PAUL NASH (1889-1946)

In a letter from July 1911 to the poet, Gordon Bottomley, Paul Nash wrote ‘Something about the trees and the light across shorn fields is always making me wonder … In fact I do nothing but walk about marvelling at the wonder of the world in general – perhaps I shall paint a picture or write a poem one day’. And indeed he did. Nash’s paintings express a deep, mystical attachment to the English countryside and to the places in which he lived. The present work is one of contemplative repose and harmony, expressive of a time of personal equilibrium for the artist as he recovered from his experiences on the frontline during First World War.

Nash’s work produced immediately following the War is visceral in its depiction of the scarred landscape that he witnessed. Having settled in Dymchurch, he found a renewed serenity in his surroundings, and began to depict the British landscape in a way that resembles his work before the war. The artist’s childhood spent in the Buckinghamshire countryside inspired his love for this landscape. Indeed, Nash’s early shows in 1912 and 1913 were largely devoted to drawings and watercolours of landscapes, influenced by the poetry of William Blake and the paintings of Samuel Palmer and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. There is a discernible, perhaps somewhat childlike, innocence in the early works’ outlook on nature. A similarly romantic image of the landscape is seen in the present work’s softly curving arches of the stone bridge, reflected in the quiet ribbon of water, and echoed by the organic curves of the clouds and tree foliage. The river is still; the wind has dropped; it is a scene of peace.

Studying at the Slade alongside other artists at the vanguard of British Modernism such as Ben Nicholson and Stanley Spencer, Nash had remained unmoved by the contemporary clamour surrounding Post-Impressionism. However, his work during the 1920s developed independently in a manner parallel to that of the great French Post-Impressionists. The present work reveals this changing theory and practice in Nash’s rendering of the deciduous tree’s boughs weighed down with leaves. The voluptuous foliage is not composed of individual leaves as in earlier work, but of solid forms that create an almost abstract design. The richly textured chestnut compliments the icy blue sky, and is mirrored by the soft pink shadows beneath the arches.
Commenting on Nash’s work of the mid-1920s, artist Albert Rutherston notes: ‘we have reached the period in Nash’s life where all that he has done before is being gathered together in unified expression’ (A. Rutherston, Contemporary British Artists: Paul Nash, London, 1923). Indeed, the artist’s show at the Leicester Galleries in the following year, where the present work was first exhibited, was met with immense critical acclaim and attracted a number of new collectors.

Devoid of figures, the painting hints at Nash’s continuous drawing of the analogy between human life and that of trees, and, consequently, the expression of human emotion in nature. The Bridge, Romney Marsh is an engaging painting that speaks of Nash’s enduring interest in ambiguity and mystery, poetry and literature, and, most importantly, his love for the British countryside.

We are very grateful to Andrew Lambirth for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.