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Home , Euan Macleod, Landscape painting, On the Wallaby Track

The College of Fine Arts

The University of New South Master of Fine Arts

Research Thesis

2012

Carla Dawn Hananiah

Statement of Authorship

I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, or substantial proportions of material which have been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere, is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis.

I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project's design and conception or in style, presentation and linguistic expression is acknowledged.

i

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge and thank Louise Fowler-Smith, my supervisor, for her ongoing support, contribution and advice; Eloise Minogue for her generosity in time spent both critically and creatively editing my writing with tireless patience; Neil Frazer for his role as mentor within my studio practice. A big thank you to my husband Isaac Hananiah for his complete and unwavering support, understanding, encouragement and assistance. Thank you Mum, for waking up extremely early for photo shoots and to all my family for encouraging, believing and investing in my dreams.

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Those living far away fear your wonders; where morning dawns and evening fades you call forth songs of joy.

Psalm 65:8

iii ABSTRACT

Discovery is an age-old concept. The lands of and were colonized through the adventurous spirit of the explorers we find on the coins or notes of our countries today. In comparison to the Old World, the lands of the antipodean ‘new world’ seem to be not quite tamed and some places remain untouched. The light, colours and forms possess a sense of moodiness that is evocative of the spiritual; the lands could be described as “visual psalms”.

Representation of the ‘new world’ is largely imaged through the European conventions of the Old World. Historically, artists throughout New Zealand and Australia have grappled with developing imaging methods that can truthfully render all that the new world represents. Research for this thesis led to an exploration of techniques and ideas utilized by artists such as Colin McCahon, William Robinson and Euan Macleod in the quest to capture the in our southern lands.

In investigating the old world conventions applied to an explication of the new, I was particularly interested in the religious and the spiritual and how these act as markers or guides to interpreting the land. The grandiosity of the southern lands awakens a sense of the spiritual, prompting an exploration of philosophical and theological ideas around the sublime and the beautiful. This led to an investigation into the transcendent and infinite qualities of the sublime and its relation to the divine. This research accumulated to a personal investigation or discovery of the sublime through filters of spirituality. The poetic sensibility, , lyrics and music of the Romantics played an integral part in this discovery. The spiritual symbolism and significance of sky and clouds were explored and this fostered a tendency to focus on the drama of light, colour and movement found in an ever- changing sky. The desire to capture movement in sky through paint led to specific research on other artists such as Victor Majzner, Stephen Bush and Kate Shaw, all of whom stretch the material possibilities of paint. Through a praxis-based research I have sought to develop imaging methodologies with the fluidity necessary to articulate my own sense of spirit of place as well as the specific geological topographies of New Zealand and Australia.

iv CONTENTS

Introduction 1

Part One: Defining the Sublime 2

Etymology 2 ‘Beauty’ versus ‘Sublime’ 3

Part Two: The Transformative Power of the Sublime 7

The Divine found in the Sublime 7

The Romantics 11

Part Three: Discovering the Sublime 20

My Personal Discovery of the Sublime 20

Old World versus New World Filters 28

Contemporary responses to the sublime 34

Part Four: Spirituality and the Land 40

Beauty Pointing to the Infinite 40

The Spiritual Significance of the Sky 42

A study of light, colour and sound 52

Part Five: The Creative Process 61

Fluid Methodology 61

Observing Other Artists’ Responses to the Land 67

Conclusion 72

v INTRODUCTION

My art practice is centred on a spiritual and emotional response that comes through a personal journey of discovering the sublime of New Zealand and Australian . In this paper, I will introduce and explore ideas surrounding the sublime and explain how these ideas have inspired my painting practice. It has become evident to me that the youth of these countries make them unique as the land has not been completely tamed; in comparison to the countries of the Old World, the vast expanses of ranges, plains, deserts, and lakes are relatively untouched. The ephemeral quality of light and colour in New Zealand and Australia is suggestive of poetry and passion. My aim is to capture the poetry and passion present in these and reproduce the essence of this through paint. Therefore, in my praxis-based research, I have placed an emphasis on experimenting with the material and physical of paint, developing new imaging methodologies so that I can fulfil this aim.

In Part One, the concept of the sublime is introduced and defined by looking at the etymology of the word “sublime” and the subsequent relationship beauty has to the sublime. Part Two explores the transformative power of the sublime with a focus on the Romantics and recognition of the divine in relation to the sublime. Part Three looks at various ways to discover the sublime. I share my personal discovery of the sublime before looking at both historical and contemporary responses to the discovery of the sublime. Part Four focuses on the spirituality of place and recognition of the infinite in relation to the experience of the sublime whilst being in the land. The spiritual significance of the sky or “heavens” is explored, as is the purpose or role of beauty, through a study of light, colour and sound in direct relation to my practice as well as other practitioners. Lastly, in Part Five, the creative process of my studio practice is explained in detail, and other artists whose practice has had an influence on my process or way of thinking is acknowledged.

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PART ONE: DEFINING THE SUBLIME

Etymology

For the purposes of this research and discourse, it is imperative to introduce the background theory on ideas of the sublime. The word ‘sublime’ etymologically derives from the Latin sublimis meaning elevated, lofty or sublime. When we break the word down into parts, which is the best way to understand the origins of the word’s creation, we see that sub means ‘up to’ and limis or limen means threshold, doorway, boundary or limit. Hence, the basic premise of the meaning of the sublime is to be ‘transported’ and the word is used to articulate a quality of grandeur or magnitude, whether that is physical, metaphysical, moral, intellectual, aesthetic, spiritual or artistic in . In reading through various texts it can be seen that the origins of the use of the word ‘sublime’ is paired with the practice of alchemy. The alchemists modified the word sublimis into a verb sublimare, which means ‘to elevate’ and was:

…commonly used by alchemists to describe the purifying process by which substances were turned into a gas on being subjected to heat, then cool and become a newly transformed solid. Modern chemistry still refers to the ‘sublimation’ of substances but of course without its mystical alchemical connotation, whereby purification also entailed transmutation into a higher state of spiritual existence.i

This early usage of the word correlates with my own experiences of the sublime and is what I strive to communicate through my artwork. The poetic impact of the metaphor of being purified though the sublime - or changed spiritually - is what captured my imagination when reading. When encountering beauty, my spirit has often felt as though it were being simultaneously lifted and cleansed; I feel that beauty elevates my soul and mind to “a higher state of spiritual existence”.

2 ‘Beauty’ versus ‘Sublime’

In looking at the sublime the word ‘beauty’ is often used; however, it is important to acknowledge that while beauty can draw our attention to the sublime or be a facet of the sublime, the two are not synonymous. This brief background I have covered is the foundation of thinking that has inspired and provoked artists, writers and art historians to examine their viewpoint on a subject that is controversial in definition and application. Others have chosen to disregard notions of the sublime as irrelevant or out-dated. However, in looking at the main ideas surrounding the definition of sublime it can be argued that the human experience is unaltered by the times we live in at the basic level of appreciating both beauty and the sublime in nature. In recent times, there has been commentary on the present age of technology and how our understanding of the sublime and all it encompasses has widened as a result. In this paper, I will particularly address the more traditional qualities of the sublime through the human experience of being in the land or nature, as this is what my research is centred on Subsequently, though I acknowledge there is a broad range of writings on the sublime, I will focus on those I consider most relevant to describing the sublime experience of being in the land.

Different theories and ideas on the sublime can appear to conflict with each other across the span of our immensely accessible information age. There has been a lot of discourse of late on the sublime, including TATE’s (Britain’s major public museum family institution) three-year investigation into ideas of the sublime, which resulted in various exhibitions, talks and major publications. Although traditional and contemporary notions of the sublime and the beautiful have been debated and redefined by scholars, there are some ideas that are commonly agreed on. The common consensus is that a sense of elevation accompanies the sublime; that:

The sublime ‘produces a sort of internal elevation and expansion; it raises the mind much above its ordinary state; and fills it with a degree of wonder and astonishment, which is certainly delightful; but it is altogether of the serious kind: a degree of awfulness and solemnity, even approaching to severity,

3 commonly attends it when at its height; very distinguishable from the more gay and brisk emotion raised by beautiful objects.’ii

In contemporary publications the idea of the sublime continues to be acknowledged as having currency in our contemporary existence. Writers today use the premise that ideas pertaining to the infinite, the eternal and the elevation of the soul have been somewhat dismissed nowadays but that the essence of such ideas is still valid. Simon Morley wrote that although “we may no longer believe in eternal essences or values, we still often sense that our lives are fashioned by forces beyond our control, which underpin and drive acts of thinking or representation.”iii Later, as we look at the spirituality of the land as a ‘marker’ for the sublime, we will see that traditional notions of the sublime found in the land is still somewhat relevant today. I will explore this concept in more detail from a subjective viewpoint in this paper as I feel it to be important. In TATE’s recent research into the sublime and the resulting book edited by Simon Morley, the concept of the sublime was explored from a variety of angles – ranging from the traditional to the contemporary.

Before looking more carefully at various theories presented by different philosophers, I will first examine the origins of the idea of the sublime. The sublime was first introduced by Longinus whose first century treatise “On the Sublime” examined language and how, when reading, we can be interrupted from the everyday consciousness and be transported or elevated through thought, resulting in an “exaltation”. As Longinus explained, the elevated language enchants us: “flashing forth at the right moment scatters everything before it like a thunderbolt” leaving us overwhelmed whilst inclining ‘the soul to high thoughts’. Nature “from the first breathed into our hearts an unconquerable passion for whatever is great and more divine than ourselves”, which, as the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge described, causes “that willing suspension of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.”iv Longinus observed that "the effect of the sublime is to lift up the soul; to exact it into ecstasy; so that, participating, as it were, of the splendours of divinity it becomes filled with joy of exultation; as if it had itself, conceived the lofty sentiments which it heard.”v

4 Longinus’ treatise was revisited in the late 1600s. From thence, a series of philosophers wrote on the ideas of the sublime and the comparisons and similarities it holds to beauty. In the eighteenth century, the initial idea of the sublime in the context of language expanded to describe and the facets of nature that inspire awe and wonder. The eighteenth century was the era in which the sublime drew attention and wide debate, resulting in the problematic and multi-faceted notion of the sublime we have to examine now. The most significant and universally recognised writings on the sublime from this period are those of Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant, although Schiller’s writings are also of great import and give yet another on the sublime. In this paper, I will explain and compare the different perspectives these writings offer. According to Simon Morley, the contemporary concept of the sublime is the recognition that technology has opened up to us whole new revelations of wonder that we cannot quite grasp with our limited experience here on . For example, we now have information about other planets, satellites orbit our world, and the continual developments in technology and what is now possible leaves us in awe. In Morley’s words:

