A Questionable “Pleasure”: Ruins in John Piper’s and Paul Nash’s Wartime Landscape Paintings
The resurgence of Romantic influences in British art, from the late 1930s through the 1940s, has often been understood as an escapist answer to the turmoils of the time, and a longing for a lost pastoral idyll. This essay, which focuses on the wartime production of John Piper and Paul Nash, argues t...
Αποθηκεύτηκε σε:
| Τόπος έκδοσης: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/ranam, |
|---|---|
| Κύριος συγγραφέας: | |
| Μορφή: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Γλώσσα: | Anglais |
| Έκδοση: |
Recherches anglaises et nord-américaines
2024
|
| Θέματα: | |
| Διαθέσιμο Online: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Περίληψη: | The resurgence of Romantic influences in British art, from the late 1930s through the 1940s, has often been understood as an escapist answer to the turmoils of the time, and a longing for a lost pastoral idyll. This essay, which focuses on the wartime production of John Piper and Paul Nash, argues that while Romantic associations were undeniable and painters harked back to the landscape aesthetics of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, such references were both self-conscious and critical. It suggests that just as they engaged in a dialogue with the traditions of the picturesque and the sublime, Piper and Nash underlined the impossibility of a return to these earlier strategies. Their awareness of an irreversible disjunction with the natural world meant that far from providing a reassuring refuge, their wartime landscapes and ruin paintings mostly made it apparent that the aestheticisation of devastation was in itself problematic, and that the artist had to confront the destructive impact of human action. |
|---|