Nature Imitating Art (MUSIC PLAYS)
VIRGINIA MOSK: Hello, everyone! We are here today to bring you a Coastcare, Summer by the Sea program. It’s a MESAC art trail podcast.
WOMAN: Each year during the January school holidays, Coastcare Victoria in partnerships with Parks Victoria coordinates the delivery of hundreds of free Summer by the Sea activities along the coastline.
Victoria's precious coastal and marine environments support a wide variety of species and habitats. Summer by the Sea activities give you a chance to find out more about these remarkable places. And to learn about some of the challenges facing our marine and coastal environments. There is something for everyone including people with a disability. Please enjoy it with us.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Just introducing MESAC. It stands for Marine Science Education and Community. It's an independent not for profit organisation, committed to marine science, education and communication. We provide leadership in marine science and community collaboration that cultivates passion, accelerates understanding and care of our precious marine environments. By sharing knowledge through publications and resources, print, digital and video via our website, social media, various campaigns and awareness raising events and activities for local and broader communities.
MESAC is based in Bayside, hosting a diversity of habitats and ecosystems. It includes rocky sandstone, intertidal and sub tidal reefs, sandy beaches, seagrass beds, an extraordinary geological heritage. Both sedimentary rocks and fossils, dating back some 6 million years. It's home to diverse native flora and fauna and provides roosting and feeding areas for migratory and threatened bird life.
My name is Virginia Mosk, and I'm the secretary of MESAC. And today I have with me Toni Roberts, who is a local artist and designer. Hi, Toni.
TONI ROBERTS: Hi, Virginia.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And Betty Knight who has lived in this area all her life and is a local painter and sculptor. Hi, Betty.
BETTY KNIGHT: Hi, Virginia.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Now Coastcare Summer by the Sea recommends that you take these precautions if you're coming
Nature Imitating Art and doing the art trail yourselves. So bring a hat for the sun or an umbrella for the rain. Water bottle, sunscreen, insect repellent if you need it, sturdy shoes and your Bayside parking sticker if you have one, and now Toni would like to do the Acknowledgement of Country.
TONI ROBERTS: Yes. We are so privileged to enjoy the rich marine and terrestrial environments that have been protected by many generations of Traditional Custodianship. We recognise the deep knowledge of natural systems and seasons have enabled them to nurture this environment for many generations. We respectfully acknowledge their Elders, past, present and emerging.
We also recognise the Traditional Custodians of the lands and waters across Australia and the world. We pledge to care for and protect the delicate and diverse life of our precious marine and coastal environments.
VIRGINIA MOSK: So please come with us as we travel. From the beginning of the art trail, it goes from Elwood to Mentone. But today we're going to just discuss a few works from the art trail, Indigenous trail and a few other things along the way.
So as you travel this trail you take in spectacular views of key places that many of us have enjoyed before. And even before Port Phillip Bay was formed. The Bayside Council website has an app that you can use and follow. However, today we're offering a relaxed chat about the trail and the artwork.
(MUSIC PLAYS)
BETTY KNIGHT: Hello, I'm Betty, we could start with the Rakali. It's just a beautiful little creature. It's ours. It’s local otter you could say, not really a rat, it's called a water rat. But the Rakali is its own self, it swims in the water, the beaches along here looking for food, crustaceans and little fish etc. And you can actually see it if you go to the Brighton pier and walk a little bit along there. You can look down and see them diving and surfacing. Leaping around looking for food. It's just a lovely sight.
TONI ROBERTS: And you were saying Betty you'd love to make a sculpture of Rakali.
BETTY KNIGHT: That’s for the future. I hope I can do that.
(LAUGHTER)
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
VIRGINIA MOSK: They’re beautifully adapted to the marine and water environment whether it's saltwater or freshwater. They have a beautiful thick coat that's waterproof, long tail, the white tip at the end of the tail which differentiates them and beautiful webbed feet for swimming. And they are a protected species.
TONI ROBERTS: So all of the Aboriginal works along the trail are based on stories recorded by Boon wurrung Elder Carolyn Briggs, and this one is the Barraimal (Emu) and Constellation sculpture by Glenn Romanis.
BETTY KNIGHT: It's a beautiful mosaic of different rocks, all beautifully inlaid, and it tells the story. It shows the picture of the emu, which is the male emu sitting on the eggs. The male actually rather than the female sits on the eggs and hatches the young. And this is all shown as well.
In this story, the ancient story of the Aborigines is also told in the stars so the constellation depicts Barraimal the emu as a constellation and how it is seen using the constellations of the Southern Cross, the Pointer, scout Scorpio, Sagittarius, and using the dark shadows under the Milky Way to create its head, neck and back. Scorpio’s shapes the body and Sagittarius the nest eggs. So the Aborigines always had a connection with the stars to tell their stories on earth, felt that the earth and stars were fully connected.
TONI ROBERTS: And what I love about this is it it's made from the material of the earth isn't it, made from stone and also the way he's differentiated the smooth, polished stone that represents the eggs and the stars compared to the rougher sort of earth-like stone of the rest of the sculpture. It's very effective.
WOMAN: Beautiful.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And the next one we came upon is the ‘Journey of the Eel’ by Dr Vicki Couzens.
TONI ROBERTS: This is an etching on paper of yams and eels. Because we're all environmentalists not just art lovers. So of course we're fascinated by the journey of the eel. Eels make incredible journeys at different phases of their life. Here the eels, female eels were caught in long woven traps as they swam down the rivers and creeks.
BETTY KNIGHT: There's also a story of the Aborigines farming the eels. And, you know, mapping little ponds to bring up the young ones and so on. But it was always a sign of prosperity, if there were lots of eels coming
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art back down the rivers and so on to spawn.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And they came in the arrival it indicated the arrival of (UNKNOWN), which is spring, and they began their returning from their very long journey. And I've been told also that it corresponds with the Aboriginal festivals that they had in Mordialloc Creek. And they would bring… Different tribes would come from all over the, well, this area, and then they would exchange young women for, that they would find their future partners. So this is how they got to marry and then they would go follow their husband’s tribe.
TONI ROBERTS: During a time of feasting and plenty of eels.
(LAUGHTER)
BETTY KNIGHT: Eels were a very important part of their food source.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And I love them.
