克里斯托弗•内夫（Christopher Neve）的经典著作是一次穿越英国风景画的想象力之旅。他所写的不完全是艺术史：它涉及图片，风景和思想。多年以来，他能够与他所关注的约三十位艺术家的许多位进行讨论，这本书的灵感就来自与本•尼科尔森的对话。他使自己沉浸在他们的作品，他们的乡村，他们的想法中。因为他自己就是画家，还是一位研究20世纪艺术的专家，所以Neve完全有能力进行这样的旅行。

十三章中的每一章都有一个主题，探讨了其对一个或多个艺术家的意义。例如，与保罗•纳什有关的时间问题，与大卫•琼斯有关的上帝，与伊冯•希钦斯有关的音乐，与爱德华•伯拉有关的歇斯底里，与本•尼科尔森有关的抽象，与“大众精神”有关的大卫•庞伯格。还有关于“画家对特定乡村类型的想法”的章节：埃里克•拉维鲁斯（Eric Ravilious）和粉笔风景画，琼•埃德利（Joan Eardley）和海洋，塞德里克•莫里斯（Cedric Morris）和花园。

Christopher Neve’s classic book is a journey into the imagination through the English landscape. How is it that artists, by thinking in paint, have come to regard the landscape as representing states of mind? ‘Painting’, says Neve, ‘is a process of finding out, and landscape can be its thesis.’ What he is writing is not precisely art history: it is about pictures, about landscape and about thought. Over the years, he was able to have discussions with many of the thirty or so artists he focuses on, the inspiration for the book having come from his talks with Ben Nicholson; and he has immersed himself in their work, their countryside, their ideas. Because he is a painter himself, and an expert on 20th-

century art, Neve is well equipped for such a journey. Few writers have conveyed more vividly the mixture of motives, emotions, unconscious forces and contradictions which culminate in the creative act of painting.

Each of the thirteen chapters has a theme and explores its significance for one or more of the artists. The problem of time, for instance, is considered in relation to Paul Nash, God in relation to David Jones, music to Ivon Hitchens, hysteria to Edward Burra, abstraction to Ben Nicholson, ‘the spirit in the mass’ to David Bomberg. There are also chapters about painters’ ideas on specific types of country: about Eric Ravilious and the chalk landscape, Joan Eardley and the sea, and Cedric Morris and the garden.