The Hidden Emotion Behind a Masterpiece of War01.02.2008 Paul Nash served as an official artist in the Second World War. His painting Totes Meer, German for ‘dead sea’, was inspired by a graveyard for wrecked aircraft at Cowley in Oxfordshire.  Journalist Simon Grant visits the site to explore the origins of this work and discovers that as well as being a compelling memorial to the ravages of war, it may symbolise a more personal history of lost love.