The War in Somerset

Tristram Paul Hillier 1905 - 1983

Summary

A precisely painted, slightly surreal landscape depicting the Somerset countryside during wartime. The bright green scene is viewed from a wide country road junction at which a soldier on a motorbike has stopped, a railway bridge behind him, and a road stretching away uphill to the left behind the railway embankment. Some form of army encampment is in the left foreground with tunnels covered in netting and a small white signpost reading '73'. There are hills in the background, with a row of trees and a windsock on the horizon, and a clear blue sky with six barrage balloons on the left. Hillier's career was interrupted by World War II and in 1940 he and his wife fled from France after the German invasion. From 1940 to 1944 Hillier served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and was invalided out in 1944 with the rank of lieutenant. This work is among the first he made when he started painting again in 1943, based in a cottage in Somerset. This is his only painting to directly reference the War, and its contrast of military activity and tranquil landscape appealed to Hillier's taste for unexpected juxtapositions and dreamlike strangeness.