The concept of sublime became important in the eighteenth century when it was applied in relation to the arts to describe aspects of nature that instil awe and wonder, such as , avalanches, waterfalls, stormy seas or the infinite vault of the starry sky, Today, however, rather than nature the incredible power of technology is more likely to supply raw material for what can be termed a characteristically contemporary sublime.vi

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Figure 1: , Vom Lyshorn, 1836, Oil on Canvas, 41 x 50.5 cm

6 PART TWO: THE TRANSFORMATIVE POWER OF THE SUBLIME

The Divine found in the Sublime

In A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757), the philosopher Edmund Burke postulates that there are certain experiences (rather than just objects) that provoke mixed feelings of pain and pleasure, and that we find these sublime experiences in aspects of nature. He places an emphasis on comparisons of objects or experiences of beauty and the experience of the sublime. According to him, the sublime is ‘the strongest passion’ and undermines beauty as mere prettiness; the sublime experience had the power to transform the self. His ideas of the sublime were tied to an acknowledgement of the infinite, of wisdom and design beyond our human comprehension:

Whenever the wisdom of our Creator intended that we should be affected with any thing, he did not confide the execution of his design to the languid and precarious operation of our reason; but he endued it with powers and properties that prevent the understanding, and even the will, which seizing upon the senses and imagination captivate the soul before the understanding is ready either to join with them or to oppose them.vii

Burke’s enquiry examines causes and effects of the sublime over vast subjects: from the divine and infinite to music, poetry, light and darkness, colour, scale, and proportion. He examines its physical and psychological impact on our emotions and experiences, and comments on the limitations of our mind’s understanding, emphasizing that our senses as well as our intellect are needed to fully immerse ourselves in the experience of the sublime. Of particular interest to me in relation to the spiritual, Burke comments on the Creator in his conclusion of Part One of his enquiry: “If a discourse on the use of the parts of the body may be considered as a hymn to the Creator; the use of the passions, which are the organs of the mind, cannot be barren of praise to him”. He elaborates on this idea and concludes by equating contemplation of nature to a divine experience:

7 discovering his strength and wisdom even in our own weakness and imperfection, honouring them where we discover them clearly; and adoring their profundity where we are lost in our search, we may be inquisitive without impertinence, and elevated without pride; we may admitted, if I may dare to say so, into the councils of the Almighty by a consideration of his works.viii

In another section he backs up this thought by referring to the prophet David, who in contemplating wisdom and power cries out “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”ix It is interesting to note that earlier in this same psalm, the sixth verse states: “Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”x In remembering the etymology of the word ‘sublime’, the use of the word ‘lofty’ in this verse suddenly acquires great significance. It seems to me that this verse sums up the whole of the sublime and our relationship to the divine. The sublime is beyond our capacity for understanding; it leaves us with a sense of wonder and awe, fully aware of our humanity with its limitations of smallness in body and mind. Theologians and Christian writers have written at length on this well-loved psalm, which has been called ‘the crown of all psalms’. John Stott sums up this psalm as “a sublime exposition of one man’s personal awareness of God’s universal knowledge and presence”xi, referring to the writer’s “joyful astonishment”xii in being unable to escape the omnipresence of God. In his work, Burke details biblical instances where nature reveals the majesty of God; he states:

In the scripture, wherever God is represented as appearing or speaking, everything terrible in nature is called up to heighten the awe and solemnity of the divine presence. The psalms, and the prophetical books, are crowded with instances of this kind. The earth shook (says the psalmist) the heavens also dropped at the presence of the Lord.xiii

Later in the eighteenth century Immanuel Kant expanded on the work of Longinus and Burke, incorporating ideas of terror and awe into notions of the sublime in his

8 Critique of Judgment (1790). Kant explored what happens when we reach the borderline of our own reason and he subdivided the sublime into three types: the awful, the lofty, and the splendid. Kant builds on Burke’s enquiry and clarifies some areas of ambiguity, namely the differentiation between the beautiful and the sublime. In examining various texts, I have come across some thoughts that have particularly resonated with my own line of thinking. In particular, the discourse in “Turner and the Sublime” clarified the comparisons between the sublime and the beautiful:

Kant, who admired Burke’s analysis of the sublime, clarified matters somewhat by suggesting that the sublime was characterized primarily by boundlessness while the beautiful, dependent on form, naturally resulted from the presence of boundaries. The boundlessness of the sublime, which reflects or implies all the central significance of the classic conception that we have discussed, entails its practical in conceivability. Something that is inconceivable cannot be conceived as sublime or as anything else – but the act of imagining it, even though it is beyond the power of imagination to envisage it, is itself a strenuous exalted mental or emotional state, which we may describe as ‘sublime’. Hence Kant says that the sublime is a dynamic state of mind while the beautiful is contemplated by the mind at rest.xiv

Underlying Kant’s discussion of the sublime is his keen awareness of the limitations of human reason or intellect when confronted with nature’s absolute complexity and majesty; of our inability to control or understand such majesty. Kant posited that these limitations cause the experience of the sublime to be a conflicting one; that:

The feeling of the sublime is at once a feeling of displeasure, arising from the inadequacy of imagination in the aesthetic estimation of magnitude to attain to its estimation of reason, and a simultaneous awakened pleasure, arising from this very judgment of the inadequacy of sense of being in accord with the ideas of reason, so far as the effort to attain to these is for us a law.xv

9 Tying into the commentary above on Burke and his acknowledgment of the Creator in relation to the sublime, Kant also observed in his Critique of Judgment that “the virtuous man fears God without being afraid of him.”xvi The fear Kant talks of is not that of being afraid. Rather, fear of God is to be reverently aware of his magnificence and holiness. We find this concept of fearing God in the Bible. When Moses was chosen to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, God spoke to him on the mountain of God through a bush that was covered in flames yet was neither burnt nor consumed by the fire. Moses was instructed to take off his sandals as the place where he stood was holy and “Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.”xvii The psalmist also frequently extols the benefits of fearing God: “the Lord delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love.”xviii The book of Proverbs also states: “The fear of the Lord leads to life: Then one rests content, untouched by trouble.”xix Friedrich Schiller wrote: “The feeling of the sublime is a mixed feeling. It is a combination of woefulness, which expresses itself in its highest degree as a shudder, and of joyfulness, which can rise up to enrapture, and, although it is not properly pleasure, is yet widely preferred to every pleasure by fine souls.”xx This woefulness Schiller refers to may be the result of the incapacity to fully capture or understand that which has left us breathless with wonder.

Lastly, , a leading art critic of the Victorian era who wrote on the sublime in his essay on Modern Painters, states:

The fact is, that sublimity is not a specific term – not a term descriptive of the effect of a particular class of ideas. Anything, which elevates the mind, is sublime, and elevation of mind is produced by the contemplation of greatness of any kind; but chiefly of course, by the greatness of the noblest things. Sublimity is, therefore, only another word for the effect of greatness upon the feelings – greatness, whether of matter, space, power, virtue, or beauty: and there is perhaps no desirable quality of a work of art, which, in its perfection, is not, in some way or degree, sublime.xxi

10 Ruskin’s writing supports the ideas of both Burke and Kant and is therefore a strong way to sum up all we have looked at. The sublime is a feeling or an experience rather than a particular object or even place. When examining the sublime in relation to the landscape it is important to keep this uppermost in our minds.

The Romantics

This “greatness upon the feelings” described as sublime is what has become the focus of my current research and practice. It is therefore natural to refer to the Romantics whose work was all about uncovering the sublime in the natural world. The works of J.M.W Turner and , both of whom I will explore in more depth later, particularly inspired me. Each of these artists’ works influenced my understanding of how the communication of the sublime can be approached. I was struck by the sense of distance and scale achieved in Friedrich’s work, as well as by the evocative moodiness he created. Turner’s encouraged me to place emphasis on the skies in my work as I found his use of light and colour uplifting and inspiring. In Turner’s painting Quillebeuf, at the Mouth of Seine, 1833, the sweeping movement of clouds in layers of light and colour is an example of why I found his skies particularly entrancing. I wished to translate this sense of movement, light and colour I found in Turner’s work into my own way of working.

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Figure 2: Quillebeuf, at the Mouth of Seine, 1833. Oil on Canvas. 88 x 120 cm was a nineteenth century movement that stemmed from a revolt against the Age of Enlightenment. It was both a questioning of the scientific rationalization of nature and a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. Artists, writers and thinkers valued emotion over rationalism. In line with the thoughts and philosophies that were expanded upon by Burke and Kant in the eighteenth century, we see painters respond to themes of nature’s grandeur making an indelible impression on the mind and eye. Their work is characterized by the solitary, the gloomy, and the ; they painted vistas that evoke feeling, sentiment, fear, awe and awareness of the infinite. Landscape as a gradually became vogue first through topographical works and ‘portraits’ of grand estates that were painted at the request of the owners. Prior to the Romantic period, the landscape was conventionally dealt with as a backdrop for human activity. Romantic painters moved away from depicting historical events, instead focusing on the landscape that was once just the background of the historical paintings. Landscape painting became a focus, and it was now given merit as a subject.

12 Many Romantic paintings were inspired by poetry or were a response to events, such as earthquakes and the Napoleonic Wars, which elicited fear, hope, enthusiasm, turmoil and despair. We can see this clearly in the case of Turner, whose epic poem The Fallacies of Hope is a testament to the darkness of the romantic temperament. Many English poets labelled as Romantics described wild waterfalls, mountainous scenery and other such beautiful or sublime subjects in their poetry. Cross- pollination of ideas and inspiration is evident during the Romantic Movement with writers, poets and painters interrelating their practice or mode of inspiration with each other. This can be seen in the works of many artists who named paintings after lines of poetry or exhibited work with supporting poetry, and poets such as William Blake reciprocated by illustrating their works or writing poetry in response to peers’ paintings. Key ways of understanding the sublime in the landscape also came from Gothic novelists such as Ann Radcliffe who writes of her central character Emily’s experience in the landscape as “precipices from which Emily too recoiled; but with her fears were mingled such various emotions of delight, such admiration, astonishment, and awe, as she had never experienced before.”xxii The summation of ideas is the overarching desire to “engage in the search for a visual language of transcendence through nature….with an emphasis on physicality and movement.”xxiii

Two key painters from the Romantic Movement were Caspar David Friedrich and J.M.W Turner. In reading the paintings from the Romantic Movement, we can see a desire to communicate mental and emotional states. The emphasis changed from depicting a certain place or event to the communication of an emotion or feeling. In relation to this idea, Paulson observes: “the history of landscape painting is a movement from description to self-expression, from either topography or emblematization towards ‘landscapes of the mind’.” xxiv The displacement of portraiture and historical painting by pure landscape painting was a move towards a different response for the viewer, who was now invited to have a sensual and emotional response to the artwork instead of being expected to make an intellectual assessment of it. As Constable once wrote, 'painting is but another word for feeling'. We also encounter John Martin, who followed Turner’s apocalyptic trend by

13 painting biblical themes and was acknowledged as ‘the greatest, the most lofty, the most original genius of the age’ by popular author Edward Bulwer-Lytton whilst writer John Edmund Reade proclaimed him ‘the great Poet Painter of the day”.xxv Martin also illustrated Milton’s epic poem Paradise Lost, again indicating the marriage of ideas between poetry and painting. In his painting The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, 1823-1827, a dramatic landscape of towering slabs of desolate cliffs is in semi darkness and is overshadowed by dark clouds. To the left, we see a bright light and the figures of Adam and Eve cast onto the rocky obscurity that is the antithesis of paradise or Eden. It is a sublime landscape of oranges and blues, with almost sharp-looking brooding clouds encasing the land. We are left to wonder how Adam and Eve will fare.

