The Corner, created after Nash’s return from the front, is the image of an enclosed gate. The uncertain boundary hints at the lingering psychological impact of war on the artist’s understanding of landscape. Though on the surface these quiet watercolours appear far removed from the boom of the battlefield, Nash’s experience of war would markedly alter his engagement with landscape as subject matter, which took on an increasingly mystical, symbolic quality as his career progressed.

David Jones’ July Change depicts Eric Gill’s farmhouse in Piggots, Buckinghamshire, on the cusp of one of the Jones’ most fruitful periods of production. This productivity was partly unlocked by his development of a distinctive style of watercolour application through studying the hilly landscapes surrounding Gill’s community at Capel-y-Ffin, Powys. The Roman Catholic theology of Gill’s community combined with Jones’ own fascination with mythology and his experiences in the trenches led him to see all landscapes as sites layered with cultural memory and symbolism; a garden path had the potential to recall all homecomings from across history, be they literary, real, or spiritual.

Two further works reveal the potential for landscape imagery to blend into abstraction: Peter Lanyon’s Sharp Grass (1964) and Rachel Howard’s You Can Save Me (2015).In both these works, abstracted landscapes reveal the fine line between the experience of the external world and psychological state. Sharp Grass is one of Lanyon’s later works produced after he took up gliding, conveying the vertigo and exhilaration of seeing the world from above. Gouache and charcoal form rapid, cutting gestures that evoke blades of grass caught in shifting winds. The landscape seems to be in motion, conveying to the viewer the thrill and anxiety of being in flight.

You Can Save Me returns us to earth with a much stiller abstracted setting, featuring an ambiguous horizon that suggests a boundary between water and sky. Transforming landscape into a psychological space of uncertainty, longing, and tentative orientation. The title introduces an open-ended call: a plea, a question, or a demand, which transforms the landscape into a space of relational and psychological significance. Coastal horizons are a recurrent feature of Howard’s work, suggesting how the same landscape can fluctuate in tune with our internal, mental landscapes, whilst remaining a reassuring anchor.