So we’re at stop 2 which is Green Point in Brighton, near the ANZAC War Memorial. When you come to the car park if you go to the left hand side, you'll see these beautiful paintings displayed.
TONI ROBERTS: And the first one we're going to look at is ‘Brighton Beach’ by Henry Burn in 1862.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Henry came from Birmingham in England in 1807.
TONI ROBERTS: He studied at the Royal Glasgow Institute of Fine Arts.
So this painting by Henry Burn of Brighton Beach in 1862 really captures this view just almost as it is today. Isn't it, Betty? It’s beautiful. (CROSSTALK).
BETTY KNIGHT: Today, we're here and it's breezy but it's just such a beautiful view, people on the beach in the sand. And this is depicted in Henry Burn’s picture here beautifully. Here, I’m a bit afraid that the condition of the pictures deteriorated and lost some of the blues in the sky in the grass. But it's got all the details and we can see that things haven't changed that much in the last 100 years. Well, slightly.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
TONI ROBERTS: 150 almost. Yeah, the pier is gone but yeah, quite a similar view down the coast.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Yeah. And the hotel is still there, which is in the picture. Yes. But interestingly, the colours are very yellow and brown, and looks quite windswept, like almost a summer.
TONI ROBERTS: A really hot sort of blazing summer day.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Yep. That's how it looks to me.
BETTY KNIGHT: With the wind in the sail. It's blowing the sail.
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah. And Henry Burn came to Australia in search of gold but captured a city on the rise through his topographical paintings of Melbourne. So his paintings and lithographs of early Melbourne and the neighbourhood now provide valuable evidence of the local scene at that time.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And you can also see in the painting how the women are dressed, with the beautiful long dresses and their bonnets and so on.
BETTY KNIGHT: The fashion of the day. Yes, that they were not allowed to walk down naked or half-naked to the beach, (LAUGHTER) there had to be fully-clothed, neck to knee.
TONI ROBERTS: And although it's not visible in this painting, the bathing boxes were actually already here in 1860, as the suburb sprawled down the coastline, and they started popping up along the beaches to allow for modest changing. Yes, unlike what we do now, under a towel, kind of wrangle your gear off. Changing on the beach was not permitted.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Yes. So, one solution was to have a private bathing box.
BETTY KNIGHT: Here we are, at John Mather. It's a picture of Brighton Beach. It's a beautiful sun-drenched picture which was rarely shown in earlier paintings by the earlier artists who had learnt in England, under
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art the English light, learning the Australian lighting took a while. But there's still the people, a woman and her two children, fully-clothed, in the old fashion.
TONI ROBERTS: So yeah, we have a difference of opinion on people in the paintings. So Betty, what's...?
BETTY KNIGHT: Yes, this was painted in 1898 and back the Impressionists, and before that, the older painters always depicted people in their pictures they painted. It was…seemed to be one of the done things, you always put a person in, which would, of course, bring humanity into that picture and make you feel you could be part of it.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And that Australia is not so remote and is isolated.
TONI ROBERTS: But I differ, I prefer no people in the painting. I just want to look at nature, unspoiled. And also the people really date the painting. I mean, you look at the beautiful depiction of the tea-tree there. And that's as contemporary as can be really, but the people really set it in its period, which is not a bad thing. But I do just love looking at nature.
BETTY KNIGHT: The contrast of the yellow grasses with beautiful blue water. It's a lovely picture. And I'm just wondering where the original is. Anyway…
VIRGINIA MOSK: Not sure. It talks about banned rotunda kiosks and public conveniences all by 1900. But then can you see those buildings in the background, is that smoke going up as well? Would that be industry there, do you think?
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah, possibly.
BETTY KNIGHT: Yes, probably… There could have been the port there already started.
TONI ROBERTS: It says it’s part of a private collection, this works. So one of the things that was interesting about Mather was that he was partly responsible for the decoration of the dome of the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne as well.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
VIRGINIA MOSK: Which is quite unique.
TONI ROBERTS: And he was also involved in the bohemian artists’ camps of Sydney. And in 1912 along with McCubbin, Meldrum and Withers, Mather formed the breakaway Australian Art Association. And you're going to hear some of those names mentioned again. McCubbin, Meldrum. They've been key influences in the Australian art scene.
VIRGINIA MOSK: I did my VCE exams in the Royal Exhibition Buildings. Cold, draughty, echoey, thousands of students. All the desks wobbled. It was just horrendous, but I passed! (LAUGHS) Got into Melbourne Uni.
TONI ROBERTS: And then while we are here, we just wanted to say a bit about the coastal tea tree because we all love the coastal tea tree, that was has been largely stripped from the foreshores around here. And it's a small tree but it's very evocative of the coast, it's kind of got this gnarled, windswept form and...
VIRGINIA MOSK: Takes forever to grow in the sandy soil. There’s no nutrition.
TONI ROBERTS: And then when they die, they leave this beautiful textured trunks and branches behind.
BETTY KNIGHT: Very arty.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Leptospermum laevigatum , and they have beautiful little, white flowers with five petals.
BETTY KNIGHT: And when it's in bloom, that's when the snapper are biting.
TONI ROBERTS:
Oh, them as well as the wattle?
VIRGINIA MOSK: Is it the wattle?
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
BETTY KNIGHT: Oh, the wattle as well.
TONI ROBERTS: Could be both.
BETTY KNIGHT:
I was always told (UNKNOWN)… the tea tree.
TONI ROBERTS: The end.
(BACKGROUND CHATTER)
VIRGINIA MOSK: Now we're at stop three - the Sandringham rotunda. And here we have Toni.
TONI ROBERTS: Girolamo Nerli and his painting of the beach at Sandringham, which was done around 1901 to 1903. He was known as Senor Nerli. And he was an Italian painter who worked and travelled in Australia and New Zealand in the late 19th century.
He influenced people like Charles Conder and Frances Hodgkins and is credited with encouraging local artists to work more spontaneously and abandon the academic finish in their paintings. He's also known for influencing their artistic lifestyle, not just the expression in their painting.
BETTY KNIGHT: Gave it a bit of Italian touch. (LAUGHS)
VIRGINIA MOSK: And I really love this painting. It's got a lot of wild aspects and that darkness in the background and the clouds look extremely wild, like there's going to be a storm coming over.