Figure 3: John Martin, The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, c.1813.

Oil on Canvas. 77.2 x 112.3 cm

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Caspar David Friedrich, the great German Romantic painter, is famous for his landscape paintings of sea and mountains. Depicting one or a few human beings in the foreground of an expansive unfolding landscape allows us to see the extravagant space and we are made aware of the smallness of our humanity in relation to the grandeur of nature. His works seek to convey an emotional response to the landscape by directing the viewer’s gaze to the land rather than the characters. Often the figures’ backs are to us, as in Wanderer above the Sea of Fog 1818, which depicts a solitary figure looking outward to a stretch of mountains and fog, or in the more intimate and quiet work Two Men Contemplating the Moon, ca 1825 -1830.

Figure 4: Caspar David Friedrich, Two Men Contemplating the Moon, c.1825 - c.1830.

Oil on Canvas. 34.9 x 43.8 cm Friedrich was concerned with expressing an intense spiritual mood by depicting

15 scenes of exaltation through the use of dramatic light and form, and through the elimination of superfluous detail that detracted from his aim. True to the romantic and spiritual sentiment, Friedrich himself revealed of his approach “I have to stay alone in order to fully contemplate and feel nature” and “The painter should paint not only what he has in front of him, but also what he sees inside himself. “xxvi Friedrich’s mountainous and dramatic skies with illuminated foregrounds have played a key part in informing the romantic sensibility of my work. Below is one of Friedrich’s later oil paintings titled Ruine Eldena Im Riesengebirge ca. 1830 - 1835.

Figure 5: Caspar David Friedrich, Ruine Eldena Im Riesengebirge, ca. 1830-1835.

Oil on Canvas. 73 x 103 cm

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Figure 6: Carla Hananiah, Reverent, 2009 I feel that this work relates in some ways to one of my first works, Reverent, 2009, which I completed as part of my research. It was the first work I did with a silhouetted mountainous line and such a bold sky. I sensed I was on the right track to sharing what I felt. Having this work accepted as a finalist for the Mosman Prize in 2010 was exciting not only as a breakthrough in my pursuit of an art career, but also as an affirmation that my work must resonate with other souls.

Turner’s paintings are the outworking of an artist seeking to capture his emotional response to a landscape. Turner started out as a topographical painter, but his focus slowly turned from rendering accurate depictions to the ideal of the landscape sublime; he began to reduce the human element, heightening the use of colour and expression of the brushwork. By dissolving forms and using colour to describe an atmosphere or feeling, Turner portrayed a landscape where people are enveloped by nature and often at the mercy of it. His artworks are all focused on looking at the grandeur of nature and man’s relationship to it, ranging from countless sunsets,

17 glaciers, lofty mountain peaks and turbulent waters to glittering lakes shrouded by mist and cushioned by mountain ranges, rainbow making waterfalls, and fast locomotives encased in its smoke. Turner’s relationship with the land is evident in both his art and his poetry. He published his poetry in catalogues alongside his work. One such example of poetry was shown alongside a particular painting:

How awful is the silence of the waste,

Where nature lifts her mountains to the sky.

Majestic solitude, behold the tower

Where hopeless OWEN, long imprison’d, pin’d.

And wrung his hands for Liberty, in vain.xxvii

Figure 7: J.M.W Turner, Dolbadern Castle, 1800. Oil on Panel. 46.5 x 34 cm

18 We are invited to identify with ‘hopeless Owen’, who is held out of our sight in the castle found in the painting Dolbadern Castle, 1800. We can see the glinting vertical precipices accumulating into towering craggy mountains reaching towards the clouds; our eyes are cast upwards to a castle resting into the rock, a strong silhouette against the sky. Turner’s choice of colour is a key indicator of his desire to convey the emotions of the sublime; it “proclaims the artist’s wish to sway the emotions rather than inform the mind.”xxviii Turner himself remarked to an enquirer that he did not ‘paint it to be understood’ and Archibald Alison commented of that school of Romantic landscape painters in general:

It is not the art, but the Genius of the Painter, which now gives value to his compositions; and the language he employs is found not only to speak to the eye, but to affect the imagination and the heart. It is not now a copy that we see, nor is our Emotion limited to the cold pleasure that arises from the perception of accurate Imitation. It is a creation of Fancy with which the artist presents us, in which only the great expressions of Nature are retained, and where more interesting emotions are awakened, than those which we experience from the usual tameness of common scenery.xxix

These ‘more interesting emotions’ were that of the heart and soul being called to respond to works instead of the academic ‘cold’ eye and mind.

19 PART THREE: DISCOVERING THE SUBLIME

My Personal Discovery of the Sublime

In making new discoveries we as humans tend to seek to define the not-yet-familiar by what is already familiar. Definition came through words, aligning our understanding of something based on our accumulated experiences to date and our memories.

Most of us, I hope, have experienced the feeling of being enraptured in that glorious state of joyfulness as we have an almost out of body experience trying to take in all of what has inspired the feeling of sublime in our souls. For me, it comes most frequently when in the landscape in the light of dawn or dusk. It is something I can always seek, yet rarely find. Rather, it finds me. Usually it captures me unaware and breathless with the delight of it; a spring in my step and a smile in my eyes is the after-effect, and the by-product is usually a song in my heart and a painting in my mind’s eye.

In attempting to describe this experience to you one of my favourite literary characters was immediately brought to the forefront of my thinking as a perfect illustration of this. She is one of my friends I could only visit through my re-read books, but her experiences were very real in that I relate to them extremely. In a trilogy by L.M Montgomery we are introduced to Emily, an aspiring writer who feels keenly and likes to write poetry and stories about her first-hand experiences and observations. Here she slips out for a walk at dusk and is overwhelmed by the beauty of the tree tips against a pinkish-green sky:

…And then, for one glorious, supreme moment came “the flash …It had always seemed to Emily, ever since she could remember, that she was very, very near to a world of wonderful beauty. Between it and herself hung only a thin curtain; she could never draw the curtain aside – but sometimes, just for a moment, a wind fluttered it and then it was as if she caught a glimpse of the

20 enchanting realm beyond – only a glimpse – and heard a note of unearthly music….And always when the flash came to her Emily felt that life was a wonderful, mysterious thing of persistent beauty.xxx

When I first read Montgomery’s description, I felt I understood what the flash felt like to Emily. It was something I also felt when encountering beauty, something that left me with joy inside my heart. The flash seemed to my younger self to be what I would now define as the sublime. It came unexpectedly, left her with heightened emotions, and the joy of it remained with her for days.

I think most of us can remember one time or another where we have been caught unexpectedly by beauty that has caused us to stop still and try to eat it all up with our eyes before it is gone. I can recall my ten year old self feeling the persistent cold of dusk, smelling the wood-smoke from the neighbourhood chimneys whilst hearing my mum call me in for dinner and feeling annoyed because I was transfixed watching the sky change colours – gloriously ablaze with clouds rimmed with hot pinks and oranges, then slipping to the quieter mauves and dusky pinks as the moon appeared. It hurt a little that the beauty kept changing; that it remained only in my mind's eye. I came in for dinner with a runny nose and joy in my heart – feeling as though my soul had been washed clean.

Growing up in New Zealand in an outdoorsy, sporty family I grew accustomed to being in wide-open spaces, climbing hills and soaking in the views amidst our daily routine. I can recall the thrill of hearing our teacher Mr Brickles recite with animation stories of shipwrecks and the survivors’ subsequent experiences of survival and rescue. We always looked forward to his infrequent visits when our teacher was sick – knowing the day would be filled with retelling of historical stories that captured our thoughts and caused us to visually parade the events described in our mind’s eye. This fuelled my imagination as a child and the stories remain painted vividly in my mind even today. Hearing stories of adventure sparked the desire to be the heroine in my own adventures. The remarkable experiences of

21 taming a wild, barren, newly discovered land appealed to my adventurous self who loved to ‘discover’ and name places in the bush backing onto our house. My sister, neighbour and I loved to pretend that the bush was ‘untouched’, despite being able to hear the purr of a lawnmower on the other side of the bush or finding bits of cement or rubbish near the streams. We built huts and named spots we had ‘discovered’, created a map of our discovered territories and even waged bizarre ‘wars’ of words, invading each other’s huts with the neighbourhood boys further down the creek. We named the spot where there was a little waterfall and pond surrounded by ferns “Cherrywood”; we deemed it our paradise and it was always our last stop when we went on our walks. There was Bamboo , which aptly described the hill heading down and parallel to parts of the creek due to the lines of tall bamboo flocked on each side of our path: yellow-green silent sentries to our lively games as we picked our way through ferns and bracken. If I was upset or simply needed to do some thinking I would climb one of my favourite trees and enjoy the breeze on my face, a bird’s-eye view of the world, the scent of the tree and the roughness of the bark on my skin; from my perch I would watch the clouds roll by.

In addition to the everyday emphasis on being outside, there were also the regular trips to and through the country to visit relatives and friends. After immigrating to Australia these countryside jaunts were limited to when we visited New Zealand. It would become imperative for me to make the most of it, to go out in the hours of dawn or dusk to take photos and take in the wonder so I could live off the memories until the next visit. In some way I think that is why my paintings became so romanticised – they are the beauty remembered and treasured till I next get to experience it in real life. For a long time the New Zealand landscape was my only visual source for my paintings. However, also of interest was the internal struggle I had in coming to terms with the differences found in the Australian landscape. I found Australia growing on me and had a niggling feeling I was cheating on New Zealand in some way. I felt as though finding joy in my current surroundings would be almost a pollution or degradation of the love I had for my homeland. I found it

22 interesting to parallel this modern-day version of the colonial artist complex, due to living in a landscape different to that which I had grown up in, to that of the colonial artists from the northern hemisphere coming to Australia and New Zealand. When reading the New Worlds from Old catalogue essay one understands the struggle the colonial artists may have had to see beauty in something so foreign. I admired the artists who did portray the New Zealand and Australian landscape with tenderness rather than aversion and began to think that I should also respond to the Australian landscape instead of just New Zealand.

