Diploma Lecture Series 2011 Art and Australia Ll: European Preludes and Parallels Landscape After Heidelberg Christopher Allen 4
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Diploma Lecture Series 2011 Art and Australia ll: European Preludes and Parallels Landscape after Heidelberg Christopher Allen 4 / 5 May 2011 Lecture summary: Landscape is the most fundamental genre in Australian art 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. Tom Roberts,The Artists’ camp, 1886, oil on canvas, 45.7 x 60.8 cm, Melbourne, NGV 2. Arthur Streeton, 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-Louis Buvelot, 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, On the Wallaby Track, 1896, oil on canvas, 122 x 223.5 cm, Sydney, AGNSW 7. Louis McCubbin, The Pioneer, 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. Walter Withers, 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. Sydney Long, Pan, 1898, oil on canvas, 107.5 x 178.8 cm, Sydney, AGNSW 19. Lionel Lindsay, 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, Adelaide, 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 .