TONI ROBERTS: So we have a woman with a parasol, looking very stylish.
BETTY KNIGHT: With plenty of people in the picture. The waves and the water, it's just beautiful. You really feel you’re there. And I really think the people in the picture give you a feeling of being there. You can sort of think that you are one of them and be part of it.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And there are waves there so it must have been quite a lively sort of day.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
(CROSSTALK)
TONI ROBERTS: And next to Nerli, we have Clarice Beckett.
BETTY KNIGHT: And there’s Clarice Beckett Lane just in Black Rock.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Ah, yes, there is too.
BETTY KNIGHT: With Clarice Beckett, she had a hard life. She tried to paint. She tried to paint as often as she could, and her only chances were usually in the morning and the evening. The rest of the time, she had to look after her parents. But one evening, a storm came in while she was painting and she got pneumonia. And it was only a little while after that that she died. So I don't know what happened to her parents after that, but apparently her father was quite a grumpy thing.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Oh, and she died at quite a young age, Betty, only 48 at Sandringham hospital. She’s buried at Cheltenham Memorial Park.
BETTY KNIGHT: Painting is done in 1933, which is quite recent compared with the Impressionists that we've been looking at earlier.
VIRGINIA MOSK: More Art Deco period, as far as architecture goes…?
BETTY KNIGHT: Well, it's a more modern kind of Impressionism, isn’t it? She was really a law unto herself. She did what she wanted so she’s a bit different to everybody. She’s a combination of everything.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And she was the favourite pupil of Max Meldrum.
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah. So most of her paintings are done at dawn and dusk. So they're very sombre, whereas you can tell that this one was painted in full sunlight, so must have been done later in her life after her parents died and she was...
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
BETTY KNIGHT: She died before they did.
TONI ROBERTS: Oh, really?
VIRGINIA MOSK: But it’s an amazing painting. I love the colours.
BETTY KNIGHT: So she must have had a chance to get out and paint in daylight at one stage.
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah. So there's certainly more rare, the ones that are done during the day.
BETTY KNIGHT: They’re mostly with that misty, sombre, dark…
VIRGINIA MOSK: And gorgeous coloured beach boxes that may not be here anymore, I think.
WOMEN: Yes.
BETTY KNIGHT: A bit of tea tree.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Fantastic.
BETTY KNIGHT: And the next one is William Dunn Knox. You want to start?
TONI ROBERTS: So this one's called ‘At the Beach’. And it does reflect scenes that you know look very similar today.
He was an Adelaide artist who trained at the National Gallery Victoria school, and I think his authenticity with Australian light and colour is quite evident here. So a lot of pinks and blues. I think he catches Red Bluff beautifully, and yeah, the sort of Australian light.
BETTY KNIGHT: Well, he was painting more the early part of this last century, so about 100 years ago, you could say,
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art so he was a little bit more modern than the original first impressionists.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And more crisp and sparkling compared to Nerli and the other European painters.
(MUSIC PLAYS)
So here is our next stop number four, which is at car park B12, still in Sandringham. And they're opposite some modern townhouses for you to find.
TONI ROBERTS: Our first piece is Bullarto N’yoweenth (Plenty of Sun) again by Dr Vicky Couzens, and it's an etching on paper. So in the area we now call Bayside, the area around Ricketts Point in particular was quite a gathering place, especially for the women and sometimes their visiting neighbours, the Woi Wurrung. Today, the remains of their activities can be seen in the middens left behind, a record of thousands of years of annual visits to this area.
VIRGINIA MOSK: So a midden is layers of shellfish that have been eaten and where they've been discarded around there. Yep, around the corroborees and fires and so on.
TONI ROBERTS: And then next to this is a painting called ‘Beach Scene’ by Jesse Traill. We do want…We're particularly interested to highlight the women artists of the time, because some of them…well, they were excluded from a number of painting events and activities and often had limited time available to paint.
VIRGINIA MOSK: They couldn't stay overnight like the lads could and camp on the beach and things like that.
Traill was a remarkable and passionate artist who etched drew and painted the world around her. She worked in England, France, prior to World War I, and during the World War I war, she served in hospitals with a voluntary aid detachment.
TONI ROBERTS: And she studied under John Mather whose painting we saw just a minute ago and...
BETTY KNIGHT: And later Fred McCubbin at the National Gallery - Fred McCubbin was teaching there for quite a while. Her fellow students were mostly women including Hilda Rix Nicholas, Nora Gurdon, Ruth Sutherland, Dora Wilson and Vida Lahey. And she did most beautiful paintings of people and
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art scenery. She was a beautiful painter. That was round about the late 1800s.
TONI ROBERTS: And she's best known for a series of prints, created in the early 1930s, depicting the construction of Sydney Harbour Bridge with critic and art historian Sasha Grishin describing her as one of the great Australian artists of the 20th century.
VIRGINIA MOSK: It's quite a dark painting, this particular one, though, I think you like the dark ones, don't you, Toni?
TONI ROBERTS: Yes, I do like the dark ones.
(LAUGHTER)
VIRGINIA MOSK: Maybe it's… (CROSSTALK).
BETTY KNIGHT: Lots of people in it, and the old dress.
VIRGINIA MOSK: The kiddies doing rock pool rambles.
TONI ROBERTS: And this is part of the Bayside City Council collection. So it'd be interesting, there might be somewhere where you can actually go and see it. It might be in the town hall or something.
VIRGINIA MOSK: That’d be amazing.
BETTY KNIGHT: That'd be good.
VIRGINIA MOSK: So we'll have to seek that out, girls.
TONI ROBERTS: And just to our left is a collection of small signs that we'll have a look at.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
BETTY KNIGHT: We'll just walk over to them. Yes. And it's in amongst all the Weeping sheoaks. And the pig face.
TONI ROBERTS: The succulent pig face.
OK, so we get to Anne Montgomery's ‘Storm Clouds Over Half Moon Bay’, and this is my favourite.
BETTY KNIGHT: Yes, she's a much more modern artist. It was painted around 1958…1953. And she's put wonderful colours in and showing the storm coming and the boats, the waves, the buildings.
