One of seven stamps celebrating British textiles, this one depicts a cherry orchard and was designed by Paul Nash. Nash was a painter who is best known for his landscapes, which often featured surreal landscapes drawn from images of war. He was an official war artist in the First World War but, like many of the poets of that time, there was no glorification of what he witnessed.
He painted a landscape called The Cherry Orchard in 1917; the painting is quite muted in its colours and shows lines of cherry trees, bare of leaves, behind a wire fence. The textile pattern was designed in 1931 and was more likely based on a book cover design Nash created for Richard Aldington’s Images of War; the design was said to replicate the shapes of shellfire in World War I.
Honestly, Nash’s artwork is incredibly evocative and well worth a look, if you don’t know it. Have a look at the WikiArt link below for over 130 images.
Stamp of the Day 