The Sermon on the Mount

Thomas Saunders Nash 1891 - 1968

Summary

A scene depicting Christ preaching the Sermon on the Mount, set in an English landscape. Christ stands to the right before a crowd of listeners, who are all wearing brightly coloured monochrome robes. Some are seated in rows at his feet, others are standing in groups behind. In the bottom foreground to left four women stand clasping their heads in their hands, to the right four more figures stand conversing. A small cottage is in the background to the left, and there are rolling hills in the distance. Thomas Nash trained at the Slade School of Art and won 'First Prize in Drawing and Painting from Life' in 1912. His talent for drawing was 'discovered' when he was in hospital recovering from a serious skating accident. His training at the Slade was paid for by a benefactor, Violet Eustace. Through most of his life, Nash supported himself through teaching and only painted actively during the period 1920-1940. A move to Yorkshire in 1930 with his second wife effectively cut him off from the artistic life of London and the artist friends of his Slade years. Nash's work consisted, in the main, of religious subjects and landscapes with figures. His enduring heroes were the Italian 'primitives', in particular Giotto, Lorenzetti and Fra Angelico.