VIRGINIA MOSK: The bathing boxes there, extensive sea wall constructions - now that stretch from Black Rock through to Beaumaris. It’s a legacy of this period.
BETTY KNIGHT: So we could have a look at only 70 years ago almost. And we could see how much the coastline has changed in her time since she did that.
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah, I love the sort of big blocks of colour rather than the little dabs of, you know, painterly kind of fussiness. I think that's what I like, these kind of big sweeps of colour.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Is this called a different… is this still Expressionist? Or would you call it something else?
TONI ROBERTS: You always ask us the difficult questions, Virginia. (LAUGHTER) It's a modern Impressionism.
BETTY KNIGHT: And now over here, Tudor St George Tucker.
VIRGINIA MOSK: I do love this one too. Again, the tea-tree.
TONI ROBERTS: I love this one too. And the pinky colour in the foreground sort of gives it a warmth. The beautiful contrast with the blue sea.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
BETTY KNIGHT: And the tea trees with a withered, blown look. Just typical of the scenery.
TONI ROBERTS: We wonder whether perhaps he was particularly good at capturing this area because he lived in Brighton for a while, particularly during the 1980s, before the tea-trees had been cleared along here.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And he studied at the National Gallery School in Melbourne. And then a period of study in Paris that really formed his style.
BETTY KNIGHT: But he gets the light and shade so beautifully in the colour contrasts.
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah, looks cool and inviting under those tea trees, doesn’t it?
VIRGINIA MOSK: On a day like today.
BETTY KNIGHT: So where’s the collection? Kerry Stokes Collection, Perth.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Ah, OK. Kerry Stokes has got it.
And he was a rather sickly child?
TONI ROBERTS: Which influenced how much he was able to paint. And he was a bit more admired by other artists than by the public. But we’re admiring him now.
BETTY KNIGHT: He has no people in the painting.
TONI ROBERTS: That's why I love it.
(LAUGHTER)
OK, the end!
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
(LAUGHTER)
VIRGINIA MOSK: Now we're at stop number five, it’s Half Moon Bay Beach car park. It's actually off Red Bluff Street, but it's a bit dangerous to cross the road. So perhaps if you walk down from the Half Moon Bay car park that might be best.
(BACKGROUND CHATTER)
And we have two Boyds. We have Arthur Merric Boyd.
TONI ROBERTS: Also known as Arthur Boyd Senior, who was from New Zealand. And his works been associated with the Impressionism of the Heidelberg School, although they came later. And next to the Arthur Boyd, oh, no, well, the Arthur Boyd is about a picture of Red Bluff. And he captures that rather beautifully if not in more yellowy tones than are obvious today, as we look out towards Red Bluff and the Cerberus.
VIRGINIA MOSK: So, he painted it around 1923. And...
BETTY KNIGHT: Yes, the two, both of them must have painted this at a similar time, the same scene, and they’re both very similar in view, aren't they? (BACKGROUND NOISE) (INAUDIBLE)…and sorta technique. Quite similar.
VIRGINIA MOSK: But if you look towards the Red Bluff, you can see it's almost identical. But you don't have the yacht club, Sandringham Yacht Club behind it, just gives you a beautiful indication of what it looked like.
BETTY KNIGHT: Obviously before that was built. Yes.
TONI ROBERTS: So the painting next to Arthur Boyd is by Emma Minnie Boyd, known by most people as Minnie, and she and Arthur married and really began the Boyd dynasty that produced painters, writers and architects.
BETTY KNIGHT: Four generations so far, or five, is it? Yes, Minnie was a Beckett, and she was quite well off. And her mother I think had inherited a lot of money. And so she was able to keep them in the manner to
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art which they like to be accustomed. And she was able to have a nanny and a nurse, you know, and a housekeeper and so on. So she could go out painting but she was a beautiful painter. She was really top notch. She was just…exquisite paintings but, yes, her watercolours are really lovely and so her oils.
VIRGINIA MOSK: So Minnie and her husband…?
BETTY KNIGHT: They started up the whole dynasty.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Yep, they did and created a liberal and tolerant atmosphere for their five children.
TONI ROBERTS: And they had a joint show at Como House in 1902, where over 100 pounds worth of her artworks were sold. And commissions were given for further copies of work sold. So she was recognised in her time.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Yeah, that's a lot of money back then.
TONI ROBERTS: And she died at Sandringham in 1936.
(MUSIC PLAYS)
VIRGINIA MOSK: Now we're between stop five and six, at Half Moon Bay, we're overlooking the Cerberus. We're at the Bunjil’s Eggs.
TONI ROBERTS: This is another piece by Glenn Romanis with the beautiful inlaid stone, and then it features three- dimensional egg-shaped forms representing Bunjil.
BETTY KNIGHT: Six of them.
TONI ROBERTS: Yes, six of them, six eggs representing the six clans of people who would gather here.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
Bunjil is a created deity, a cultural hero, an ancestral being, often depicted as a wedge-tailed eagle. And this sculpture is like the others, inspired by Boon wurrung Elder Carolyn N’arweet Briggs's story. This story being named ‘The Time of Chaos’.
VIRGINIA MOSK: So, the big sea ancient Yarra River, where it originally flowed 10,000 years ago before Port Phillip Bay was actually formed. And at that time, Port Phillip Bay was a terrestrial plane, inhabited by a number of clans and many, many animals.
TONI ROBERTS: So it's amazing if you think about standing at this point, where we're overlooking… We're really on top of Red Bluff, overlooking the bay. And can you just imagine looking out there and there's no water? There are grassy plains where people live and hunt and gather - quite, quite different from the sign we...from the view we see today.
BETTY KNIGHT: And you can see the Yarra wandering through the land before the water came. And the Bunjil eggs are representing the clans that lived along the river before it was flooded.
TONI ROBERTS: And as Carolyn Briggs says, “this land will always be protected by the creator Bunjil, who travels as an eagle.”
And Glenn Romanis, as an artist, has a number of over 100 large-scale public and community art projects. And his work always seeks to reveal the relationship between storytelling and the environment and to connect people with natural and cultural histories so that they may gain respect, understanding, and hopefully, a sense of belonging - which I think his work achieves.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Oh, absolutely. It’s beautiful work.
