On entering The Elements one must adopt a new mentality, an alternative way of seeing: the genius loci, the Romantic belief in the spirit or genius within a place. This impressive retrospective of eminent British landscape painter Paul Nash explores the artist’s curious relationship with nature, and the wide variety of artists that influenced him, from Giorgio de Chirico to Samuel Palmer - all the while tying each work to Nash’s life.

The exhibition includes a refreshing range of media: oils, watercolours, photographs, and lithographs. The curator has obtained impressive loans, including the seminal We are Making a New World from the Imperial War Museum.

Given the rich selection, the problematic layout is a great shame. In the hope of avoiding chronological constraints and in attempting to present Nash’s work in a ‘fresh’ manner, the curator has organised the exhibition thematically. Each theme illustrates a different treatment of these ‘elements’: ‘in conflict’, as a ‘path’, ‘as refuge’ and ‘in harmony’. Theoretically, this system seems convincing; in practice, the boundaries are superficial and arbitrary. One pities those that persevere in their attempts to decipher the explanatory wall panels for each room, which impose upon one convoluted and unnecessary concepts which ultimately detract from works that could speak for themselves.

But neither this nor the lengthy bus journey from central London should discourage a visit to this show; as the first significant exhibition of Nash’s work since 1975, it cannot be missed. One image, Totes Meer, in which mangled Luftwaffe planes morph into a sea lapping against a shore, seems emblematic of Nash’s ideas and the exhibition’s range. The painting portends Nash’s hatred of war and its manifestation in the form of landscape; furthermore it exemplifies Nash’s employment of diverse media in the process of artistic development.

Until May 9

PANDORA STINTON