The Edge of the Orchard, Whiteleaf

One of Nash’s favourite strategies of pictorial construction was to frame a composition with the overhanging boughs of trees, as if the viewer was already inside the wood and looking further in (or out). This highly effective device for involving the viewer is used very successfully here, and we are drawn into the orchard with its underplanting and wild foliage, contained within a double fence of (probably chestnut) palings. The pronounced verticals of the trees and repeated fence posts is disordered and balanced by the lavish interlocking tree canopies, the horizontality of which is in turn echoed by the clumps of underplanting. A beautifully controlled yet immensely natural composition, full of energy and movement.

A.L.