BETTY KNIGHT: It’s lovely. It’s sort of teaching us the history of the ancient history of the land. And we can sort of feel part of it as well.
TONI ROBERTS: And because it's embedded in the landscape - it's here - you know, you really feel like it's part of the place.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Yeah. OK. Now we're walking to the next stop, which is stop six.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
TONI ROBERTS: And the water just looks perfect today.
VIRGINIA MOSK: It's sparkling, and I think we should go in for a swim after this girls.
BETTY KNIGHT:
And look down on the yacht club and the...
VIRGINIA MOSK: Cerberus, maybe, grab some fish and chips.
TONI ROBERTS: Oh, you got to stop thinking of food, girl!
(LAUGHTER)
Oh, we're just going past the... oh, it's a backgammon set.
BETTY KNIGHT: Oh my goodness.
TONI ROBERTS: So, back in Sandringham. There's a poetry suitcase on a table that's chained to the table and you can sit there and write your own poetry and stuff it in the suitcase. But this is like a communal backgammon set. Or perhaps someone's just left it behind.
BETTY KNIGHT: Yeah, there's a saltbush, you can eat the leaves there.
TONI ROBERTS: Let's have a little munch as we go past.
BETTY KNIGHT: Well, I had some with my lunch.
WOMAN: Did you?
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
BETTY KNIGHT: Well, I've got one growing in the garden, and I just toss in.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Now off the path, we just turned to the right, and there's a little alcove here with some table and chairs, and some more lovely paintings.
TONI ROBERTS: OK, so we have two paintings here on the trail to have a look at. One is by Tom Humphrey of Half Moon Bay. Humphrey often joined the Impressionist painters McCubbin, Mather, and John Ford Patterson on their painting expeditions. And we haven't really talked about the painting en plein air yet, so we'll chat about that in a minute.
He painted mainly around the Bayside beaches in his later years. He was a Scottish-born artist and photographer, and he won praise for his work from his contemporaries, even though he wasn't quite as prolific or as well-known as some of the other members of the Heidelberg School.
VIRGINIA MOSK: So Tom Roberts, Fred McCubbin, John Mather, and he established the Box Hill artist camp, devoting themselves to painting the Australian Bush en plein air, using Impressionist techniques.
TONI ROBERTS: So Tom Roberts wrote that Humphrey expressed in his works the intimate and tender spirit of the Bush in its quiet moods.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And despite his health problems, he looked forward to the time of leisure for uninterrupted conversing with nature. How beautiful.
TONI ROBERTS: So they had a lot of these camps. They'd go on an artist camp and they'd sit around the campfire and smoke a pipe and sing some songs. They were really right into the whole Aussie kind of expedition. But doing it to paint, which is kind of almost at odds with contemporary ideas of what it is to go camping, I think.
VIRGINIA MOSK: I think we should resurrect it. I think it's a beautiful idea.
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah, well, Betty certainly paints en plein air, but do you go on camps and sit around the campfire and...?
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
BETTY KNIGHT: No, but we go out. Like tomorrow morning, we'll probably go out for the morning. And then we'll go and eat lunch together and show our paintings to each other and discuss that.
TONI ROBERTS: Lovely.
BETTY KNIGHT: Yes. So we do that every Tuesday morning.
So this one, does it represent this scene here looking over at the yacht club, but before it was all built?
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah. It must have been a natural sort of promontory before it was all concreted.
BETTY KNIGHT: I think that shows it. Yes. And next we've got Charles Aloysius Wilson and he did those Red Bluff cliffs so well, really the colours come out beautifully, the light on them. And he must have done them in the afternoon with the sun shining straight on them.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Exactly.
TONI ROBERTS: You can tell that it's eroded a lot more than when he painted this. It's much smoother now.
VIRGINIA MOSK: So it's a watercolour?
BETTY KNIGHT: It's very similar scenes.
TONI ROBERTS: It's very vibrant for a watercolour.
VIRGINIA MOSK: It’s really vibrant. Surprising.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
BETTY KNIGHT: He’s used some good, earthy colours and contrasting with the beautiful blue water.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Yep. And notwithstanding the dignity of this description, local children used to slide down the face of the Bluff on sheets of corrugated iron, a dangerous ride that ended up with a free-fall drop over three metres.
(LAUGHTER)
WOMAN: (INAUDIBLE). I don’t think that can happen anymore. Well, you never know.
VIRGINIA MOSK: So, we are at stop number six now opposite the Black Rock shops, in the little car park here, on the beach next to the children's playground, and our first painting is called ‘Fishing Nets’ by Frank Latimer, an oil on canvas and date unknown.
BETTY KNIGHT: But he was late 19th century, wasn't he? Or was he early this century?
TONI ROBERTS: He was born in 1886.
BETTY KNIGHT: So he was early this century that he was painting but he was unusual... (CROSSTALK)
VIRGINIA MOSK: Which century are we in now, Betty?
(LAUGHTER)
BETTY KNIGHT: Oh, sorry.
WOMAN: Don't worry, I do that too.
BETTY KNIGHT: Last 20th century, I still feel as though I'm part of that.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
VIRGINIA MOSK: Exactly. The young crowd.
BETTY KNIGHT: But apparently, it was unusual for, you know, this sort of painting of fishing nets down here, but very reminiscent of Europe.
TONI ROBERTS: Yes. It makes me think of Europe and, you know, like the working coastline of ships and fishing and industry. Whereas certainly, among this collection, this is unique, you know, the ones that we've looked at today.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Yeah.
TONI ROBERTS: And again, I like the lack of detail, the sort of broad sweeps of colour, and not too many people.
(LAUGHTER)
BETTY KNIGHT: Gives you a lovely, spacious feeling. Big sky. Big water.
VIRGINIA MOSK: If there were dogs in the painting, would you be happy or…?
TONI ROBERTS: Oh, no.
VIRGINIA MOSK: No dogs either.
TONI ROBERTS: No dogs either.
(LAUGHTER)
The next one we're going to talk about is by Jessie Evans, another woman artist, and it's called ‘Banksia Point Beaumaris’. It really shows her as being among the kind of Heidelberg School, so to speak, the Australian Impressionists.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
And she lived with her family for more than 50 years at Clifton in Brighton. But she was never allowed to work or sell her art because her father thought it reflected very badly on him and on the family standing. So for her to sell her work would have implied that he couldn't provide for his family.
