Tate Modern Art Review 2- Paul Nash 'Landscape from a dream' (1936-8)

Surrealism (a cultural movement starting from the early 1920s) was formed through Dada’s protest against the middle class, the norm. Dada used performances, collages and anti- art to destroying the normal way of thinking, for example, vandalizing one of the most famous paintings in the world, ‘Mona Lisa’ by painting a beard on the Mona Lisa.

Nash puts forwards his views of surrealism in this attractive artwork by relating to ‘Freud’s theories of the power of dreams to reveal the unconscious’ which is also reflected within the title of the painting ‘Landscape from a dream’.

The unconscious is also our dream world as Nash is trying to demonstrate. One way to help understand Freud’s theory of the subconscious is through the image of an iceberg (from A levels)

From a human perspective above water, when we see an iceberg, it is large, we are conscious of this however as we cannot see the bottom of the iceberg, which shows that it is far larger that what we can consciously see, it represents our the unconscious mind and our repressed feelings (feelings which are pushed away that we don’t know about themselves and not admit)

The unconscious is also our dream world as Nash is trying to demonstrate.

Using a surrealist technique of ‘convulsing joining’ (two objects that do not fit), Nash has put together a landscape with a mirror and a falcon. From first sight the painting may not make sense; ‘In Surrealism, composition becomes a painted organization of free associated ideas, as in a dream where suggested meaning is more important’, however Nash’s painting has symbolic elements such as the sphere’s in the mirror represent the soul whilst the ‘Falcon represents the material world’. To add, Nash’s artwork tended to be notable for English landscapes, which is why this painting of ‘Landscape from a dream’ has an English coastline of Dorset (Swanage, Dorset is the location nearby where Nash lived).

In addition, as an artwork, I like the balance of colour’s used within the painting along with the tones of the sand and textures such as the cloud in the sky.

Sources

Primary Research
· Visiting the ‘Tate Modern’ and view the paintings first hand
· Lecture on Surrealism (Monday 16th February 2009)

Secondary Research
· http://www.tate.org.uk/magazine/issue6/nash.htm
· http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?workid=10544
· Referring back to my studies at A Level (Freud theory, iceberg example)
· ‘Learning to look at Modern Art’ ,2004, by Mary Action, Routledge, pg. 5