Paul Nash it is his birthday today, 11th May 1889. Probably one of my most favourite artists, though his war paintings, which are justifiably some of the finest paintings of war, are also the most terrible, should perhaps have been celebrated yesterday to underline the sheer horror of war. But I like him for his dreamlike paintings of the landscape as he 'tries to get behind the nature of things'.
Was he looking for a spirit in the landscape, a deeper meaning as the world unfolded its annual pageant of seasons. For me living for 10 years in the market town of Calne in Wiltshire, 6 miles from Avebury, his paintings still evoke a homesickness for walks on the downs, Moss by my side and an antique landscape of neolithic barrows and the great Avebury circle to wander around and ponder on prehistory.
There is something about the soft rounded appearance of chalk downs, the white chalk breaking through the soil, the beech clumps of trees. He is most famous for his paintings of Wittenham Clumps in Oxfordshire
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| a pencil sketch |
"Nash is also one of the most interesting British landscape painters of the 20th century, much loved for his pictures that divine the “spirit” of Avebury, Wittenham Clumps and other English places with which he felt a strong, almost mystical, connection. His work Wood on the Downs (1929), a study of beech trees and chalklands, has been subject to constant reproduction since first exhibited, and its popularity is unsurprising: it is a hugely pleasing coming together of Englishness and modernistic art. His pictures found a refreshing, contemporary way to express a deeply felt communion with the English countryside – trees, paths, birds, hills. The Guardian
I could fill the page with his paintings, capturing the moon, sun and sunflowers, he has been described as Modernist, surrealist, etc but in the end he was someone just trying to express what he saw around him. He is a true historian of his period.
And for happy memories wandering around with Paul in our first meetings around Avebury.........
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| The Avenue at Avebury |
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| Silbury Hill |
What a delight to turn on my computer and see these - he - and his brother John - are among my favourites too. Over the years I have read many books by Ronald Blythe and he loved both these brothers and their work. Paul didn't live to be an old man did he? Ronald Blythe, who was a dear friend of John and his wife lives in their house (if he is still alive - he is well into his nineties).
ReplyDeleteJuly 1946, he died of pneumonia I think, or at least asthma. I have a friend who is also a painter, who also paints sunflowers, though her inspiration is Van Gogh. The sunflower is a fascinating flower because of its spiralling centre, they always have a Fibonacci number. Jane Tomlinson also paints maps of Britain but with a theme her one of the coastline of the British Coast, takes you on that mesmerising Shipping Forecast every morning.
DeleteThank you, He is not an artist I knew. His works are very moving and the film really brings out things I would not have seen.
ReplyDeleteI had forgotten about the 'Genii Loci' of place and the presenter reminded me. But Nash's mystical side was very much about such places as Avebury.
ReplyDeleteAlways nice to see the work from an artist of whom I'd never heard
ReplyDeleteProbably because he is English Rain;) and part of the melting away from the 'brown' classical painting of earlier centuries. Not sure what his paintings get in the auctions.
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