WOMAN: He didn't support her. Isn’t that sad?
VIRGINIA MOSK: And throughout her adult life, Jessie's career was simply listed as home duties. I'm glad things have changed.
BETTY KNIGHT: But she loved to paint the coastline with the foreshore…
VIRGINIA MOSK: And it's a beautiful painting. It's really very representative…
BETTY KNIGHT: And it's a really lovely one.
VIRGINIA MOSK: …of Rickett’s Point.
BETTY KNIGHT: So its glad that she's now recognised.
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah, I love the sky. And I do often think, too, of people who've been brought up with European education, you know, painting education, looking at European masters, how difficult it must be to adjust to the Australian landscape, and then, you know, there were no big green rolling hills in any of these images.
BETTY KNIGHT: No manicured gardens.
TONI ROBERTS: No manicured...Yeah, that's right. It's all a little bit scrappy. (CROSSTALK) And you have to capture the beauty of that, which I think this does.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
And next to that is another one that I particularly like by George Bell.
BETTY KNIGHT: It's not one that I'm fussed about, (LAUGHTER) but he followed form rather than colour, didn’t he, and light. You talk then I'll...
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah. No, you, again it's those sort of blocks of colour, I guess that yeah that I quite like.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Very strong.
TONI ROBERTS: He was a painter, teacher, critic, portraitist, violinist, and war artist. And he also studied at the National Gallery Art School and then in Paris and London. And he was a war painter and he was... Between about 1930 and 1950, he was a dominant voice in the Melbourne art world. And he ran a highly influential private art school. And as you say, Betty, he emphasised form rather than the effects of light and shade.
VIRGINIA MOSK: George Bell.
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah.
BETTY KNIGHT: We also had the ochre pits. You, Toni, you're probably more...
TONI ROBERTS: Oh, I don't know that much about it either. But you can see from the Red Bluff and some of the other rock formations around here that there's beautiful ochre colour in the earth. And it makes absolute sense that people used to gather the ochre here for...
BETTY KNIGHT: Different colours to...
TONI ROBERTS: Yes, for painting, for ceremony, and...
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
VIRGINIA MOSK: For the performance at Ngargee, the dance of the Boon wurrung. A spectacular and unique to the culture, the men using ochre to paint circle patterns around their eyes. And yeah, this is a stunning presentation, isn't it?
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah.
So this is another work, another etching, by Vicky Cousins based on a story by Carolyn N’arweet Briggs. So I like that, you know, the...although it's a separate trail, the Indigenous art trail.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Yeah.
TONI ROBERTS: You can look at the artworks together and you know, these are contemporary works, but about much older stories. So I kind of like that difference, you know, (CROSSTALK) with the European paintings.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Spectacular.
So we're at Rickett’s Point, marine sanctuary stop number seven. If you're facing the water, we walked left down here on the way to the teahouse, and we find some beautiful paintings here by Arthur Streeton and Charles Conder. So...
BETTY KNIGHT: Who were part of the Heidelberg School. And yes, that was the late 19th century. This was painted 1884, Charles Conder, Sandringham.
VIRGINIA MOSK: 1890, this one. Yeah, he arrived in Australia in 1884.
BETTY KNIGHT: That’s it.
TONI ROBERTS: And he moved to Melbourne in ’88, where he lived for two years working with other artists including Streeton. And of all the Heidelberg School artists, he's the one whose lifestyle most closely matched the myth of the artist as a free spirit.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
VIRGINIA MOSK: And probably long-suffering and (INAUDIBLE)…
TONI ROBERTS: So in Sydney and later Melbourne, Conder associated with fellow bon vivant Nerli - Senor Nerli who we talked about before - itinerant Italian painter and the bearer of new European influences. In 1890, Conder moved to Paris where he became fully involved with aestheticism and mixed with leading artists and writers of the day including Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beard.
BETTY KNIGHT: Conder left Australia in 1890, and spent the rest of his life in Europe, mainly England but visiting France on many occasions. His art was better received in England than in Paris. In 1892, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec painted his portrait. His sketch is owned by the Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museum.
But this is a beautiful painting of the beach down here. Everyone has their sun hats on. So there’s people in this one and umbrellas, and it looks like a really gorgeous day with the lovely, sunny light and the boat in the distance.
VIRGINIA MOSK: He has a totally different style though, Conder, doesn't he? It's very, very fine.
BETTY KNIGHT: Yes.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And I read that it's almost effeminate, the way he paints. It's really beautiful and very, very bright light.
BETTY KNIGHT: Beautiful bright colours.
VIRGINIA MOSK: I've got a copy at home, one of the Rickett’s Point ones.
BETTY KNIGHT: Yes.
TONI ROBERTS: And next to Conder is an Arthur Streeton called ‘Mentone’, painted in 1887. You can tell that it's
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art quite a small painting, 14 by 26 centimetres, because can really feel the kind of oily texture of the oil paint on the wood panel.
And Streeton was influenced by French Impressionism and became a leader among the Australian Impressionists. Over the summer of ’86 to ’87, Streeton joined artists Tom Roberts, Fred McCubbin, and Abrahams in their rented cottage at Beaumaris. And this is where he painted this image of Mentone - looking very hot and windy, I might say.
BETTY KNIGHT: Very windy, and the little girl is fully dressed, and the boat is blowing itself almost over out in the water, and the waves are colossal. So this is a lovely, lively picture of sea and air and waves in the sand, and the little girl watching it all.
TONI ROBERTS: So in the summer drought of ’88, Streeton travelled by train to the agricultural suburb of Heidelberg, intending to walk to the site where Louis Buvelot painted his 1866 work ‘Summer Afternoon’ near Templestowe, which Streeton considered the finest landscape painting in Victoria.
On the return journey to Heidelberg station, with his wet canvas in hand, he met Charles Davis, who gave him possession of an abandoned homestead on Mount Eagle Estate that offered spectacular views across the Yarra Valley to the Dandenongs. So this property, Eaglemont as it became known, was the ideal working environment, a reasonably isolated rural location but accessible by public transport.
