With public art collections closed we are bringing the art to you, exploring highlights from across the country in partnership with Art UK. Today’s pick: Paul Nash’s Battle of Britain at the Imperial War Museum London
Paul Nash’s oil painting, completed in 1941, evokes the intense aerial campaign fought between Britain and Germany the previous summer in the Battle of Britain.
Nash described the work as “an attempt to give the sense of an aerial battle in operation over a wide area”. His work captures an overall impression of the three-month battle, rather than a single event. Nash conveys the scale and importance of the battle through the wide, empty landscape, the expanse of blue summer sky, the approaching formation of German aircraft and – in the distance, across the Channel – dark clouds gathering over Europe.
