Artist Research: Paul Nash

Nash is best known for being a war artist who painted some of the most powerful work from the first and second world wars.

He joined the army at the beginning of World War 1 and served in a regiment called Artists’ Rifles. In 1917, Nash was fighting on the Western Front, where he had reached the rank of second lieutenant. After sustaining an injury in battle, he was sent back home to recover.

During this time, he looked over sketches he had quickly drawn near the battlefields. Using the sketches as inspiration, he produced some large-scale drawings which gained interest within the art world and was exhibited in 1917.

The exhibition caught the eye of the War Propaganda Bureau, and Nash was offered a role as an official war artist. Once he had recovered from his injuries, he returned to the frontline, but this time as an artist opposed to a soldier. At the end of the war, he returned home and later developed his work inro oil paintings on canvas.

One reason I wanted to look at Nash for inspiration is because his work often contains landscapes, symbolic imagery and explores the connection between nature, conflict and memory which links well with the theme of my work. His work demonstrates careful attention and composition and rhythm, using simplified shapes, muted colour palettes to create a sense of stillness and unease. I want to create a simple canvas that is from the perspective of a soldier and am wanting viewers to reflect not only on the landscape itself, but also themes of mortality, memory and the passage of time in a similar way that Nash does.