The Australian landscape started to be a source of delight, and I produced several paintings based around parts of the Snowy Mountains. My husband and I went on an impromptu and ambitious car trip to see the snow for the first time together. It had been a long time since the last holidays and the joy and freedom of an unexpected trip to the country heightened my emotional sense of awareness. There is something lovely about leaving the city, slowly watching the gradual shift from urban sprawl through to farms and finally the wildness of the national parks. I was determined to find beauty in my surroundings and was caught by surprise at the romance of the mountains. We arrived in a remote town after driving for two hours through the mountains. The sun had started to set and we had yet to find accommodation. Accustomed to my spontaneous exclamations to stop the car, my husband obliged so I could jump out and soak in the vista. A gentle wind felt in the valley raced exuberant clouds across the sky in a dusky procession of pink, peach and mauve that hugged the mountainous horizon line as they floated and furled past. It was a beauty that left an indelible mark; I was swept up in the sky and thoughts fled. Trees glowed late autumnal in the last fierce rays of sun against the inky purple blue of the looming mountains. The first of the Snowy Mountain paintings is “Triumphant Procession”, followed by “Resplendent” and “Glorious”. They were the first paintings I had produced of the Australian landscape.

23

Figure 8: Carla Hananiah, Glorious, 2010

24

Figure 9: Carla Hananiah, Triumphant Procession, 2010. Collection: Macquarie Bank

Figure 10: Carla Hananiah, Resplendent, 2010. Private Collection South Australia

25 I then decided to take the plunge and put myself in what I considered the deep-end by sending myself to Fowlers Gap to experience the vast magnitude of the desert. It was a significant trip for me – going into the grand monotonous unknown with the decision to love it and paint it. It helped that the desert had recently had a lot of rainfall and the vegetation had grown back and was a flourishing green. It was also a special experience for me to have the time to slow down, to have time release its hold on me, to sit in the landscape and enjoy it. My first impression of the desert was the remarkable sense of space out there. Sky, horizon lines and land stretched out at every angle as I turned my body slowly around in the landscape. It occurred to me that one could get lost, but could also find oneself. I took a mental note to mark my surroundings by the unusual tree, rock, dry streambed or tree line. This was a vain thought, however, until I was quiet and introduced myself to the land; I got lost one morning for a brief panicked half an hour before finding my bearings. Each morning and evening I purposed to acquaint myself again with the quiet light arriving or disappearing, waking whilst still quite dark outside. Stumbling up scrub-covered hills to Two Tanks Lookout to wait in the cold silent morning brought peace and a sense of accomplishment as I traced in the bird’s eye view of the curves of the tree-lined river bed winding its way towards the horizon line. Climbing up the hill in the dark – and the scratches resulting from such folly – entitled me to this solitude, and the unfolding glory seemed to be created just for me. I was romanced. Some mornings and evenings the sky was quiet and gentle with a subtle lemon or pink glow. Other evenings attempting to capture the quiet majesty of the colours streaking the sky and lining the clouds seemed futile. Seeing the juxtaposition of the dry orange landscape with the flooded Lake Menindee in the waning light of dusk inspired me to paint. Back in the studio, I painted five works: three based on Lake Menindee at dusk, “Radiant” from the Fowlers Gap research station, and “Come Away with Me, My Darling” from a pastel sketch gazing down from Two Tanks Lookout.

26

Figure 11: Carla Hananiah, Awake my Soul, 2011

Figure 12: Carla Hananiah, Come Away With Me My Darling, 2011

27 Encountering the land is a journey of discovery – not only though sight, but through sound, touch, taste and smell. All of my senses awaken, adding weight and depth to the resulting emotions. It is not only the view itself that infuses ones soul but the remembrance of the coldness of the morning, the smell and feel of wet dewy grass, the sound of the first bird song and the lowing of waking cows. I remember first discovering my grandpa’s orchard and all the romance it woke in me – the scent of fresh pine, damp loamy dirt, ripe stone fruit weighing branches down, and smoke from the outside fire as the grown-ups cleared the land and burnt up rubbish. The gentle abrasiveness of the roughed gnarled old trees on my hands as we climbed and long grass taller than I rustling with eerie melodies in the wind; a whole field to be lost in and find the path out of. Memories and sentiments from a childhood spent delighting in the land remain with me.

Old World versus New World Filters

Years ago I recall attending the blockbuster exhibition New Worlds from Old that compiled artwork from American and Australian colonial history. It seemed to capture my modern dilemma of learning to embrace the landscape of Australia as well as that of my homeland New Zealand. In encountering the New World, colonists brought the aesthetic, naming, and religious conventions of their old world with them. This is evident in the very naming of New Zealand, ‘Zeeland’ being a Dutch province to which the prefix “New” was added. The European pictorial conventions ingrained into the colonial artists’ way of working resulted in the depictions of the land being not true to life or “Europeanised”. As some scholars have remarked of this: the colonial landscapes were a biased view of the land defined by “The landscapes are landscapes of the mind: depictions of the land as it was, and as it never was.” The lands of New Zealand and Australia were originally found by some to be alien, wild, barren, gloomy, and bleak. Laurence J. Kennaway stated: ‘That man must have a strong, cold heart, who in stepping from a ship’s boat into a really new country, does not feel bewildered, and something desolate.'xxxi Settler and diarist

28 Sarah Matthew wrote of New Zealand in 1840: ‘The most dreary and desolate looking country eye ever beheld.’xxxii However, others embraced the newness and unfamiliarity of the land, such as wandering artist Augustus Earle, whose published journals describe New Zealand as being “spotted with innumerable romantic islands all covered with perpetual verdure”xxxiii and “quiet, beautiful and serene; the only sounds which broke the calm were the wild notes of the tui…”xxxiv. I became interested in the struggle and challenge the colonial artists had in arriving in a foreign land with a set of established pictorial conventions adapted over a long period of art history to suit the depiction of the “old” European landscape, but which did not entirely suit the forms, colours and light of the “new” lands. The parallel of this exhibition theme and my own circumstances of different homelands led me to research the depiction of Australian and New Zealand landscape to see the shift in depiction. Representation of the antipodean 'new world' is largely imaged through the European conventions of the old world. Historically artists throughout New Zealand and Australia have grappled with developing imaging methods that can truthfully render all that the New World represents. The colonists brought with them the strong ethos of Christian values and accompanying moral and ethical systems, which intersected with the native’s spirituality and mythology. In looking at the sublime, I specifically wished to concentrate on the spiritual aspects found in the land noting especially the new imaging methodologies that has evolved from the intersection of the countries’ different cultural heritages. Each had their established pictorial conventions and relationship to the land that was different from the other. This did not eventuate into large amounts of specific research on Aboriginal and Maori spiritual belief systems, but rather looked at how they approached the land and their physical, emotional and spiritual relationship with it. The intended outcome of this part of my research was to see if artists had developed pictorial conventions different to those used in the Old World. It was interesting to note that some Australian landscape artists began to adopt the Aboriginal love of the land and started to immerse themselves in it whereas before they only visited briefly. Such immersion is common now, with artists such as John Wolseley camping in the land for months at a time. Artists often plan trips in order to spend time

29 together as a group in the land. The fixed perspective in looking at the land has been disregarded as a prerequisite and we find artists examining and portraying the land from multiple angles and various points of discovery in scale – ranging from the micro made macro paintings of Peter Sharp and the scientific approach of John Wolseley in combining the miniscule with the overall view, to the multi-point perspective found in William Robinson’s paintings. The work of artists in our southern lands has become a well-rounded story of our relationship with the land with ideas and cultural stances often incorporated.

The Heidelberg painters in Australia were the first to attempt to create a national identity and an Australian way of depicting the land. Part of the Australian psyche is to have ’s The Purple Noon’s Transparent Might, 1896 or some other work from the of Painters hanging on the wall in the doctor’s office or at home. Their emphasis was on painting capturing the real harsh light and colours of Australia.

Figure 13: Arthur Streeton, The Purple Noon’s Transparent Might, 1896.

Oil on Canvas. 123 x 123 cm

30 The paintings of Frederick McCubbin, of the Heidelberg School, demonstrate an intimacy with the bush and a love of innate beauty revealed through the attention to detail in the foreground, the use of texture and observation of colours. We find themes of nostalgia in his work; he depicted the everyday of the colonist as he imagined it to be. Frederick McCubbin recalled his first experience of plein air painting in the bush outside with in a letter to a friend “…there for the first time I got awakened to the beauties of the Australian landscape. I remember that afternoon as a delightful memory.”xxxv This sentimental, narrative and empathic approach to depicting the everyday scenes of rural imagery resulted in these subjects being elevated to the status of . The Heidelburg School of Painters began to paint the familiar and everyday scenes – rural imagery became elevated into history painting. McCubbin’s use of colours reflects his poetic, emotional response to the land. During his visit to and Europe, McCubbin observed the landscape and wrote home to his wife Annie: “…although it is very charming it is not as beautiful as our landscape. We have more colour in our Landscape than they have in England and more light. The trees so often look black.”xxxvi In On the Wallaby Track 1896, we are invited to observe the quiet interaction of a pioneer family settling down to camp in the bush. Mauves, peaches, flecks of red-brown and flecks of soft blues articulate McCubbin’s intimacy with the land. His ability to see the subtle hues of the bush undergrowth points to the time spent in the bush and is indicative of his love of it.

Figure 14: Frederick McCubbin, On the Wallaby Track, 1896

31

The work of Colin McCahon, a New Zealand artist known for his paintings imaging the land through the filters of spirituality, has had a significant impact on my ideas about the land. McCahon expressed the land with an often limited palette which emphasised his use of light and dark, using references from the Bible as well as European and Maori semiotics, and text to communicate his response to the imaging of the land. Having read A Question of Faith, a biography on Colin McCahon, I was particularly encouraged by McCahon’s connection with the New Zealand landscape throughout his spiritual journey. It was almost as if I had been handed a permission note to also use the land as a spiritual filter but through my own eyes and filters. I further felt an affinity to him in that he also encountered both the lands I have grown to love. He visited Australia and wrote back home commenting that:

the landscape is so different from NZ. The greens are quite unbelievable and the soil all light red. Trees everywhere, but almost no undergrowth. Hill shapes all very different from ours too and the feeling of distance even in small areas of landscape is enormous… it’s beautiful, just so different from NZ. So much more human and soft. Little or none of the NZ grandeur.xxxvii

McCahon sought to develop new imaging methodologies that fitted the unique culture and mood of New Zealand. He dismissed the European conventions of pictorial structure in favour of experimenting with an approach that combined text, abstraction and landscape. He was not interested in capturing the beautiful view of the land; rather, he was interested in capturing the essence of the place. Of his search for new imaging methodologies, he explained:

I saw something logical, orderly and beautiful belonging to the land and not yet to its people. Not yet understood or communicated, not even really yet invented. My work has largely been to communicate this vision and to invent the way to see it.

