Landscape of the Megaliths

Nash (1889-1946) was a leading British modernist, surrealist and neo-romantic artist. In 1933, he visited Avebury and became enthralled by the vision of the stones and monuments such as Silbury Hill (their lines, masses, planes and volumes). 'Landscape of the Megaliths' is, in his terms, a attempt to 'solve' the equation' of these forms. Inspired by the avenues, it depicts a line of megaliths crossing a cultivated field, with a Silbury-like mound and terraced conical hill (Oldbury hillfort?) backgrounded and a spiraling convolvulus in the foreground. There is influence within this and other Nash work of an earlier generation of romantics (Samuel Palmer and William Blake), and also a strand that links to the legacy of Wiliam Stukeley. It remains one of the most powerful pieces of English landscape art from the inter-war years, and an evocation of Avebury that transcends the archaeological in its attempt to capture the sense of place and otherness.
Caption: Josh Pollard (University of Southampton)