Description
Object description
image: An abstracted aerial view of a wide flat landscape including the mouth of a river. Above the sky is full of
contrails, and to the upper right aircraft can be seen flying in formation.
Physical description
Image. An abstracted aerial view of a wide flat landscape including the mouth of a river. Above the sky is full of contrails, and to the upper right aircraft can be seen flying in formation.
It is an oil paint on canvas. The frame is made of wood and it is glazed. There is a hardboard backboard as well.
Label
Paul Nash's description of the painting, written for the War Artist's Advisory Committee: 'The painting is an attempt
to give the sense of an aerial battle in operation over a wide area and thus summarises England's great aerial victory over Germany. The
scene includes certain elements constant during the Battle of Britain - the river winding from the town and across parched country, down to
the sea; beyond, the shores of the Continent, above, the mounting cumulus concentrating at sunset after a hot brilliant day; across the
spaces of sky, trails of airplanes, smoke tracks of dead or damaged machines falling, floating clouds, parachutes, balloons. Against the
approaching twilight new formations of Luftwaffe, threatening...'
The painting majestically reveals the possibilities of art engaged with history. Its ambition and the scale of the setting immediately
impress; we look down on a huge swathe of the English Channel and France beyond. Produced at the time of the battle, the painting
encapsulates its scale and importance. However, this is not just an image of modern warfare, with its violence and destruction, or even an
iconic victory; it is also a restatement of the value of art and the defeat of Nazism. Nash, a fierce critic of the way that fighting on
the Western Front of the First World War had been conducted, was immediate and steadfast in his revulsion towards Nazi Germany and its
culture. In the painting, defences rise up as if out of the very landscape of England to meet the fascistic machines of war; the
regimented patterns of the Luftwaffe are broken and defeated by Allied fighter planes, they form great flower-like shapes in the sky,
before plummeting into the very earth that has defeated them.
Richard Seddon, pupil of Nash, viewed this work at Nash's Oxford studio. He advised Nash to include more black smoke trails and painted an
example on the canvas. When the painting was exhibited in London, Seddon's black trail was still visible on the canvas. Margaret Nash
presented Seddon with a 19th-century lithograph of a storm in Paris which Nash adapted to form the composition of the Battle of Britain.
Nash delivered the work to the Committee in October and it went on display at the National Gallery in January 1942.
Label
The painting is an attempt to give the sense of an aerial battle in operation over a wide area and thus summarises
England's great aerial victory over Germany. The scene includes certain elements constant during the Battle of Britain - the river winding
from the town and across parched country, down to the sea; beyond, the shores of the Continent, above, the mounting cumulus concentrating
at sunset after a hot brilliant day; across the spaces of sky, trails of airplanes, smoke tracks of dead or damaged machines falling,
floating clouds, parachutes, balloons. Against the approaching twilight new formations of Luftwaffe, threatening.
Label
Paul Nash was one of Britain's best-known artists at the time of the Second World War. As a former official war artist he was a logical
choice to fulfill the role again, particularly as a patriot who believed in utilising fine art for propaganda. Battle of Britain
demonstrates this aspect of Nash's outlook. It presents an epitome of RAF Fighter Command's successful struggle against the Luftwaffe in
1940. RAF fighters sweep along the English Channel to break up advancing Luftwaffe formations in a summer sky filled with vapour trails,
parachutes, balloons and cloud. The painting is an imaginative summary of the event rather than a literal one; Nash favours symbolism and
allegory over factual accuracy. The barrage balloons and aircraft seen from above are not in proportion to the shadowy suggestions of
vulnerable cities below. Geographically the painting suggests the Thames estuary, with the Channel and France beyond, but again the
emphasis is on imaginative visualisation.
History note
War Artists Advisory Committee Commission
Inscription
Paul Nash