32 McCahon shared that his desire was that his landscapes communicate the spiritual and transcend specific sites. Writing specifically about his work Takaka: night and day, 1948 in relation to these hopes, he stated:

Once more it states my interest in landscape as a symbol of place and also of human condition. It is not so much a portrait of place as such but is a memory of a time and an experience of a particular place.xxxviii

Figure 15: Colin McCahon, Takaka: night and day, 1948. Oil on Canvas. 91.5 x 213 cm

Figure 16: Colin McCahon, Victory over Death 2, 1970. Synthetic polymer paint on unstretched canvas. 207.5 x 597.7 cm

33

Contemporary responses to the sublime

Zooming into the present of , we find a continuum of spirituality intersecting the experience of the land in some artists’ practices. As I became more focused on land as a subject matter, I began to look at the practices of other artists who also focused on the land. Each of the aforementioned artists has helped contribute to my ideas, manner of working, choice of composition, or understanding of colour, use of light, and paint elements. Attending the exhibition On this Island, Meeting and Parting, sponsored by Artist Profile Magazine and Winsor and Newton, at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery in April 2010 came at a pivotal time for me. This was before I had responded to the Australian landscape in paint and it was provoking to see artists responding to the New Zealand landscape with appreciation despite, with the exception of one artist, it not being their homeland. It was interesting to see their responses and the mix of artistic approaches to the same subject matter. It got me thinking and I revisited the show a few times. In addition, a few artists I had been following for some time, such as Euan Macleod and Lucy Culliton, were included in the exhibition. It was a joy to see their colour choices, application of paint and scale used in response to the New Zealand landscape.

Around the same time I had been participating in COFA’s custom printing workshop “Cicada Press” directed by Michael Kempson. Artists were invited to create plates which we printed into editions It was a privilege to have insight into the working processes of artists such as Elizabeth Cummings, Ken Searle and Euan Macleod.

Elizabeth Cummings’ use of colour and mark making was of particular interest to me. Her layering of colours and marks in the etching process are also found in her paintings. I was entranced watching her seemingly effortless decisions in regards to mark making, which are obviously the by-product of her life’s love of making art. Her lines are alternately bold and spindly, broken up with texture. Her colours are clean and sing. My observation of her linear work in the studio partially

34 informed a looser approach in the way I worked into the foreground. It was marvellous to realize that one did not need to describe every branch, blade of grass or shrub to capture or describe one’s vision.

Figure 17: Elizabeth Cummings, Simpson Desert, Ed. 25, 2007

Being New Zealand born, Euan Macleod was an artist whose work I was drawn to examine in closer detail from the outset of my research. Attending his survey show Surface Tension: The Art of Euan Macleod, 1991 – 2009 at S.H. Ervin Gallery was a must. Faced with the prospect of seeing such a broad scope of work in one place, I felt like a kid walking through the gates of Disneyland. His work speaks to me on many levels. The strength of his composition and paint application inspired me. Thickly laid paint with colours integrated in one broad sweep meant one could step right back to see the fullness of the work but still enjoy the complex textures by observing from close up. The moodiness of colours, grandness of scale, and the varied use of texture gave me something to aspire to and process into my own manner of working. The paintings, although land-based, especially struck me as an

35 exploration of the inner world of the artist. This subconscious approach of using motifs such as boats combined with recurring colour choices as well as the solitary figure in his works points to an internal emotional scape or a “self-portrait” of sorts. It was around this time that I was looking at my practice and my motivations for painting the land. It had slowly become about my inner space and the feeling of quietness and reflection I found being in the land. The land has become a marker for a spiritual experience, not religious. I was also interested in the way Macleod has visited and revisited both New Zealand and Australian landscape as his subject, again encouraging me to do both.

Figure 18: Euan Macleod, Glacial, 2010. Oil on Canvas. 150 x 180 cm.

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Figure 19: Euan Macleod, Vista, 2010. Oil on Canvas. 83 x 144 cm.

William Robinson is one artist that has stood out to me in both development of new imaging methodologies and encountering the land through filters of the sublime. He has been compared to Eugene von Guerard in subject and execution, and tied philosophically to eighteenth century Edmund Burke’s notions of the sublime by contemporary art writers. His work has been described as ‘an unquestionably God- revealed world’. A multi-perspective discovery of the land is introduced, almost as if you were lying on the grass and turning over occasionally from front to side to back. This gives a ‘rounded’ view of the land, a more tangible experience than a single- faceted view. Robinson has described his work as an attempt: “…to equate ways of seeing the most primal forces of nature as we feel them through our senses – the elements of time, order and interrelationships.”xxxix In reading about Robinson, I felt a close affinity to him as an artist as he is inspired and motivated by the same beauty and ideas that inspire me:

Robinson’s subject is essentially the first few chapters of Genesis. Earth, sky, sea, and heavens: here are all the elements of the six days of creation. The

37 artist ambition, immodestly, is to trace God’s exuberant creativity; his subject is nothing less than the sheer genius of creation itself. Yet the artist’s aim inevitable outstrips his capabilities – a necessary humility for any student of creation. Fallibility – failure – is an essential aspect of any endeavour; any replica of God’s handiwork must be a caricature, a cartoon. xl

Figure 20: William Robinson, Creation Landscape - foundation of the earth, 2002, oil on two canvases. 167.5 h x 488.0 w cm

Robinson finds the beauty in nature to be sacred and ‘something that can be poetically transformed into a mystical, heightened state.’xli Robinson describes his work as ‘the truth’, an expression of his feelings and experiences laid down in paint. He refers to an awareness of ‘The Presence’:

In the Book of Kings a metaphor of ‘The Presence’ as being ‘light as a rustling breeze’ came to my mind – the only movement of the breeze is the branch in Kings 19:9-15. Elias has an awareness of the presence of God.xlii

Colour is one of the main vehicles Robinson uses to explore the spirituality of his experience in the land. He makes a point of never using tube black and his view on colour is: “‘Colour is everything,’ the artist has said, and in its refractions he finds a metaphor for the glorious spectrum of God’s creation. “xliii Music is interwoven as a major influence in Robinson’s thoughts and ideas, and consequently is

38 subconsciously outworked into his painting. Robinson is interested in how music and colour have similar properties and he:

Is very interested in mood in music – some great agitation or great calm – and sees the enriching possibilities of an equivalent in painting, in the subtleties of ‘darkness’ and colour, where clarity lifts colour above mere substance to spirit and ethereal.xliv

Art critic John MacDonald draws a connection between the landscapes of Robinson and the compositions of Bach, stating:

The mixture of technical brilliance; logical, precise structure, and deep emotion found in Bach, is echoed in Robinson’s landscapes. One might analyse his paintings as musical compositions, looking for evidence of counterpoint, discord, and fugal forms. Stand in front of these paintings of the Australian bush, and the soundtrack that springs to mind is Bach’s Mass in B Minor.xlv

39 PART FOUR: SPIRITUALITY AND THE LAND

Beauty Pointing to the Infinite

As already discussed in this paper, literature has a long intertwined history of genesis with notions of the sublime and consequent theories and tangible creative endeavours branching from these ideas. In looking at literature in its varied forms as well as other art forms such as music and other practices in both the historical and contemporary context aided my interpretation and discovery of the sublime. Subsequently, I found my work informed by a wide range of art practice ranging from literature and poetry, music and lyrics, to architecture and other visual art practitioners works.

I have noticed that human beings tend to set up “viewing points” along walking tracks and scenic drives. As a mark of common courtesy, there is often a bench present to allow people to take time to note the splendour of the view. We are all at some level attracted to experiencing a view from a high vantage point: the feeling of the infinite horizon; the colours and textures unfurling below you, in front of you and muted in the distance. We have a conscious awareness of scale, of the grandeur of creation and us in it, and of the comparison between the two. The Romantics understood this and their work demonstrates this acknowledgement of scale, the feeling of awe as we encounter a vast mountainous range and sweeping valleys.

Along with the wider Romantic Movement of the eighteenth century came a subset of thought from religious thinkers of the Oxford movement who regenerated an appreciation for “the role of the aesthetic in everyday life.”xlvi Various writers have expounded on the idea that beauty points to God, rather than being merely a source of aesthetic enjoyment. Application of this idea is demonstrated clearly in the architecture and decor of church buildings: arches sweeping heavenward, colourful stained-glass windows, and clever use of light to draw our attention heavenward. This is especially evident in the architecture of the Gothic period; its buildings have been described as possessing transcendent beauty that harkens to the infinite,

40 leaving us aware of our humanity and in awe of divinity. When I walk into a traditional church, I find a respectful quietness that is rarely to be found in today’s busy world. It is a hushed place of contemplation that inspires reverence. Some who encounter my work remark on my use of colour and light, comparing my skies in some ways to stained glass windows. This is a comparison that has left me very aware of the fallibility of my work. My desire is to capture that light, colour, the feeling of being swept up into the heavens; however, I feel that my work always falls short. Seen together as a body of work, hopefully one may see glimpses of this feeling of transcendence. However, this quest to fully capture and display our vision is what keeps every artist coming back to another blank support; we feel as though only elements of the ‘vision’ squint through the layers of paint, yet we refuse to concede defeat. As discussed earlier in the quote surrounding Robinson’s practice: ‘any replica of God’s handiwork must be a caricature, a cartoon’.

Figure 21: Chartres Cathedral, France

41 On beauty and the sublime found in architecture, Romantic poet and philosopher Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote:

When I enter a Greek church, my eye is charmed, and my mind elated; I feel exalted, and proud that I am a man. But the Gothic art is sublime. On entering a cathedral, I am filled with devotion and with awe; I am lost to the actualities that surround me, and my whole being expands into the infinite; earth and air, nature and art, all swell up into eternity, and the only sensible impression left is, ‘that I am nothing!’xlvii

In Art and The Beauty of God, Richard Harries writes on beauty that points to something beyond itself: “For beauty delights us, takes us out of ourselves in appreciation and wonder, and at the same time leaves us outside. It makes us at once utterly satisfied and strangely unsatisfied.”xlviii

The Spiritual Significance of the Sky

Of the Oxford movement, John Keble was a professor at Oxford who placed emphasis on the relationship between beauty and religious truth. He delivered forty lectures over the span of a decade, all of which were centred on exploring the connections between religion and the nature of poetry. Keble remarked on this relationship:

Religion and poetry are akin because each is marked by a pure reserve, a kind of modesty or reverence. To follow nature sensitively, you need to follow her unveiling part of herself. You are led upwards from beauty to beauty, quietly and serenely, step by step, with no sudden leap from depths to height. Beauty is shy, is not like a man rushing out in front of a crowd. Religion too, if it is wise, models itself upon the ways of Scripture, where the treasure of truth is hidden from the idle and unready, to be seen only when the eye of the mind is pure.xlix

42 Philosopher Friedrich Schelling described nature as “visible spirit” and described art as the miracle “by which the finite should be elevated to the infinite”l. In an essay on Nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson unfolds a clear explanation of the poetic picture which he claims teaches us to see into her (nature’s) soul:

The lover of Nature is he whose inward and outward senses are still truly adjusted to each other; who has retained the spirit of infancy even into the era of manhood. His intercourse with heaven and earth becomes part of his daily food….In the presence of Nature, a wild delight runs through the man, in spite of real sorrows. Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God.li

Exploring what religious thinkers have written on the sublime, beauty and God became an important aspect of my research. During the course of my practice-based research in the studio my paintings gradually came to place greater emphasis on skies. The reason behind this shift of emphasis was not simply because I liked the skies best, but rather that when in the land I find myself looking up to the sky. Sky is boundless, infinite and dynamic. I was naturally drawn to paint clouds, as they are integral participants in the sweeping dramas of the sky: revealing and concealing light; showcasing glorious sun shafts that emerge like spotlights from their midst. A friend also commented on my skies and pointed out how they are always the focal point, asking if it was because I wanted to draw one’s attention to the heavens. This attention to the skies is an acknowledgment of the divine in my work.

