In 1932, Paul Nash wondered "whether it is possible to ‘go modern’ and still ‘be British.’" He wrote, "the battle lines have been drawn up: internationalism versus an indigenous culture; renovation versus conservatism; the industrial versus the pastoral; the functional versus the futile." Nash attempted to reconcile these binaries by developing a distinctively British form of surrealism in which mock monumental objects are set in the landscapes of southern England as if they were prehistoric megaliths. The objects stand out as gigantic, inexplicable presences and yet are deeply rooted in the landscape. Mineral Objects depicts pieces of bituminous shale (so-called coal money) from Kimmeridge, Dorset. The shale was worked to make jewelry and amulets in prehistoric and Roman times. When turned on a lath, the discarded pieces were usually left with a square hole. These objects are, Nash wrote, "dramatic . . . as symbols of their antiquity . . . hallowed remnants of an almost unknown civilization."
Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2020
Credit Line: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund