Diploma Lecture Series 2011 Art and ll: European Preludes and Parallels Landscape after Heidelberg

Christopher Allen

4 / 5 May 2011 Lecture summary:

Landscape is the most fundamental genre in because it deals with the perennial question of how to live in a distant and strange land. After the various answers given by the colonial artists of the nineteenth century, the Heidelberg painters evoked a sense of belonging achieved through hard work, particularly in the image of the selector, clearing his property with his axe, and often stressed the challenge of living and working in the bright Australian light – a challenge paralleled by the difficulty of painting under the same conditions.

But it was not all midday glare and pioneers. There were moody and melancholy notes too, increasingly apparent in the later phase of the movement, after the departure of Streeton and Roberts for London. And the image of land clearing became less appealing when so much forest had been cut down. With Hans Heysen, both before and after the Great War, there is a new emphasis on the gum tree itself as a symbolic figure, at once heroic and pathetic. Between the wars, another theme appears, the nationalist celebration of Australia’s rural wealth and prosperity, alternating with the persistence of older heroic and elegiac notes; but Streeton in particular expresses anxiety about the destruction of great forests, which seems in retrospect the prelude to the discovery of yet another metaphorical landscape in the desert outback.

Slide list:

1. ,The Artists’ camp, 1886, oil on canvas, 45.7 x 60.8 cm, , NGV

2. , Golden Summer, Eaglemont, 1889, oil on canvas, 81.3 x 152.6 cm, Canberra, NGA

3. Arthur Streeton, Windy and wet, 1889, il on cardboard, 14.3 x 24 cm, Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria

4. Abram-, Waterpool near Coleraine (sunset), 1869, oil on canvas, 107.4 x 153 cm; Melbourne, NGV

5. Arthur Streeton, The Selector’s Hut (Whelan on the log), 1890, oil on canvas, 76.7 x 51.2 cm. Canberra, NGA

6. Louis McCubbin, , 1896, oil on canvas, 122 x 223.5 cm, Sydney, AGNSW 7. Louis McCubbin, , 1904, oil on canvas, 223.5 x 86; 224.7 x 122.5; 223.5 x 85.7 cm, Melbourne, NGV

8. Arthur Streeton, Near Heidelberg, 1890, oil on canvas, 53.7 x 43.3 cm, Melbourne, NGV

9. Arthur Streeton, Oncoming storm, 1895, oil on wood panel, 42 x 26.4 cm, Melbourne, NGV

10. Arthur Streeton, The Purple noon’s transparent might, 1896, oil on canvas, 123 x 123 cm, Melbourne, NGV

11. Arthur Streeton, Above us the great grave sky, 1890, oil on canvas, 73 x 36.8 cm, Canberra, NGA

12. Arthur Streeton, Still Glides the stream and shall forever glide, 1890, oil on canvas, 82.6 x 153 cm, Sydney, Art Gallery of NSW

13. David Davies, Moonrise, 1894, oil on canvas, 119.8 x 150.4 cm, Melbourne, NGV

14. W.C. Piguenit, The Flood in the Darling, 1890, 1895, oil on canvas, 122.5 x 199.3 cm, Sydney, AGNSW

15. , The Storm, 1896, oil on canvas, 76.3 x 137.6 cm, Sydney, AGNSW

16. Arthur Streeton, Spirit of the drought, c. 1895, oil on wood panel, 34.7 x 37.2 cm; Canberra, NGA

17. Arthur Streeton, Ariadne, 1895, oil on canvas, 12.7 x 35.4 cm

18. , Pan, 1898, oil on canvas, 107.5 x 178.8 cm, Sydney, AGNSW

19. , Pan and Syrinx, 192, woodcut, 13.3 x 9.3 cm

20. Sydney Long, Harbour view, 1908, watercolour, 31.5 x 29.4 cm, Sydney, AGNSW

21. Hans Heysen, Mystic Morn, 1904, oil on canvas, 122.8 x 184.3 cm, , AGSA

22. W. Lister Lister, The Golden Splendour of the Bush, 1906, oil on canvas, 239.8 x 218 cm, Sydney, AGNSW

23. Hans Heysen, Summer, 1909, watercolour, 56.5 x 78.4 cm, Sydney, AGNSW

24. Hans Heysen, Hauling timber, 1911, oil on canvas, 102 x 135 cm, Sydney, AGNSW

25. Hans Heysen, Red Gold, 1913, oil on canvas, 129.5 x 174.5 cm, Adelaide, AGSA

26. W. Lister Lister, The Federal Capital site, 1913, watercolour, 24.8 x 50 cm, Canberra, National Library of Australia

* 27. Hans Heysen, Droving into the light, 1914-21, oil on canvas, 121.9 x 152.4 cm, Adelaide, AGSA

28. Elioth Gruner, Spring Frost, 1919 , oil on canvas, 131 x 178.7 cm, Sydney, AGNSW

29. Lionel Lindsay after Sydney Long, Pastoral, 1918, soft-ground etching with aquatint, 16.6 x 20.2 cm 30. Sydney Long, Hawkesbury Landscape, 1924, Etching

* 31. Sydney Long, The Lake, Avoca, 1926, etching

* 32. Clarice Beckett, Beaumaris seascape, c. 1925, oil on cardboard, 50 x 49 cm; Canberra, NGA

33. Clarice Beckett, Early morning, Beaumaris, c. 1925, oil on canvas, 44 x 66 cm (Christies’ sale 2001)

34. Tom Roberts, Sherbrooke Forest, 1924, oil on canvas, 48 x 68.4 cm, Sydney, AGNSW

* 35. Arthur Streeton, Land of the Golden Fleece, 1926, oil on canvas, 50.7 x 75.5 cm, Canberra, NGA

36. Arthur Streeton, Afternoon Light, Goulburn Valley, 1927, il on canvas, 51 x 76 cm, Canberra, NGA

* 37. Arthur Streeton, The Last of the messmates, 1928 , oil on canvas, 62.5 x 75 cm; private collection

38. Arthur Streeton, Our vanishing forests, 1929, oil on canvas, 63.5 x 76.5 cm

39. Arthur Streeton, The Vanishing forest, 1934, oil on canvas, 122.5 x 122.5 cm; private collection

* 40. Arthur Streeton, A Mountain side, 1935, oil on canvas, 86.5 x 111.5 cm; Westpac Banking Corporation

41. Elioth Gruner, Murrumbidgee Ranges, Canberra, 1934, oil on canvas, 51.6 x 89 cm, Canberra, NGA

42. Hans Heysen, The farmyard gum, 1936, pencil, watercolour, 33 x 40.2 cm, Sydney, AGNSW

* 43. Harold Cazneaux (1878-1953), The Spirit of endurance, 1937, gelatin silver photograph, 28.1 x 33.1 cm; Sydney, AGNSW

44. Hans Heysen, The Hill of the creeping shadow, Flinders Ranges, 1929, oil on canvas, 66 x 92 cm, Sydney, AGNSW

45. Russell Drysdale, Man feeding his dogs, 1941, oil on canvas, 51.2 x 61.4 cm, Brisbane, QAG

46. Russell Drysdale, Bush Fire, 1944, oil and ink on canvas, 62 x 77 cm, Brisbane, QAG

Bibliography:

Christopher Allen. Art in Australia from Colonization to Postmodernism. London: Thames and Hudson, 1997.

Rebecca Andrews. Hans Heysen . Adelaide: AGSA, 2008.

Geoffrey Smith. Arthur Streeton 1867-1943 . Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 1995.

Hans Heysen, Droving into the light, 1914-21, oil on canvas, 121.9 x 152.4 cm, Adelaide, AGSA

Sydney Long, The Lake, Avoca, 1926, etching

Clarice Beckett, Beaumaris seascape, c. 1925, oil on cardboard, 50 x 49 cm; Canberra, NGA

Arthur Streeton, Land of the Golden Fleece, 1926, oil on canvas, 50.7 x 75.5 cm, Canberra, NGA

Arthur Streeton, The Last of the messmates, 1928 , oil on canvas, 62.5 x 75 cm; private collection

Arthur Streeton, A Mountain side, 1935, oil on canvas, 86.5 x 111.5 cm; Westpac Banking Corporation

Harold Cazneaux (1878-1953), The Spirit of endurance, 1937, gelatin silver photograph, 28.1 x 33.1 cm; Sydney, AGNSW