Jon Snow TV - James Fox TV - This Green and Pleasant Land TV - Princess Margaret - Paul Nash - Nashclumps online -
Nash found himself in the thick of the trenches on the Western front. Although the official war artists were potentially part of a propaganda machine sending back bulletins from the front line, they were given complete freedom to paint any aspect of war with no restrictions. Even so, Nash had reservations about being part of this machine. Jon Snow, The Genius of British Art: War
Nash’s pictures brilliantly capture war’s ravages, not just on man but on nature. ibid.
Paul Nash: a man whose intense emotional bond with nature would make him the greatest war painter of the twentieth century. Dr James Fox, British Masters, BBC 2011
For Nash this wasn’t just a cornfield; this was England: beautiful, bountiful England. The England he had fought so hard to protect. Dr James Fox, British Masters II: In Search of England, BBC 2011
Paul Nash had made his name as one of the most powerful painters of the First World War. But his sympathies with surrealist ideas went back much further. He was born into an affluent middle-class family. ibid.
On his journeys around England Nash painted a singular series of landscapes. ibid.
Another unlikely teenage fan of the Pre-Raphaelites was Paul Nash. A Londoner from a comfortable middle-class family the First World War had brought an abrupt end to his studies. This Green and Pleasant Land: The Story of British Landscape Painting, BBC 2011
He managed to combine an enthusiasm for modernism with a love of the countryside. ibid.
Poor mummy’s gone mad. Look what she’s brought back. Princess Margaret, re Queen Mother’s purchase of ‘Vernal Equinox’
Sunset and sunrise are blasphemous. They are mockeries to man. It is unspeakable, godless, hopeless. I am no longer an artist interested and curious; I am a messenger. Paul Nash, letter to wife
The shells never cease. They plunge into the grave which is this land. One huge grave had cast upon it the poor dead. It is unspeakable. Godless. Hopeless. Paul Nash, letter to wife
I am no longer an artist interested and curious, I am a messenger who will bring back word from the men who are fighting to those who want the war to go on for ever. Feeble, inarticulate, will be my message, but it will have a bitter truth, and may it burn their lousy souls. Paul Nash, letter to wife
Paul Nash (1889–1946) was one of the finest English landscape painters of his generation. He served as an official war artist in both World Wars. His paintings of the trenches in the First World War were powerful evocations of destruction.
In the Second World War he was employed by the Air Ministry and created iconic works such as Totes Meer, a landscape covered by wrecked German aircraft.
A talented wood-engraver and book illustrator, Nash’s work embraced watercolour, oils, photography and designs for textiles and posters. He wrote extensively on art and became a distinguished critic. Nashclumps online