Clouds capture the imagination of all ages. Amongst my daily routine, I look to the sky frequently – often at the traffic lights or driving over a bridge with the sky all around me. As a child, I would happily lay on the grass with face upturned to watch the clouds whilst munching an apple after school. When I am on holidays or having a restful weekend, this is still a favourite pastime of mine. There is something releasing about watching the clouds and letting your mind drift with them –

43 allowing your thoughts to be rearranged as the clouds are rearranged by the wind currents. Strange stories form in our minds as we watch a cloud’s shape change from that of a bear into that of an alligator. An emphasis on clouds as a dominant feature in my work was intuitive, although I later discovered their symbolic significance through my research, discovering that cloud imagery and descriptions of clouds can be found in a diverse range of religions. From ancient mythology until now the skies have always been recognised as the dwelling place of the gods; due to their connection with the sky and hence ‘the heavens’, clouds are associated with the divine. Philipp Otto Runge, a German romantic painter, wrote in a letter: “Who does not see spirits in the clouds when the sun is setting?”lii Burke stated in his Enquiry “the cloudy sky is more grand than the blue”liii. In Psalm 8 the Psalmist exclaims over the glory found in the sky:

O Lord our Lord,

how majestic is your name in all the earth!

When I consider your heavens,

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,

the son of man that you care for him?liv

In relation to the cultural practices and belief systems of New Zealand I was rather intrigued by one colonist’s account regarding Maori spirituality and nature, which I found in an old book relating to the English public the characteristics and qualities of the new found land of New Zealand:

44 But Mr. Savage gives us a most particular account of their daily adoration of the sun, moon, and stars. Of the heavenly host, the moon, he says, is their favourite; though why he should think so, it is not easy to understand, seeing that, when addressing this luminary, they employ, he tells us, a mournful song, and seem as full of apprehension as of devotion: whereas “when paying their adoration to the rising sun, the arms are spread and the head bowed, with the appearance of much joy in their countenances, accompanied with a degree of elegant and reverential solemnity, and the song used upon the occasion is cheerful.lv

New Zealand artist Colin McCahon commented on the cultural residue of the Maori connection between spirituality and nature:

Curiously enough, sometimes in New Zealand painting some of this delight in a ‘good view’, this half spiritual, half aesthetic attitude to nature, may be attributed by the European artist to the Maori themselves.

It is also significant to recall that the Maori name for New Zealand is “Aotearoa”, which translates as “land of the long white cloud”. This naming of the land is not something that is only Maori. The use of the name “Aotearoa” has assimilated itself into the psyche of most New Zealanders. Growing up in New Zealand I learnt the national anthem in Maori and sang “Aotearoa” with pride. It fits the personality of the place well, as it is a land of moodiness and changeable weather conditions. It is a name that is used often and it has been adopted into the language as though it were always a part of it. Spirituality and the land are tied to the core values of New Zealand, as demonstrated by the last verse of the national anthem:

May our mountains ever be Freedom's ramparts on the sea, Make us faithful unto Thee, God defend our free land. Guide her in the nations' van, Preaching love and truth to man, Working out Thy glorious plan,

45 God defend New Zealand.

God is asked to be involved in the protection of the land, invited to be in relationship with the people of the land (“Make us faithful”, “guide her”). The reference to clouds in the Maori name for New Zealand is not the sole indication of the awareness of clouds in Maori culture. For example, although the highest mountain in New Zealand is most widely known as “Mt Cook”, it also possesses the Maori name of “Aoraki” meaning ‘cloud piercer’.

Coming from this background, in my practice-based research I have found that clouds allow me to fully experiment with the flow and pour of paint, creating movement and drama in my works whilst also alluding to my discovery of the divine: “The Heavens declare the glory of God;/ the skies proclaim the work of his hands.”lvi Being so changeable, clouds and skies seem to encapsulate emotions in their various stages of flux. The series of emotions the sky and clouds inspire has become the vehicle I use for expressing and communicating various facets of the sublime and divine. Art critic G.W. Sheldon commented on the relationship between human emotions and atmospheric conditions:

The condition – that is, the colour – of the air is the one essential thing…in landscape painting…Different conditions of the air produce different impression upon the mind, making us feel sad, or glad, or awed.lvii

As I am particularly interested in the Christian position on the symbolism of clouds, I will briefly explain the significance of clouds in the Judeo-Christian tradition. From the Old Testament through to the New Testament (which is a fulfilment of the old), clouds are sometimes used to indicate God’s presence. The cloud was a visible sign of the presence of God to the Israelites as they wandered the desert before reaching the promised land and it was the cloud that guided them during the day: “By day the Lord went ahead of them in a pillar of cloud to guide them on their way.”lviii In the book of the prophet Isaiah, the cloud again is married with the presence of God: “See, the Lord rides on a swift cloud”lix. God is described as riding the clouds a total of

46 twelve times in the Bible. Furthermore, the apostles Luke and John foretold that Jesus would one day return to Earth on a cloud: “At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory”lx and “I looked, and there before me was a white cloud and seated in the cloud was one ‘like a son of man’ with a crown of gold..”lxi

Theologians question whether it is possible to understand a subject of transcendence, such as is found when experiencing the sublime or observing beauty, without any reference to the transcendent. In other words, they ask: “Can we study beauty without studying God?”lxii In the Judeo-Christian tradition, the concept of the earth shining with the glory of God is evident: “the land was radiant with his glory.”lxiii More specifically in relation to the land of New Zealand and the spiritual response it incites, I was interested to note English artist Augustus Earle’s journal entry on visiting the Bay of Islands in 1827: “All appeared wild and magnificent, as if just fresh from the hands of nature; and it failed not to lead the mind up to the contemplation of the Creator.”lxiv In juxtaposition to Earle’s response, for the missionary Richard Taylor, the North Island’s Volcanic Plateau was ‘a world blasted by sin.’”lxv

Ruskin speaks of the “truth of skies”:

It is a strange thing how little people know in general about the sky. It is the part of creation in which nature has done more for the sake of pleasing man, more, for the sole and evident purpose of talking to him and teaching him, than in any other of her works, and it is just the part in which we least attend to her.lxvi

There is not a moment of any day of our lives, when nature is not producing scene after scene, picture after picture, glory after glory, and working still upon such exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect beauty, that it is quite certain it is all done for us, and intended for our perpetual pleasure.lxvii

47 When out in the morning or evening I seek stillness; I set aside such times for my soul to unwind, and often I will sing under my breath or contemplate creation and the creator. When reading a compilation of writings on beauty’s relationship to the doctrine of God by the eighteenth-century Christian theologian Jonathan Edwards, I found that his response to the land was similar:

God’s Excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love seemed to appear in everything; in the sun, moon and stars; in the clouds and blue sky; in the grass, flowers, trees; in the water; and all nature; which used greatly to fix my mind. I often used to sit and view the moon, for a long time; and so in the daytime, spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold the sweet glory of God in these things: in the meantime, singing forth with a low voice, my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer…and while I viewed, used to spend my time, as it always seemed natural to me, to sing or chant forth my meditations; to speak my thoughts in soliloquies, and speak with a singing voice.lxviii

As humans, the vast majority of us long for beauty. Diogenes Allen explores beauty in relation to the divine in his book The Traces of God, basing his commentary on the intellectual suppositions of Simone Weil. Allen examines the meaning or purpose of beauty apart from the pleasure of contemplating it, suggesting that it is a path pointing to our desire for something beyond the confines of this world:

Yet that meaning, purpose, and perfection is always elusive; the beauty of the world constantly promises, yet it never satisfies. The very fact that beauty has no finality can suggest to us that the universe itself has no finality; that its purpose, if it has any, lies beyond it.lxix

Allen explains this idea further by indicating that beauty is a joyous route to contemplating and cultivating a personal receptivity to the love of God. C.S Lewis, a respected Christian author, described this as our desire for what he termed ‘our own far-off country’. Beauty found here on earth can never seem to completely satisfy us; as Harries pointed out in the earlier quote above, we are strangely

48 satisfied and dissatisfied at the same time. C.S. Lewis understood this feeling and indicated we will never be fully sated until we reach that far-off country, meaning heaven. On the desire for beauty and something more, he wrote:

I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you – the secret that hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and effect to laugh at ourselves; the secret we cannot hide and cannot tell, though we desire to do both.lxx

That secret is that which we hide, our desire for something beyond us and beyond merely the beauty itself; the sublime experience places us on a spiritual plane. Lewis suggests that our dissatisfaction with beauty stems from a desire to do more than merely observe it: “We do not want merely to see beauty…we want something else that can hardly be put into words – to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become a part of it.”lxxi

Theologians and the Bible say that the source of beauty is God, and that beauty and the sublime experience is his way of romancing us and our attention ultimately to Him. Simone Weil, a religious thinker from France, commented:

The beauty of the world is Christ’s tender smile for us coming through matter. He is really present in the universal beauty. The love of this beauty proceeds from God dwelling in our soul and goes out to God present in the universe. It is also like a sacrament.lxxii

This idea is prominent among Christian authors across the ages; its continuum spans Byzantium and the Oxford movement, and the idea still has currency today.

