A Painterly Vision

Home , Tonalism

Australian Financial Review Page 1 of 2 25-Aug-2011 Page: 42 Arts & Entertainment By: Doug Hall Market: Australia Circulation: 72734 Type: Australian National Size: 436.61 sq.cms Frequency: MTWTFS A painterlyvision Changing the lie of the land

Fred Williams has long been hailed as an original landscape painter; it's time we saw him as one of our greats, writes Doug Hall.

As you enter the retrospective Fred Williams: Infinite Horizons, at the National Gallery of Australia, there's a wall with five early '70s works by Arthur Boyd. Painted in London, Boyd's allegories are set in the Australian landscape, and are followed by Sidney Nolan's Ned Kelly series, the closest Australia has come to a great modern history painter. H The two mark the end of heroic rTIfT'J narrative painting in Australia. From then on, Australian artists Williams' Murray Pass, Erith Island 1974,from a private collection in Melbourne. began to look to the world; the younger to the United States, where becoming landscape painters. are now brilliantly self-evident. movements as diverse as pop, There's a Williams one-liner that After five years in London in conceptualism and so-called non- is often cited: that what he did shouldthe '50s, Williams returned to objective painting changed modern be seen in terms of paint; that his Melbourne, where his reputation as a art. Well into the new era, however, subjects allowed him to give landscape painter quickly gained the third of the big three, Albert expression to his interests as a momentum. The first galleries of the Tucker, continued to paint his painter. It's true. But equally, his exhibition feature a group of earthy, borderline cheesy nationalism: interest in landscape was the source close-toned works built up with oil explorers' heads attacked by parrots;of the unification of keen glazes, sometimes tempera ; trees, a clunky, Antipodean school of observation and distinctive painting.rocks and other elements are outlined Paris-cum-cubism. He knew art history: the work of in black and give form to a flat So what might we make of an his favourites Rembrandt, Corot, architectural landscape. Australian painter who emerged in Cezanne and Matisse each in his Among them is The HO' Round the late 1950s and whose interest wasown way provided enduring Pond 1959, an oddly prescient, in landscape? And, given Australia'sinspiration. He would take from near-abstract composition with no bourgeoning international outlook, them what he needed, but these horizon line. Vertical bands are trees, how did Fred Williams connect so influences were not stylistic props, and impasto accents foreshadow readily at home and yet come to be they were examples of a way through what was to become an enduring admired internationally (the Tate formal, painterly problems. characteristic, his now familiar and MOMA both hold his works)? Despite their seeming casualness, painterly abbreviations of How did his unique introspection his paintings are the result of landscape features. mark out a singular vision that forethought and understanding. As If we thought, as many did, that redefined our perception of our a student in Melbourne in the 1940s, landscape painting had run its own landscape? he took what he wanted from the course, Williams changed that Williams was a figurative painter warring camps Max Meldrum's perception. He saw the landscape as too; an exceptional one. But his doctrinaire theories on tonalism both an experience and an idea from interest in the landscape, (Williams is a great tonal painter); which modern art could be made. unencumbered by narrative the lessons learnt at the classes of Hillside 1963-64 is a divided to make modern art out of the modernism's champion, George Bell, canvas; the horizon is an arc; sky anonymous Australian bush, or and the National Gallery School above and, below, a painterly the vastness of smudgy, golden under arch-conservative William arrangement of summarised panoramasreceived both Dargie. The results of his observations from a specific critical acclaim and respect from independence of mind and refusal to Copyright Agency Ltd (CAL) licenced copy location. As with all Williams's Ref: 113273455 artists who had no interest in be lured into doctrinaire cul-de-sacs landscapes, perspective is irrelevant Australian Financial Review Page 2 of 2 25-Aug-2011 Page: 42 Arts & Entertainment By: Doug Hall Market: Australia Circulation: 72734 Type: Australian National Size: 436.61 sq.cms Frequency: MTWTFS the bush is scatty, vegetation is picturesque painting and desert The show doesn't include irregular high vantage points modernism seem, well, finished? Williams's superb printmaking; offer a vastness from which the In a painting such as Yellow that's another exhibition in isolation of a single depicted feature Landscape 1968-69, the canvas is development. If Williams never from the whole is impossible. glazed-stained and serves as a subtlepainted, his etchings alone would His view becomes a prompt for hisground for a simplified schema of secure his reputation as an original near-calligraphic touch; like Chinesemarks of gnarled vegetation which is,landscape artist. painting where Western perspective for Australians, unmistakably local. There's much more we need to is not a consideration, he invokes an When he paints en plein air know about Williams, especially overall quality where observation gouache on paper there is a sensehis work from the '50s. But for now, and painting itself fuse into his of light, atmosphere and features thatthis exhibition, 25 years after his emblematic realisation of the are topographically identifiable; butlast retrospective, confirms his place Australian landscape. it remains about paint. While the in the first rank of Australian His reputation could easily rest lush, painterly skies and clouds are painters. on the sparse, minimal works beautifully executed features, they Fred Williams: ktfinite Horizons, NGA, from the '60s and early '70s alone. are also part of a complete pictorial Canberra, August 12 to November 6; How can works so austere, so ensemble. When Williams returned National Gallery of Victoria, April 7 to all-encapsulating of both an idea to the studio and developed his site July 22, 2012; Art Gallery of SA, about painting and a view of the observations, the works are more August 31 to November 4, 2012. landscape make the tradition of considered: grander and sublime.