Totes Meer

Some representatives of the Air Ministry disliked his style of art, and his full-time position was terminated before the end of the year.

The work was based on sketches and photographs made at the Metal and Produce Recovery Unit at Cowley near Oxford in August 1940, where the remains of both German and British crashed aircraft were brought to be recycled at the Morris Motors car factory nearby, which was being used to construct and repair aircraft.

Nash wrote that, under moonlight, the sea of wreckage could be perceived to move and twist, but in reality it was of course dead, and the only movement was the flight of a white owl, depicted near the horizon at the right.

The mournful tone may also have been influenced by his personal circumstances: an affair with painter Eileen Agar was coming to an end, and Nash was suffering from a respiratory illness which ultimately caused his death.

You might feel – under certain circumstances – a moonlight night, for instance, this is a vast tide moving across the fields, the breakers rearing up and crashing on the plain.