The Ypres Salient at Night

The Ypres Salient at Night
ArtistPaul Nash
Year1918
MediumWatercolour
Dimensions714 mm × 920 mm (28.1 in × 36 in)[1]
LocationImperial War Museum, London

The Ypres Salient at Night is a 1918 watercolour by English artist Paul Nash, which was produced during World War I. It depicts a scene from the Western Front near Ypres in Belgium, and was developed from an eye-witness sketch which Nash drew whilst at the scene in 1917. The drawing is in the collection of the Imperial War Museum, in London.[1]

Artist

Born in Kensington, London, England, in 1889, Paul Nash served in the Artists Rifles following the outbreak of World War I.[2] He was subsequently commissioned as an officer in the Royal Hampshire Regiment.[3] He was sent to Flanders in February 1917, but was invalided back to London in May 1917, a few days before his unit was nearly obliterated at the Battle of Messines. Nash became an official war artist and returned to the Ypres Salient, where he was shocked by the devastation caused by war.[4] In six weeks on the Western Front, he completed what he called "fifty drawings of muddy places on the Front",[5][6] one of which was The Ypres Salient at Night.[7]

Painting

It was painted in Nash's capacity as an officially commissioned war officer. The salient vexed the British military, as they were averse to losing any ground in the area; Nash viewed the landscape as a "a monument to doggedness." The illumination depicted comes from exploding star shells. The painting was acquired by the Ministry of Information.[1][8]

References

  1. ^ a b c "The Ypres Salient at Night". Imperial War Museum. 2021. Retrieved 24 August 2021.
  2. ^ "The artists of the Artists Rifles". National Army Museum.
  3. ^ Paul Nash. "Correspondence to Paul Nash from Edward Burra and Alexander Calder".
  4. ^ Andrew Graham-Dixon (13–19 September 2014). "??". Radio Times.
  5. ^ Philip Pacey (1982). David Jones and Other Wonder Voyagers. Poetry Wales Press. p. 29. ISBN 9780907476146.
  6. ^ Peter Liddle (2017). Passchendaele in Perspective: The Third Battle of Ypres. Pen and Sword. p. 417. ISBN 9780850525885.
  7. ^ David Boyd Haycock (2002). Paul Nash. Harry N. Abrams. p. 30. ISBN 9781854374363.
  8. ^ "The Ypres Salient at Night". europeana.eu. Retrieved 24 August 2021.