Peter Parker

Capturing the mood of the English landscape: the genius of John Nash

Andrew Lambert renews our interest in the highly distinctive artist of the countryside, hitherto overshadowed by his brother Paul

‘If I wanted to make a foreigner understand the mood of a typical English landscape,’ the art critic Eric Newton wrote in April 1939, ‘I would first show him a good Constable and then one or two of John Nash’s best watercolours.’ This is about as good an endorsement any painter could ask for, but Nash is more usually bracketed with, and overshadowed by, his older brother. There have been major exhibitions of Paul Nash’s work at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2010 and at Tate Britain three years ago, whereas the last truly substantial retrospective of John’s work was at the Royal Academy in 1967. Andrew Lambirth’s handsome and hefty new book attempts to redress the balance, and it makes a very convincing case for considering John Nash in his own right.

Like his friend Cedric Morris, Nash is often designated an ‘artist-plantsman’, which somehow makes him sound minor or amateur. He was indeed both passionate and knowledgeable about plants, which shows in his many marvellous drawings and paintings of them, and (unlike his brother) he missed out on art school; but he also produced a large and genuinely impressive body of work. He remains most highly regarded for his wood engravings and book illustrations, which are some of the finest of the 20th century, and Lambirth contends that these small-scale works have overshadowed his work as a painter.

The greatest strength of this book is that it makes you look again at Nash’s paintings, which are often a good deal less straightforward than they at first appear. Nash knew and understood the English landscape in the way of someone who actually lived and worked in it (hence Lambirth’s subtitle), and he made regular excursions in search of what he called ‘good bits’ — in the words of his friend Ronald Blythe, ‘some twist and turn in the land, some drawing together of elm and oak or, favourite of all, some old quarry or working springing its surprises below the cultivated surface’.

Already a subscriber? Log in

Keep reading with a free trial

Subscribe and get your first month of online and app access for free. After that it’s just £1 a week.

There’s no commitment, you can cancel any time.

Or

Unlock more articles

REGISTER

Comments

Don't miss out

Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.

Already a subscriber? Log in