Romani, Mount Royston in background

Lambert was fascinated with the desert; its changing patterns and sharp contrasts. He advised other artists; 'Leave your pigments at home. Approach nature with a simple palette but an extravagant love of form. The sand hills take on shapes & curves, cuts, concave, convex in an entrancing pattern interwoven here rhythmically there jagged and eccentrically opposed.' Although the heat and sand obliterated much, at Romani, the graves of soldiers remained as visible evidence of the war. Lambert wrote '...we visited the battle-grounds of Romani. The sand is a great cleanser, the sun burns up what the incinerator leaves, small bushes, green in spring, brown lavender, grey in summer, are dotted over the dunes in a fascinating pattern like unto currants in plum duff...'. Here two paintings were made and the ground studied.