tortured artist, Ravilious's life seemed remarkably happy.He became belatedly famous - in England at any rate - after many of his paintings were discovered at the home of his close friend Edward Bawden. But when he worked - before and during the Second World War - he'd already gained respect for his paintings, which were like nobody else's.What set him apart, maybe, was his love of drawing and water colours, and his skill as a designer. Mind you, "design" is one of those expressions of faint praise, like "craftsman", another lukewarm description of Ravilious at the time. Much of his early work was in tandem with his wife Tirzah Garwood, who was just as talented - some say more so - in the field of pure design.This is where I run into problems - first, describing the film Eric Ravilious Drawn to War, and then convincing you why I found it such an extraordinary experience. Because - like Ravilious's own life - much of the film is devoted to his visual works.The paintings, drawings and etchings are quite wonderful, and director Margy Kinmouth finds ways to lightly animate some of them - particularly the uncanny, ancient chalk giants carved into the South Downs of Sussex and Kent.But it's a challenge to put their extraordinary impact into words.What does carry are the many letters Eric sent to Tirzah and others from wherever he found himself. When war broke out in 1939, he was head-hunted by the War Department as one of Britain's war artists. A job, it turned out, he was very well suited to.The subtitle of the film - Drawn to War - really does capture Ravilious's character. Yes, he hated war - he was anti-Fascist long before much of the country, in fact - but he also relished the exciting places he found himself in - Norway and Iceland, observation posts during the Battle of Britain, underwater in Royal Navy submarines.And all the time he was capturing these experiences in unique drawings and paintings. …Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details