Nash, Paul - We are Making a new World - art postcard (Imperial War)

^{Please ask if you need any other information and I will do the best I can to answer.}

^{Image may be low res for illustrative purposes - if you need a higher definition image then please contact me and I may be able to send one. No cards have been trimmed (unless stated).}

^{------------------------------------------------}

^{Postage & Packing:}

^{Postage and packing charge should be showing for your location (contact if not sure).}

^{No additional charges for more than one postcard. You can buy as many postcards from me as you like and you will just pay the fee above once. Please wait for combined invoice. (If buying postcards with other things such as books, please contact or wait for invoice before paying).}

^{Payment Methods:}

^{UK - PayPal, Cheque (from UK bank) or postal order}

^{Outside UK: PayPal ONLY (unless otherwise stated) please.   NO non-UK currency checks or money orders (sorry).}

^{NOTE: All postcards are sent in brand new stiffened envelopes which I have bought for the task. These are specially made to protect postcards and you may be able to re-use them. In addition there are other costs to sending so the above charge is not just for the stamp!}

^{I will give a full refund if you are not fully satisfied with the postcard.}

^{----------------------------------------------}

^{Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :}

^{*************}

Paul Nash (11 May 1889 – 11 July 1946)[1] was a British surrealist painter and war artist, as well as a photographer, writer and designer of applied art. Nash was among the most important landscape artists of the first half of the twentieth century. He played a key role in the development of Modernism in English art.

Born in London, Nash grew up in Buckinghamshire where he developed a love of the landscape. He entered the Slade School of Art but was poor at figure drawing and concentrated on landscape painting.[2] Nash found much inspiration in landscapes with elements of ancient history, such as burial mounds, Iron Age hill forts such as Wittenham Clumps and the standing stones at Avebury in Wiltshire. The artworks he produced during World War I are among the most iconic images of the conflict. After the war Nash continued to focus on landscape painting, originally in a formalized, decorative style but, throughout the 1930s, in an increasingly abstract and surreal manner.[3] In his paintings he often placed everyday objects into a landscape to give them a new identity and symbolism.

During World War II, although sick with the asthmatic condition that would kill him, he produced two series of anthropomorphic depictions of aircraft, before producing a number of landscapes rich in symbolism with an intense mystical quality.[3] These have perhaps become among the best known works from the period. Nash was also a fine book illustrator, and also designed stage scenery, fabrics and posters.[4]

He was the older brother of the artist John Nash.[4]

We Are Making a New World is a 1918 oil-on-canvas painting by Paul Nash. The optimistic title contrasts with Nash's depiction of a scarred landscape created by a battle of the First World War, with shell-holes, mounds of earth, and leafless tree trunks. Nash's first major painting and his most famous work, it has been described as one of the best British paintings of the 20th century, and compared to Picasso's Guernica.[1] "Yet it is worth remembering that the picture was a piece of official art and that it first appeared, untitled, as the cover of an issue of British War Artists at the Front, published by Country Life. ... [It] was promulgated in 1917 as covert propaganda for the Allied cause."[2]

The work was among the first oil paintings produced by Nash. It was based on his 1918 pen-and-ink drawing Sunrise, Inverness Copse,[3] which depicts the remains of a small group of trees at Inverness Copse, near Ypres in Belgium.[4] Both works were exhibited in a solo exhibition entitled "The Void of War" at the Leicester Galleries in May 1918.

Nash had signed-up shortly after the outbreak of the First World War with the Artists' Rifles. He transferred to the Hampshire Regiment and was sent to the front at Ypres. He had a passionate attachment to the natural world and regarded with horror the deformation brought about by the war.[5]

In 1917 Nash returned to England having broken several ribs in a fall into a trench.[6] Soon afterwards the Battle of Passchendaele took place which left 200,000 British killed or wounded. Nash lobbied the Foreign Office to be allowed to return to the front as an official war artist. He wrote to his wife Margaret : "I am no longer an artist...I am a messenger who will bring back word from the men who are fighting to those who want the war to go on for ever..."[5]

The painting measures 71.1 by 91.4 centimetres (28.0 in × 36.0 in). It depicts a bright white sun rising above ruddy brown clouds, shining beams onto a desolated green landscape below, with unnatural mounds of earth piled up between the skeletal remains of blasted trees. Nash's style is developed from Cubism and Vorticism.