BETTY KNIGHT: And Conder and Roberts joined Streeton at Eaglemont in 1889 and helped make some modest improvements to the house, but they enjoyed being there and all getting out together and painting… beautiful views.
VIRGINIA MOSK: So this location is really the source of the name the Heidelberg School.
BETTY KNIGHT: Yes.
TONI ROBERTS: There was never a school. Some of them were in Heidelberg some of the time, and some of them never went there. But that's what they've become known as.
(CROSSTALK)
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
BETTY KNIGHT: …because there was an art critic who called them the Heidelberg School, coined the name, but they weren't a school at all. They were just loosely connected painters.
TONI ROBERTS: But they did have a common, some common sort of values and intentions. They sought to create a true and instant impression of the Australian bush by sketching quickly and then applying paint rapidly. So whereas traditionally, artists would go out and sketch, and then they'd go back to the studio and create a beautiful finished work. Their philosophy was ‘get out amongst it’.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Get it all done.
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah, get it all done, get an instant and true impression.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Make it real. Keep it real, baby. (LAUGHS)
BETTY KNIGHT: It gives it that lovely fresh outdoors feeling. If it's gone back to the studio, you get that really studied hard look, you know, that stilted look.
VIRGINIA MOSK: So do you think this is plein air? Totally?
BETTY KNIGHT: Yes, it is definitely plein air. Lovely.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Beautiful. Fantastic.
And it says that he was a war artist as well with the Australian Imperial Force, holding the rank of honorary lieutenant.
TONI ROBERTS: He died in September 1943 and buried at Ferntree Gully Cemetery.
So that's the other thing, a lot of artists moved back and forth a lot between Australia and Europe. So I'm always interested to see where they ended up, you know, where their resting place was. Some of them really stuck it out and stayed here.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
VIRGINIA MOSK: Conder, apparently later in life, he married a very wealthy lady.
TONI ROBERTS: Oh, that would have helped him.
(LAUGHTER)
VIRGINIA MOSK: So we're here at Rickett’s Point still. And behind the beach and the coastal plants and path, there's the beautiful ‘Boon wurrung Blossom’ by Ellen José. And for many thousands of years, the Boon wurrung walked this land and the area we're now called Port Phillip Bay. The descendants of the Boon wurrung continue to live in Greater Melbourne and take an active role in maintaining and protecting their cultural heritage.
But this particular work, Toni…
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah, each rock represents one of the six clans that made up the Boon wurrung people. And Ellen José was an Australian Indigenous artist and photographer. She was a Torres Strait Islander from Murray, Darnley, and Horn Islands who lived in Melbourne with her husband Joseph Toscano. So she died in 2017. So this is another contemporary Aboriginal work.
(BACKGROUND MUSIC PLAYS)
VIRGINIA MOSK: It's beautiful. And it’s the area apparently that the…
WOMAN:
It's called (UNKNOWN) Gardens.
VIRGINIA MOSK:
Oh, yep. That's a new name. And it's the area of the secret women's business where they would gather and teach the young women and give birth and bring up children.
BETTY KNIGHT: I was gonna mention that. It was a gathering point for the women. There were areas for men, areas for women. That’s for women.
VIRGINIA MOSK: It’s very significant for women.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
TONI ROBERTS: Here we are at step seven. Now it's a little bit difficult to access, to get down here.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Yes, it is.
TONI ROBERTS: Near the scouts, what is it called?
VIRGINIA MOSK: The Beaumaris Sea Scouts.
TONI ROBERTS: Sea scouts.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Yeah. You have to park across the road, walk across, go walk down the ramp there. You can't actually park inside. So it makes it a little bit harder.
TONI ROBERTS: But it's worth the effort, because when you get down here, you see a Charles Conder.
BETTY KNIGHT: Painted in 1890.
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And this is the one I actually have on my wall at home, and I really like it. I think it really indicates Rickett’s Point.
BETTY KNIGHT: He did many paintings in this area and also he was a member of the Heidelberg School - we've mentioned that. Despite only painting in Melbourne for 19 months, Charles Conder was an integral member of the Heidelberg School. During 1890, Conder spent much time sketching around the bayside. This work was produced on that trip.
And I love the people and the lighting and the colour.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
VIRGINIA MOSK: I do, too, Betty. It's really her favourite.
BETTY KNIGHT: It's still the old-fashioned dress. So it's still way back in 1890.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And the other one we have here is called ‘The Sunny South’ by Tom Roberts, oil on canvas, 1887. This work is thought to be one of the first nudes in the landscape paintings produced by an Australian artist, shows a pair of unclad bathers. I think they're young men, are they?
BETTY KNIGHT: Yes, they're all fellows. I think the females were excluded.
(LAUGHTER)
VIRGINIA MOSK: In the shade of the tree, it seems that strict bathing laws of the day were often ignored.
BETTY KNIGHT: Well, they were down away from more prying eyes, perhaps, I think. But it's a beautiful painting, and it shows the bodies and the contrast of the water. It's sort of dark lighting in the foreground, and the bright light you look through to, and then there's a gorgeous dark water and…
VIRGINIA MOSK: Would you say they’re banksias? They look like banksias to me with the cones.
BETTY KNIGHT: Yes, they do.
(MUSIC PLAYS)
VIRGINIA MOSK: So this is our last stop. It's number eight, and we're opposite the Great Southern Hotel.
BETTY KNIGHT: Parked in what?
VIRGINIA MOSK: Park in Bolton Street, and cross the road very, very carefully!
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
TONI ROBERTS: And you'll hear quite a bit of traffic noise in the background.
VIRGINIA MOSK: So the first one we have is Tom Roberts ‘Slumbering Sea Mentone’, painted in 1889.
TONI ROBERTS: So I'm glad we've got to a Tom Roberts because he was very influential in the Australian Impressionists. He was a big personality by the sound of things. He was a real devotee of painting en plein air.
BETTY KNIGHT: And he was a sort of prime mover of the, of it all too as you say big personality. This painting here is a beautiful representation of this area here. If you go past the Motor Yacht Squadron and look down, you'll see where he painted. And...
VIRGINIA MOSK: So this Beaumaris Bay, would you call it, Betty? Do you think?