Ruskin completes all these statements by addressing our human understanding and experience of beauty as accumulative steps:

49 For, as it is necessary to the existence of an idea of beauty, that the sensual pleasure which may be its basis, should be accompanied first with joy, then with love of the object, then with the perception of kindness in a superior intelligence, finally, with thankfulness and veneration towards that intelligence itself.lxxiii

We find that this idea of creation reflecting the creator is also evident in other religious thought. For example, the idea is also recognized in the Islamic tradition, being present in the Koran. Prominent Muslim poet Rumi states in one of his works of prose:

God says, "I was a hidden treasure and I loved to be known." In other words, I created the whole cosmos, and the goal in all of it was to make myself manifest, sometimes through gentleness and sometimes though severity. God is not the kind of king for whom a single herald would be sufficient. Were all the atoms of the universe his heralds, they would fall short and be incapable of making him known.lxxiv

Rumi expands on this metaphorically by comparing the idea of God’s creative love to a mirror that reflects the beauty of love displayed: “God said to love, ‘Were it not for your beauty, would I concern myself with the mirror of existence?’ (Diwam 26108)”lxxv

Nature as an expression or symbol of divinity is also found in Hinduism and :

In Hinduism (the lotus) is a symbol of the sun and of creation, and also in Jainism and Buddhism, of perfection and purity…..seated on the open flower was the god Brahma. Thus in Hinduism the lotus became the “visible representation of the womb of creation”.lxxvi

The Chinese have an innate attentiveness to the spiritual kinship between man and nature. In ancient Chinese thought there was a ‘sky door’ or ‘Gate of Heaven’ which

50 was believed to be in the middle of the sky at the apex of the universe. This was written or expressed in the Chinese characters of ‘glory’ and ‘gate’ inferring that beyond the ‘sky door’ could be found the glory of heaven.

In exploring this line of thought there are of course those who oppose or question this idea as valid. R.A Oates states:

It is unreasonable to expect that a sunset (or whatever) that afforded a visual detection of God's presence to someone who witnessed it would thereby be a sunset (or whatever) that afforded a visual detection of God's presence to everyone ... who witnessed it…lxxvii

Here I will elaborate further on the Christian tradition, which is my emphasis of enquiry and all discussion of the spiritual in relation to the land will henceforth be centred on this.

Influences along the journey of my practice have determined my thinking, painting process and my approach to the land. Music and poetry have played as pivotal a role in this journey as the exploration and intersection of other visual art practitioners’ works. Very early on in my research I began reading through the psalms to draw inspiration for painting titles and found an affinity with how the psalmists felt in the land. One particular Psalm has become almost a banner over all that my work represents and is one of my favourites: “Where morning dawns and evening fades / you call forth songs of joy.”lxxviii I began to fancifully liken my paintings to “visual psalms” in my private thoughts and found that whilst in the land often a verse from a psalm would impress itself upon my mind and I would often quietly whisper it aloud in response to my feelings at that moment. One such example of this is my painting titled “Refuge”. On that particular morning, I could feel the chill of the early morning dew as I watched the delicacy of the sweeping clouds and floating fog. The fog and clouds seemed to magnify the strength and solidarity of the hill anchored in the land before me. It recalled to me Psalm 91: 1 – 2 “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadows of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, ‘He is

51 my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.”lxxix This psalm became the theme of the painting and was how the painting came to be named “Refuge”. Acknowledging the spirituality of thought behind the work, The Blake Prize 2011 judges commented:

The Coburn Award for an emerging artist was awarded to Carla Hananiah for her Refuge, a painted layering of mystery and illumination over an Australian landscape, asking the viewer to consider themes of religious refuge, homeland and becoming.lxxx

Figure 22: Carla Hananiah, Refuge, 2009. Oil on Board. 90 x 122 cm.

A study of light, colour, and sound

In addition, listening to hymns and other more modern songs gave me a fresh perspective on uncovering the divine character in times of personal devotion whilst

52 in the land. One of the artists whom I have been listening to since her first album came out is Brooke Fraser. Her lyrics in the “C.S. Lewis Song” capture something of the theology I have looked into as well as what I am exploring visually:

If I find in myself desires nothing in this world can satisfy, I can only conclude that I was not made for here If the flesh that I fight is at best only light and momentary, Then of course I'll feel nude when to where I'm destined I'm compared

[Chorus] Speak to me in the light of the dawn Mercy comes with the morning I will sigh and with all creation groan as I wait for hope to come for me.lxxxi

Hymns are derived from poetry but put to a verse and stanza structure with music. They were one way writers connected with the beauty of creation and acknowledged the creator of it. The earliest hymns were based on the psalms, which are prayers and poetry intended for musical accompaniment. Notes precede many of the psalms and contain musical instructions such as “With stringed instruments” or “To the tune of ‘The Lily of the Covenant’…”lxxxii From the seventeenth and eighteenth century onwards a shift from Metrical Psalters to actual hymns was apparent. Writers were using their own words to communicate thoughts and worship of God. The hymn It is Well with My Soul, written by Horatio Spafford, is one of my favourites. It reminds me that in God’s presence my soul is well, regardless of what season it is in my life. In times of personal reflection in the land I can relate to the line in this hymn that states: “Thou wilt whisper Thy peace to my soul.” Exploring various hymns, psalms and poetry became a natural part of my encounter with the internal emotions I had in response to my experience of the divine felt in the land echoing Jonathan Edwards’s response in some way.

John Chrysostom, commenting on Psalm 41, says:

53 Nothing, nothing uplifts the soul so much, and gives it wings, and liberates it from earth, and releases it from the fetters of the body, and makes it aspire after wisdom and deride all the cares of this life, as the melody of unison and rhythm-possessing sacred songs.lxxxiii

It is easy and quite broad for one to say that music influences the way in which one works; however, music has become much more to me than merely background noise or something to sing along to in the studio. I have begun to notice a difference in my painting when listening to music, and now I am more careful about what I listen to when painting - particularly when painting my skies. The reason for this is that what I listen to while painting subconsciously affects my gestural movements, which in turn determine the mood of the work. In a curatorial piece on my practice published in conjunction with a recent solo exhibition, curator Barbara Dowse likened my skies to music, commenting that:

The emotional involvement of the artist, wielding the brush with extravagant gestures fitting for the magnitude of the subject, is evident in the tone and texture of deep whorls, apocalyptic vortexes and the upholstered beautiful yet foreboding cushiony cloud masses. Hananiah’s landscapes are analogous with music. Symphonic climaxes of expansive grandeur and passages of demoniacal drive and soaring crescendos are interspersed with soft lilting melodic moments for serene, quiet reflection.lxxxiv

Being married to a music composer naturally contributes to my awareness of music and its impact on my practice. Over the duration of my MFA research, my husband and I have collaborated on some experimental projects where our two passions of music and art intersect. We began by choosing certain psalms, which then became starting points for creative exploration: a response in paint and sound. The result found us documenting the process of my paintings ‘unfolding’ for the viewer through a series of still images of various stages of the painting, which were then compiled into a video piece and accompanied by Isaac’s music. It was a delightful intersection of our individual practices and projects.

54

Figure 23: Screen shot of stills for video of Reverent, 2009

Arthur Schopenhauer disliked noise immensely because it forced itself on the hearer, destroying “all ideas and instantly shatter[ing] the power of thought”. The eye is a selective and active sense whereas hearing is a passive sense, meaning that we cannot select or control what we hear. When enjoying the sounds of the birds whilst looking at the trees we will still hear the traffic noise. We can choose to not look at the traffic and focus on the trees but our hearing is incapable of filtering out unwanted sound. This is why philosophers believe music has an immediacy of effect on us as humans. Schopenhauer in particular considered music as vital to human life: “…its effect on man’s innermost nature is so powerful, and it is so completely and profoundly understood by him in his innermost being as an entirely universal language….”lxxxv

55 In “John Coburn: The Spirit of Colour”, Lou Klepac discusses the similar attributes of music and colour. He claims that when colour is separated from an association with a particular object, it has a similar power to music: “Pure colour awakens in us different states of consciousness from those aroused when colour is only associated with an object”lxxxvi. He states that: “the reason for this is that both colour and sound are transmitted by vibrations and represent energy”lxxxvii. As shared in his journal… colour alone is “the language of the listening eye” - its “suggestive quality” is “…suited to help our imaginations soar, decorating our dream, opening a new door onto mystery and the infinite.”lxxxviii

I naturally place a strong emphasis on the use of colour in my work. Colour has come to reflect my various emotions whilst in the land. At first it was subconscious and I have found it is quite interesting to look back on my work and realise that the emotional states I was in at certain times have come through in my paintings. I have become much more conscious of this now, although I still rely on instinct rather than formulated decisions in creating and mixing colours together ready for a piece. I was excited to read about colour and how it affects us so instantly. I like that there are no filters on how we react to colour; colour bypasses the analytical part of our mind and goes straight to the heart:

But what is colour? How could we describe or explain it to a blind person? After centuries of investigation, we have learned some of the properties of colour, but the phenomenon remains a marvellous mystery. Colour is life and as such it has a direct connection with our emotions and state of mind.lxxxix

Colour, for me, has become an instinctive tool that I use to identify and communicate my emotions and my discovery of the divine. I find this is a beautiful metaphor because colour is what makes up light, light represents the divine and the divine is what I seek to portray through use of colour. This is touched on by Forsyth: “the melting shades of colour, and the melting contours of landscape, whether in poetry or painting, that best suit with those suggestions of the Infinite which abhor the sharpness of definition and transcend the limitation of form.”xc

56 This expression of emotions such as joy through colour is also found in the work of John Coburn, who described his use of colour to Robert Hughes and commented: “Appearances are distracting. What you feel about a thing is important, not what it looks like. I don’t want to teach people how to see. I want to get them to feel.”xci

Colour has become a main focus in my work and I feel that it describes and communicates my spiritual and emotional experiences in the land. The ultimate challenge is to create new colours and new colour combinations that speak to me and to others. In my paintings the actual site or place has become a sidenote, rather the experience and resulting emotions have become the ‘place’ I seek to visit. It has become more about describing the state of my soul rather than the specific place. In terms of colour, critics associate this idea with Mark Rothko’s work:

Besides being deeply influenced by Matisse and music, his paintings also contain his experience of the landscape. That was the source of his colour. Though the horizons may suggest landscape, his works are not landscapes; one could however refer to them as ‘landscapes of the soul’, for that was the region of his enquiry.xcii

The phrase “landscapes of the soul” caught my imagination when I was reading and I feel that it fits somewhat with what I hope to communicate. My work is not necessarily just about my soul, but rather an invitation for others to slow down in order to contemplate beauty and be ministered to in the process.

