Arthur Streeton's Fire's

Photo Penrith City Library FIRE’S ON! The circumstances surrounding the painting by Arthur Streeton of Fire’s On! and the Lapstone Railway Tunnel Deviation of 1891 JEFF RIGBY’S admiration for Arthur Streeton’s painting which Streeton became Smike after the young lad in Dickens’ hangs prominently in the Australian section of the Art Gallery Nicholas Nickleby. The three corresponded throughout their of NSW led to an interest in the circumstances surrounding the lives and often referred to each other using these names. making of the painting. So began a search for the original site in Glenbrook on the Blue Mountains which would become a The correspondence was first published in Smike to Bulldog rewarding journey of discovery. by R.H. Croll, published in 1946 and then in Letters from Smike: The Letters of Arthur Streeton edited by Anne Galbally Most of what we know about the painting of Fire’s On! has and Anne Grey, 1989, while the letters themselves can be come down to us in Arthur Streeton’s correspondence, examined in the Mitchell Library. Their exact chronology is notably with Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin. problematic because while Streeton usually provided the Streeton met them in 1886 when he was only nineteen address, e.g. ‘Daisy Cottage, Glenbrook’, he rarely supplied and both men quickly recognised the young man’s the dates, only the month and the year. The content can extraordinary talent. Roberts had been given the sometimes be a guide and in some cases the accompanying nickname Bulldog because of his tenacity, the quieter, envelope has been preserved and the date of the postmark more philosophic McCubbin was named The Proff, while pencilled at the top of the letter, probably by R.H. Croll. The young Streeton was described by Julian Ashton as ‘a However, despite Sydney’s attractions, by mid September slim debonair young man of about 24 years of age, with a Streeton was in the Blue Mountains. He wrote to Roberts little pointed beard and a fair complexion. When he wasn’t on 18.9.1891 asking him to come to Penrith the next day painting, he was quoting Keats and Shelley’. His letters are on the 10 o’clock train and said: ‘I ran up there today to expressive and poetic, seemingly as eloquent as his brush Springwood, 1215’ up, going up again tomorrow to find as it danced across the canvas. They are often lavishly a small room…’ He gives us no indication of what he was illustrated with quick, humorous pen sketches, giving a looking for, but in a previous letter to Roberts he railed sense of the youthful energy and enthusiasm with which against his own inaction in Melbourne: he embraced life and art. His letters from the latter part of ‘I want to produce more … I want to be painting every 1891 describe day and have the a great deal of serious matter what he saw at of art in front Lapstone and of me and not contain some be mucking the clues as to how time away… his ideas for Fire’s It’s a sin. I don’t On! developed perhaps express over the time he myself clearly, worked there. but somehow I want to be Streeton had at it …. I fancy lived in large canvases Melbourne all glowing and and he had moving in the previously visited happy light and Sydney in 1890, others bright returning there in decorative and September 1891. chalky and His sister and expressive of brother-in-law the hot trying lived in Summer winds and the Hill and there slow immense was the glittering summer…’ spectacle of the The letter is Harbour and the full of a young attractions of man’s energy bohemian life and impatience at Curlew Camp to get on with in Little Sirius his dreams Cove. This was a and resonates semi-permanent completely with arrangement, Fire’s On!. inhabited by a disparate In 1890, Tom group of artists, Roberts had sportsmen produced his and others, all very successful seeking cheap paintings accommodation Shearing the Rams in a still largely unspoilt harbour environment. Its remains and The Breakaway. While we may now regard Roberts’ can still be seen today, with walls and terraces and a large landmark paintings as picturesque images of a romantic stone with ‘Curlew’ carved on it. Photos from the time and idealised past, at the time they would have reflected show interiors of tents, elaborately furnished and carpeted. the energy and promise of the young country and an There was even a cook and a general roustabout to do the unusual sense of the realities of rural life. If Streeton was chores. It is hard to imagine a more