Autumn Landscape

'O dreaming trees sunk in a swoon of sleep
What have ye seen in those mysterious places?
What images? What faces?
What unknown pageant thro' these hollows moves
At night? What blood-fights have ye seen?
What scenes of life & death? What haunted loves?'
Paul Nash
(P. Nash, quoted in exhibition catalogue, Paul Nash Places, London, South Bank Centre, 1989, pp. 12-13).

‘The setting [of Autumn Landscape] is probably the Berkshire Downs or the Chilterns, in which the lonely tree assumes (as trees so often did in Nash's work) a private meaning in its solitary but serenely assertive presence. Painted at the same time as the great Dymchurch sea wall picture The Shore (Leeds City Art Gallery), Autumn Landscape is clearly indicative of the artist's more settled state of mind after recovering from the breakdown of 1921 brought on by the strain of war. The sentinel tree both guards and surveys the bountiful landscape, apart but also intimately linked, almost a self-portrait of the artist. Any sense of loneliness is more than countered by the underlying optimism of the image, with its beautifully painted hill lines and vigorous foliage’ (Andrew Lambirth, June 2020).

Ever since his childhood, Paul Nash had a deep love and appreciation for nature, as well as a strong sense of place – related both to the external appearance, and what lies beneath, the history or emotions that were tied to a particular landscape. Trees in particular held a symbolic resonance for the artist; he regarded them as great ancestors presiding over the land, imbued with human qualities: in 1912 he had told Bottomley 'I sincerely love & worship trees & know they are people' (P. Nash, quoted in A. Causey, Paul Nash, Oxford, 1980, pp. 171-172). Similarly, in an undated letter, Nash wrote to Mercia Oakley, 'I will be your tree, your friend thro good and evil ... Do you realise the full significance of “tree” or what it would try to mean to you: A shelter, a shade, a consoling old thing, a strong kind friend to come to'. Regarded in this context, Autumn Landscape takes on a deeply personal meaning, the solitary, soaring tree becoming a stand-in for the artist himself.

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