Nash developed his own unique take on surrealism during the 1930s, fusing British tradition with European modernism. He was influenced by Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico’s paintings of people-less piazzas and strange disorienting architecture. In
Mansions of the Dead, Nash interprets a seventeenth century essay on death and immortality by Thomas Browne as a dreamlike scene with birds ascending into a geometric grid like structure.
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Artist
Paul Nash
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Artwork
Mansions of the Dead
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Exhibition
Paul Nash
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Image size
57.8 x 39.4 cm
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Material
Graphite and watercolour on paper
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Date of work
1932
Paul Nash was fascinated with Britain’s ancient past and spent time in southern England exploring the downs and coastal areas. Equally inspired by the equinox and the phases of the moon, he used all these influences in his work, interpreting his environment according to a unique, personal mythology, evolving throughout his career.