congenial, carefree searching for a similarly powerful subject, he certainly existence for a group of hard living young men, all for £1 a found one in the construction of the Lapstone Tunnel week and relatively close to the city. Deviation at the foot of the Blue Mountains. Right: Arthur Streeton (Australia; England; Australia, b.1867, d.1943) Fire’s On 1891, oil on canvas, 183.8 x 122.5 cm Art Gallery of New South Wales Purchased 1893 Photo: AGNSW 832 Above: detail ‘And there are about a hundred tents on all pretty close together (as a rule) ‘I’ve past the west big strong young chaps, some with wives and children. On one tent pole was mouth and am fixed a beautiful waratah, on another a girl’s great big yellow straw hat. A now arrived at my regular ‘Roaring camp’ splendid and they’re cutting a tunnel out of the rock subject, the other all yellow, and little machinery to help…’ mouth, which gapes like a great dragon’s The Western Railway had crossed the Blue Mountains to close by: ‘… a crystal virgin brook with a rocky bottom…’ Bathurst between the years 1866 and 1876, now enabling most likely the upper reaches of Knapsack Creek, just to mouth at the Streeton to reach Springwood in only a few hours instead the north of what is now the Great Western Highway. perfect flood of hot of a journey that could have taken days by road 30 years before. This had necessitated Zig Zag formations on Later he wrote to Fred McCubbin providing another clue sunlight’. However, both the eastern and western escarpments on which as to where his cottage was and a general description what he saw there, trains were worked, alternatively pushing and pulling to of the construction: ‘… I follow the railway line for ¾ of as will be seen, was ascend and descend the grades. However, by the late a mile through a canyon or gully where the big brown 1880s, the Lapstone Zig Zag and the Great Zig Zag at men are toiling all the hot day excavating and making a not the eastern Lithgow, initially one of the railway engineering wonders tunnel … I’ve past the west mouth and am now arrived mouth of the tunnel of the world, had become serious bottlenecks for the at my subject, the other mouth, which gapes like a great ever increasing traffic. In 1890 proposals were made for a dragon’s mouth at the perfect flood of hot sunlight’. but the cutting, deviation to bypass the Lapstone Zig Zag with a cutting However, what he saw there, as will be seen, was not the which was to lead and tunnel, while the Lithgow Zig Zag was modified eastern mouth of the tunnel but the cutting, which was up to it. but then was eventually replaced by the Ten Tunnels to lead up to it. Deviation in 1910. At that time there was no earthmoving machinery of any The contract for the Lapstone Hill Deviation was awarded kind, necessitating the employment of a large workforce Arthur Streeton (Australia; to David Proudfoot in March 1891, at a cost of £43,090 which lived in a nearby camp along with wives and England; Australia, b.1867, and although Proudfoot died suddenly in the same children, in all perhaps two to three hundred people. d.1943) Blue Mountain tunnel month, the work commenced in April and was well incorrectly inscribed 1892 (1891), advanced by late September when Arthur Streeton ‘And there are about a hundred tents on all pretty close pencil, watercolour, Chinese arrived. Track formation and tunnelling had started to together (as a rule) big strong young chaps, some white highlights on paper, 73.6 x the west of where the RAAF base stands at the summit with wives and children. On one tent pole was fixed a 58.5 cm Art Gallery of New South Wales Gift of Howard Hinton of Lapstone Hill and on the eastern side, the rail cutting beautiful waratah, on another a girl’s great big yellow 1937 Photo: AGNSW 6416 was being pushed up what is now known as Tunnel Gully, straw hat. A regular ‘Roaring camp’ splendid and they’re towards the site of the eastern entrance of the tunnel. cutting a tunnel out of the rock all yellow, and little This necessitated an excavation of some 10 to 15 metres machinery to help…’ deep in solid sandstone and the diversion of the creek to keep the formation relatively dry. Once the cutting had Streeton spent a lot of time in the camp yarning and reached its designated location, the tunnel would be smoking, getting to know the men and their families, driven to meet the western end which was achieved on many of whom he says, were English or Irish. He was 11th May 1892.

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