The Lost Romantic - Paul Nash

Today, I threaded my way through the labyrinth of the South Circular to go to Dulwich Picture gallery to see the Paul Nash exhibition. Besides getting lost and I needed to go this weekend as time was against me. I had nearly given up in going, mainly because of the travel as that part of London is difficult to get too. Not proper arterial road, so it requires a lot of single roads and stop & starting.

The strange thing that kept on popping into my mind was the novel by Stella Duffy called The Room of Lost Things, set in part in South London. A part of the world that I venture across now and again, but never stay long enough to see all the places or get to know the scenery. Today, I found that there was a Dulwich Park and I wonder what is there? Is it like Greenwich park with the entrances into flat plain with a steep drop?

The Gallery is set in Dulwich Village, one of those oasis of village life in the metropolis. The area was set out in yellow aged brick, within a Georgian setting. Originally designed by Sir John Soanes - it looks odd without any windows on the buildings side. The main light comes from the roof, so giving an even 'spread' to the viewer as they look at the paintings.

Paul Nash is one of those artist who impact is more under stated. His work is has a deep power, but at times, it is delicate like a watercolour painting. Yet, here there were several paintings that I had not seen before. Some which I found intrigued me.

Pyramids of the Sea and Combat, both early work and remind me of that other great English artist, William Blake. Especially, Combat with angel and demon, and its setting on a hill near Uxbridge - some where I use to live. You got to see more of his use of surrealism, by use of opposite element. In one a port was merged into a room, you are both inside and outside at the same time.

There were do interesting pictures from his time at Dymchurch near Romney Marsh, another place on my list to go and visit. There was one of the Great Dyke, which focused on the dyke with two figures in the right corner and a fence in the left corner. This reminded me of a series of illustrations based on the Pilgrim's Progress that I had seen in Liverpool in 1980. A lot of these Romney Marsh pictures were long and flat with large areas of space. I wonder how this landscape will look when I visit, again on the list of places to go.

Need to go and check how much of this more to the wilds of Kent/Sussex helped with his interest in surrealism. The juxtaposition of images to combine and create different forms. In the room were b&w photos of his collection and how these led him on. The long furrows of a ploughing, giving texture across the whole space. His use of trees to cut out and create new creatures and the starting point, The Monster Field. It is echoed in a Sutherland picture of the early 50's. Large open spaces with objects scattered across the scene are reminiscence of sea-scapes. The strangeness of the flotsam and jetsam washed up on the shores can throw up just such opposites.

In his later paintings, I noticed that he rarely used strong outlines, something that I have done, although, I having been trying to work with just colour and rarely use black or the dark, deep brown. The shape of the paint helps to define the shape of the image. Landscape of the Vernal Equinox (III) is a good example of this style of his work.

There at the end of the exhibition was a picture that solved a problem that I have encounted in 1983 and still lies buried in my mind that there was a picture waiting to come out, but I had a good stab at the time. You have frames within frames. A pool with trees on either side, so you have a U-shape. Nash's have branches linking across the sky and then merging in with the pool below in a riot of grey, white and paler greens. It was fantastic. It has made me think that I can solve the problem of linking the areas. I can't really say why the image was flat, but I think it was that there was not enough 'tangling' elements to catch and bind the various parts of the image together. Time to dig it out again.