Maen Bras (big stone and rain)
John Piper, c. 1943

'I felt then that I was seeing the mountains for the first time and seeing them as nobody had seen them before. Each rock lying in the grass had a positive personality: for the first time I saw the bones and the structure and the lie of the mountains, living with them and climbing them as I was, lying on them in the sun and getting soaked with rain in their cloud cover and enclosed in their improbable, private rock-world in fog.' John Piper's 1943 stay in North Wales at the behest of the War Artists Advisory Committee led to one of his most productive periods, producing a series of great images of Snowdonia. Maen Bras – Big Stone and Rain – is one of the lighter works in the series, taking as its focus a large stone lit by the sun bursting through a gap in the clouds. Welsh stone is prominent across Wiltshire – not least among the standing stones at Stonehenge – making Maen Bras a charming and relevant addition to the Young Gallery collection.
More information
Title of artwork, date
Maen Bras (big stone and rain), c. 1943
Date supported
2014
Medium and material
Ink, watercolour and gouache
Dimensions
55.2 x 69.2 cm
Grant
14472
Total cost
26800
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