BETTY KNIGHT: I think that this Beaumaris Bay where the Motor Yacht Squadron is now.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Where they find the fossils as well?
BETTY KNIGHT: Well, the fossils are this end. So we're not facing them in the painting.
VIRGINIA MOSK: OK.
BETTY KNIGHT: But it's a beautiful... It leads your eye through the painting. The girl sitting there, looking over towards the boat and the little...and the dog down there.
VIRGINIA MOSK: There's a dog there, yep.
BETTY KNIGHT: And the boy playing, I think...
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
VIRGINIA MOSK: It’s very, very still water.
BETTY KNIGHT: Yes. But the colours and light are beautiful. Tom Roberts really was an expert. He was a great painter. He's the one, of course, that painted the shearing of the rams.
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah, famous for that. And next to Tom Roberts, we have a John Perceval. This was painted around 1945, so much later. And it's a painting of Keefer's boathouse, which was... There was a boathouse and a jetty and a boat hire service.
BETTY KNIGHT: And also he owned the mussels. He had a mussel farm in the water. So…
VIRGINIA MOSK: I hear a lot about that. I wish I was here at that time.
BETTY KNIGHT: Yeah. I know a friend who lives over the road and she told me that it was burnt down. I think like late ’60's, round about ’70, burnt down and the council wouldn't let him rebuild again. So he moved his mussel farm down to Mornington, and had to give up the rental of boats and that sort of thing.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Looks like a really iconic building.
BETTY KNIGHT: Yes. She thinks it should have been rebuilt because much of it was still in good working order. But this is a wonderful record of it, and it’s a lovely paintings as well.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Really bright, bright colours. I love the boulders in the front there.
BETTY KNIGHT: Yeah it's the rocks and...
VIRGINIA MOSK: Iron oxide.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah and the darker tones that I like. Also, John Perceval brings us to another artist movement. Aside from the Australian Impressionists, the Angry Penguins who redefined Australian art in the 1940s. And other members include included John Reed, Joy Hester, Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd and Albert Tucker.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Do you know why they call them Angry Penguins? No. Just breaking out!
BETTY KNIGHT: (INAUDIBLE)... I wish my brother were here.
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah, they were a very avant-garde movement, but I don't know enough to be able to talk about them. But also there's a Boyd connection with John Percival. So between 1949 and 1955, he concentrated on pottery, producing earthenware ceramics and helped to establish the Arthur Merric Boyd Pottery in Murrumbeena. And then he returned to painting again in 1956.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And he married Boyd's younger sister Mary.
TONI ROBERTS: Yes.
VIRGINIA MOSK: In 1944. So all interwoven.
BETTY KNIGHT: It is.
(BACKGROUND CHATTER, LAUGHTER)
TONI ROBERTS: And next to Perceval, we get to Fred McCubbin.
Finally, we get to see a McCubbin we've mentioned him several times already because he was so influential in the Australian Impressionist movement.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And this is a beautiful painting called ‘Moyes Bay, Beaumaris’.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
TONI ROBERTS: Yes. And he taught many of the other painters to come.
BETTY KNIGHT: Yes, at the gallery school.
TONI ROBERTS: Yep. And this was painted in 1887 over that summer, when he and Tom Roberts, Louis Abrahams, and Arthur Streeton were renting a cottage at Beaumaris.
BETTY KNIGHT: They came down here to paint each day. And it's, yes, gorgeous golden tones and sunny and summery, and people in it, of course, to give that personal touch.
VIRGINIA MOSK: It's really beautiful.
TONI ROBERTS: The people are often wearing red, aren't they? Some little bit of red.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Little splash.
TONI ROBERTS: I think that was, you know, the technique, put a little bit of red in there.
(CROSSTALK)
VIRGINIA MOSK: As a contrast, yes, I really like that one.
TONI ROBERTS: And the last one of this spot is a Beaumaris painting by Arthur Streeton in 1907.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Yeah.
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah. Quite big, bold brushstrokes in this one.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
VIRGINIA MOSK: Very colourful.
BETTY KNIGHT: Do you think perhaps it was enlarged?
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah, it's 18 by 24 centimetres, oil on canvas. But I think it's very bold, kind of impressionistic strokes.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Yeh, definitely, Toni.
TONI ROBERTS: But the other thing to mention here is The Great Southern Hotel, which we are right opposite, which is quite a significant landmark.
BETTY KNIGHT: And it was built way back in 1920s.
TONI ROBERTS: It opened in 1889.
BETTY KNIGHT: Oh, 1889!
VIRGINIA MOSK: So when all of this painting was happening and all this development.
BETTY KNIGHT: That's right. And people came down on the new railway line too, didn't they, to stay at it?
VIRGINIA MOSK: I think so, Betty. It looks like there's some sea baths there.
BETTY KNIGHT: Yes…
VIRGINIA MOSK: As they would have been scared of sharks back then.
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
BETTY KNIGHT: Oh, yes.
VIRGINIA MOSK: And it's a really dramatic...
BETTY KNIGHT: But they needed somewhere to change, too, of course.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Dramatic building there.
BETTY KNIGHT: It's very grand. Used to be called ‘The Bowie’.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Oh, was it ‘The Bowie’, was it?
BETTY KNIGHT: Now it's all renovated.
VIRGINIA MOSK: Is it called The Great Southern again. They've gone back to The Great Southern?
BETTY KNIGHT: Must be.
TONI ROBERTS: Yeah, yeah, it's on the map as The Great Southern.
VIRGINIA MOSK: I've never been in there.
BETTY KNIGHT: It’s a hotel.
TONI ROBERTS: No. Neither have I.
(MUSIC PLAYS)
OFFICIAL
Nature Imitating Art
VIRGINIA MOSK: So thank you, everyone, for joining us today. We hope you will enjoy the Art trail again and again. Please make sure you check out MESAC's website, mesac.org.au, our Facebook page, and also YouTube channel.
For more exciting marine events, make sure you keep your eyes peeled for our MESAC Marine Art Show, which happens every year in May.
TONI ROBERTS: Hope you all enjoyed the art coastal trail as much as we have.
VIRGINIA MOSK: In summer and winter, any time!
(MUSIC PLAYS)
OFFICIAL