Art Appreciation Lecture Series 2017 Site Specific: The power of place

Conrad Martens and Burragalong Cavern

Dr Kathleen Davidson

29/30 March 2017

Lecture summary:

Conrad Martens’ landscape paintings represent some of the great masterpieces of Australian colonial art. Among the lesser-known works within Martens’ oeuvre are the paintings and drawings of caves he produced during the 1840s. Martens’ paintings of Burragalong Cavern were reviewed harshly by critics in the artist’s own time. This lecture explores Martens’ early connections with scientific figures, discoveries and practices of the day, and their influence on his approach to the cave paintings and the viewer’s reception of them.

Slide list:

1. Nineteenth-century Galleries, Art Gallery of NSW 2. Map showing Abercrombie Caves and Wellington Caves, NSW 3. Conrad Martens, Stalagmites, Burragalong Cavern, 1843, oil on cardboard, 40.6 x 53.3 cm. Art Gallery of NSW 4. a) Conrad Martens, Interior of the Burrangalong [Abercrombie] Cavern, c.1843-49, oil on canvas, 60.5 x 88.2 cm. State Library of NSW; b) Conrad Martens, [Northern Entrance] Burrangalong Cavern, Rockbridge Creek, c. 1849, oil on canvas, 42.1 x 58.7 cm. State Library of NSW; c) Conrad Martens, Stalagmite Columns at the Southern Entrance of the Burrangalong Cavern, 1843, oil on canvas, 42.1 x 58.7 cm. Art Gallery of South 5. a) Maull and Polyblank, , c.1855, albumen silver photograph, from the Literary and Scientific Portrait Club, 20.0 x 14.6 cm. National Portrait Gallery, ; b) Conrad Martens, On board HMS Beagle (self-portrait), June 1834, pencil on grey paper, 13.5 x 10.4cm. State Library of NSW 6. a) ‘Basalt Glen, River Santa Cruz’, engraving after Conrad Martens, printed 1838, from Robert FitzRoy, Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle Between the Years 1826 and 1836, describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagle's circumnavigation of the globe. Proceedings of the second expedition, 1831-36, Henry Colburn, London, 1839; b) Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, John Murray, London, 1837 (1830-33) 7. Conrad Martens, Orofena, , c.1835, oil on wood, 19.7 x 30.2 cm. Art Gallery of NSW 8. a) Conrad Martens, View of Harbour, 1836, watercolour, 33.0 x 48.2 cm. Art Gallery of NSW; b) Conrad Martens, Rocks in Double Bay, c.1841-50 watercolour. State Library of NSW; c) Conrad Martens, Liverpool Ranges, , 1837, watercolour and gouache, 44.5 x 66.4 cm. Art Gallery of NSW 9. a) Conrad Martens, One of the Falls on the Apsley, 1873, watercolour, 46.0 x 66.4 cm. National Gallery of Victoria; b) Conrad Martens, Burning Mountain (Mount Wingen, near Scone), 1874, watercolour, 61.0 x 91.0 cm. Art Gallery of NSW

Proudly sponsored by

10. a) Major T.L. Mitchell (Day and Haghe, Lith.), Large Cavern at Wellington Valley, printed 1839, chromolithograph, from Thomas L. Mitchell, Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia: With Descriptions of the Recently Explored Region of Australia Felix and of the Present Colony of New South Wales, T. W. Boone, London, 1839; b) ‘Skull and lower jaw of a giant extinct Marsupial, Diprotodon australis (Owen)’ in Henry Woodward, A Guide to the Fossil Mammals and Birds in the Department of Geology and Palaeontology in the British Museum, 1896 11. , Mosman’s Cave, Wellington Valley, New South Wales, nos.3 & 5, c.1826, watercolours. National Library of Australia 12. a) Conrad Martens, View of Mudgee, March 23, 1840, pencil. State Library of NSW; b) Conrad Martens, Wellington, March 27, 1840, pencil. State Library of NSW 13. Conrad Martens, ‘Interior of Cave at Wellington, March 25, 1840’, pencil, in Album of Sketches of Sydney and Surrounds, ca. 1835-1870. State Library of NSW 14. Conrad Martens, ‘Wellington Caves, March 25, 1840’, pencil, in Album of Sketches of Sydney and Surrounds, ca. 1835-1870. State Library of NSW 15. Henry Barnes, ‘Cave entrance and Surroundings’, albumen silver photographs, in Australian Museum: Report on Caves and Rivers, 1869-82. Australian Museum 16. a) Lucien Henry, Devil's Coach-house, Fish River Caves, 1883, oil on canvas,116.2 x 65.2 cm. Art Gallery of NSW; b) Georgius (artist), Gibbs, Shallard & Co (printer), ‘The Fish River Caves, near Bathurst N.S.W., the recently discovered creek, 600 feet underground’, supplement in Illustrated London News, vol.20, February 1880. State Library of Victoria

References:

Bonyhady, Tim, Images in Opposition: Australian Landscape Painting 1801-1890, Oxford University Press, Oxford & Melbourne, 1985 Darwin, Charles, Journal of Researches into Natural History and Ecology of the Countries Visited during the Voyage of H.M.S. “Beagle” round the World, Ward, Lock and Co, London, 1891 (1839) Davidson, Kathleen, Photography, Natural History and the Nineteenth-Century Museum: Exchanging Views of Empire, Routledge, 2017 De Vries-Evans, Susanna, Conrad Martens on the Beagle and in Australia, Pandanus Press, , 1993 Ellis, Elizabeth, Conrad Martens: Life & Art, State Library of New South Wales Press, Sydney, 1994 Hackforth-Jones, Jocelyn, Augustus Earle, Travel Artist, National Library of Australia, , 1980 Horne, Julia, The Pursuit of Wonder, Miegunyah Press, Carlton, 2005 Humboldt, Alexander von, Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent during the Years 1799-1804, Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown, London, 1814 Miller, Hugh, The Old Red Sandstone: Or, New Walks in an Old Field, John Johnstone, Edinburgh 1841 Nicholas, F.W. and J.M., Charles Darwin in Australia, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989 Smith, Bernard, European Vision and the South Pacific, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 1988 Terry, Martin, ‘Curious Caverns: Picturesque Geology in Australian Art’, The Australian Antique Collector, no.33, 1986, pp. 46-9.

For access to all past lecture notes visit: https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/members/current-members/member-events/site-specific/