Over the Top
John Nash, 1918
Image not available: work still under copyright
John Nash painted this 1918 oil on canvas in the early months of that year, after returning to England. It depicts a counter-attack on Welsh Ridge in northern France on 30 December 1917, during the First World War. Nash drew on his own experience with the 28th Battalion of the London Regiment, whose men climbed out of their trench to push toward Marcoing, near Cambrai. Of the 80 men in the unit, 68 were killed or wounded by shellfire within the first few minutes; Nash was one of the twelve who survived. The soldiers, wearing heavy winter greatcoats, scramble up from the trench into a snow-covered field. Two lie already on the duckboards at the bottom of the trench and another in the snow, while the rest move to the right without looking back. Dark, billowing clouds hang over them. The carefully balanced composition was prepared through two studies. The painting works both as testimony and as formal design: the rightward movement and the contrast between pale snow and a darkening sky give the scene a restrained tension that leans toward loss rather than heroic display.
- Painter
- John Nash
- Date
- 1918
- Medium
- oil paint, canvas
- Dimensions
- 80 × 108 cm
- Museum
- Imperial War Museum London, London Borough of Southwark