The impact of light and the spectrum of colour it creates is a continual joy to me. Light and the evidence of light cutting through darkness, heightening the sense of power and illumination is something that is always breathtaking. According to the Bible, in the beginning God separated light from dark with time, creating day and night. The way he daily transitions between these two, each sunset and sunrise, indicates a God who is interested in romance and beauty. I believe that the ever- changing skies of dawn and dusk are one of God’s ways of romancing us, reminding us of His nature and character. Ruskin claimed that:

57 ...there is yet a light which the eye invariably seeks with a deeper feeling of the beautiful, the light of the declining or breaking day, and the flakes of scarlet cloud burning like watch fires in the green sky of the horizon; a deeper feeling, I say, not perhaps more acute, but having more a spiritual hope and longing.xciii

Romanced and Relentless Love were named thus due to my feelings of being romanced whilst in the land. On this particular evening we had pulled over at this spot as dusk was nearly upon us. Hoping for a stunner of a sunset, I had set up my camera and tripod on the side of the road. After waiting for a while it seemed it was going to be a quieter and undramatic close of day and so, disappointed, I started packing everything away saying, “Nothing is happening tonight”. As if I had been heard and the divine desired to prove me wrong, suddenly glorious light shafts started peering out from behind the clouds, dancing on and illuminating the mountain ranges in changing rays like a spotlight. It was quite a breathtaking quarter of an hour and I felt as if the light show had been ‘turned on’ just for me.

In his essay on Modern Painters, Ruskin delves in depth by examining the divine in association with our natural understanding. Light is a key topic he looks at in regards to beauty, stating that humanity’s love of light is more instinctual than any other desires connected to beauty. Quoting from the Bible “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” Ruskin points out that light is what we most desire when seeking beauty and that this is parallel with desiring the divine:

But light possessing the universal qualities of beauty, diffused or infinite rather than in points, tranquil, not startling and variable, pure, not sullied or oppressed, which is indeed pleasant and perfectly typical of the Divine nature.xciv

58

Figure 24: Carla Hananiah, Romanced, 2011. Oil on Board. 91.5 x 120 cm

Figure 25: Carla Hananiah, Relentless Love, 2011. Oil on Board. 91.5 x 120 cm

59 In C. S. Lewis’ early works of poetry, particularly in “Dungeon Gates” he explores how beauty can lead us, and places an emphasis on articulating and painting a picture of transcendent beauty:

From its very glory’s midmost heart Out leaps a sudden beam of larger light Into our souls, then we will see all things as they really arexcv

60 PART FIVE: THE CREATIVE PROCESS

Fluid Painting Methodology

I had been playing with dripping fluid paint for a number of years and it slowly transformed into how I am working now. The way I paint at present is to liquefy the oil and manipulate it with brushes and movement of the support to capture the sense of a moving landscape: clouds unfurling over the sky, colours morphing into each other. It is an enjoyable process for me – the quiet contemplation of a studio session in which I spend time mixing colours, liquefying the paint and storing them in takeaway containers. Then they are ready for an intensive and energetic session in the studio laying the sky in.

Figure 26: The painting process for Purity, 2009 (unfinished state)

I remember my favourite object to play with when visiting my Uncle and Aunty was two pieces of glass with different tones of sand and water encased in it with a frame

61 around it. By turning and moving the panel the sand would create these wonderful marbled landscapes. This was a marvel for me and fascinated me no end. When I began to play with paint it seemed that this somehow subconsciously translated into how I created the landscapes I painted. Manipulating the paint to make the landscape move has become my painting methodology; I experiment with the paint until the landscape mirrors the one in my mind. Preparation for a painting is done a day ahead and all the colours are ‘liquefied’. In one session I paint wet into wet to create the basis for the painting, which I later add to when it is dry. When applying paint, I often tilt the support to manipulate the paint as the colours run into each other, guiding it with brushes and even blowing on it to move the paint. Paint marbles into each other and new colours are created and swirl into each other. This process now reminds me of the childhood fascination I had with the moving landscape sand panels and how I would always decide when it had moved to the point of satisfaction and needed to then stay put to be enjoyed and viewed for a time.

Figure 27: Example of moving sand panel

62 Application and movement of paint is instinctual at times; due to the constraints imposed by drying time, my painting style has become increasingly intuitive. This correlates to the techniques and philosophy of sumi-e painting:

The artist must follow his inspiration as spontaneously and absolutely and instantly as it moves; he just lets his aim, his fingers, his brush be guided by it as if they were all mere instruments, together with his whole being, in the hands of somebody else who has temporarily taken possession of him. Or we may say that the brush by itself executes the work quite outside the artist, who just lets it move on without his conscious efforts.xcvi

After working for some time in this manner I became more adept at controlling the paint to describe forms in the landscape. There is a measured spontaneity in my work now. I was interested to come across two artists, both very different, who seemed to approach the materiality of paint application in a similar way.

Victor Majzner, a Polish Jew who immigrated to Australia, responded to the land with an interest in communicating ideas stemming from that which he discovered along the way – ranging from cultural identity and mythology, political, religious to environmental. Majzner visited the land often: “place remains important to Majzner, at least in the experiential sense: he finds that he has to experience the landscape physically in order to appropriate it or impose upon it.”xcvii In encountering the land Majzner became aware of the impact we were having on it, degrading the beauty of the land and this theme of ‘lost paradise’ is evident in his work. Inspired by both the Aborigines’ relationship with the land and his religious roots, Majzner shared in a newspaper interview:

I don’t profess to accept or endorse Orthodoxy unequivocally; but the depth and power of the teachings are stimulating and inspiring to me as an artist. And yes, while I walk along the isolated tracks of Australia, I think it’s fair to say that I see evidence of God in places even as remote as the Bungle Bungles.xcviii

63 One way in which Majzner experimented with the application of paint was a method of pouring. He combined a variety of application processes such as pouring, ‘wetmixing’, staining, and reworking layers later. He was interested in leaving evidence of the painting process – believing it to be representative of the human or spiritual experience.

Of the process of pouring paint and releasing it to describe its own inherent form, Majzner comments:

When it is rolled across the surface it created its own natural surface field as no other substance can…I am only interested in the most natural shapes created by the substance rolling across... the poured images I am involved in are a result of a controlled paint activity rolling across, defining its own area.xcix

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Figure 28: Victor Majzner, Razman, 1973 (detail). Acrylic on Canvas. 244 x 157 cm

65 The other, more contemporary, artist is Stephen Bush, whose work I have seen in the flesh at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Bush uses vivid colours and both oil and enamel to articulate forms. His paint runs freely into each other, melding and marbling to loosely describe forms such as the land. This was a revelation to me as before seeing his work I was working in a similar way with paint but containing the expression of form to sky and clouds only. After seeing his work I felt encouraged to work more carefully and extensively with this working method to articulate the forms in the foreground and actual land rather than only the sky.

Figure 29: Stephen Bush, I am a mountain I can see clearly, 2008.

Oil and Enamel on Linen. 200 x 310 cm

66 Observing Other Artists’ Responses to the Land

Back in my undergraduate Bachelor of days at COFA I was lucky to have many lecturers who worked within the landscape genre. These included Ian Grant, Idris Murphy, and Peter Sharp. I look up to them and have followed their practices over the last ten years. From Murphy I saw in my formative years a different way to approach the land. He is interested in the spirituality of place, and his use of colour and metallic paint is playful and stirring all at once. From all of the lecturers I learnt and observed the importance of engaging with the land. To go ‘out there’ and really see firsthand all that makes up the ‘landscape’. For Sharp, this relationship to the land comes through in his delight and discovery of the micro – the spider web, shape of a bone or other organic matter. He then responds to these with linear and large-scale paintings.

Figure 30: Idris Murphy, Hillside After Burning Off, 2006/7.

Acrylic and Collage on Board. 91 x 90 cm

67 Ian Grant’s paintings resonate with my experiences of being in the land. Having seen his work in the flesh, I now carry away with me the memory of standing in front of a work that transports you to another place while simultaneously seeming to embrace you. To me, the paintings seem timeless and inspire contemplation and a reverence of sorts. An artist statement from Grant echoes my thoughts:

I often travel to parts of central NSW where I experience silence, isolation, stillness and distance. I am an outsider there and I take photographs, sometimes make drawings, but often just stand and allow myself to be hypnotised by the land, the sky, the environment and all of their offerings.c

When in the land I also am ‘hypnotised’ in that I find myself rooted to the ground to take it all in; the changing beauty and tangible realness of it all can sometimes be too much.

Figure 31: Ian Grant, Moonrise, 2006. Acrylic on Linen. 122 x 122 cm

68 Having first come across Philip Wolfhagen’s paintings in the Wynne Prize finalist exhibition a few years ago, I was struck with the romantic approach of his work in comparison to the other works exhibited. Wolfhagen’s subject matter is the land surrounding the home he grew up in - that of Tasmania. He first began to paint the landscape of Tasmania whilst living and studying in . He missed home and began to paint from memory that which he missed and loved. In a similar vein to my experience, the distance emphasized his ingrained love of the land and spurred a new appreciation of it. In his work he strives to communicate something beyond mere sentiment, desiring to pass something of value to the viewer. Wolfhagen’s work is not about capturing vistas or specific sites per se, but rather communicating the whole experience of being in the land and his emotional response to it.

Figure 32: Philip Wolfhagen, In the Snake Paddock II (Winter), 2009.

Oil and Beeswax on Linen. 96 x 119 cm

69 This is especially evident in his quiet works that indicate contemplation and a familiarity with the place; one can imagine him rounding a corner on an introspective walk and going back to the studio to paint it. All his senses encapsulate his emotional response to the land:

He is interested in his own emotional response to the place – to its light, its weather, its mood, to the dampness under foot, the chill on the breeze – and a proper apprehension of those responses demands a period of absorption and assimilation.ci

He uses photographs as memory prompts whilst working in the studio. Wolfhagen shares: “I need to feel confident enough about my subject to concentrate on the paint handling. Subject matter then ceases to matter and I can devote my attention to interpretation and to expressing the feel of the place.”cii

By frequenting the Wynne Prize exhibition each year, I came across two other artists whose practices I admire: Neil Frazer and Kate Shaw. In Kate Shaw’s collaged works of marbled painted paper arranged in forms to create a landscape I found yet another expression of this playful marbled loose approach to paint, although in a different medium and with a different compositional resolution.

Figure 33: Kate Shaw, Surface Tension, 2007. Acrylic and Resin on Board. 60 x 180 cm

70 After seeing Frazer’s work I watched out for his next solo exhibition, which I attended in 2011. For me, it was like walking into a cathedral or church. I know his work is not really intended to be spiritual; however I felt quietened and peaceful but stimulated at the same time. There was something about being surrounded by his paintings. The colours, bold composition and quiet majesty of the works are emphasised by the white void of sky and its refection. There is energy and stillness present all at once, something I also seek to attain in my work. His emphasis is quite the opposite to mine, in that sky is my focus, yet in a strange way because the sky was white and left to the imagination it felt sublime. My sister and I spent a long time soaking it all in, the myriad patterns of colours found in the water’s reflected cliffs. I walked away completely inspired with my soul rejuvenated. Admiring his work and his practice, I approached Frazer to ask him if he would be willing to mentor me. He is now my mentor. Having his input is of extreme value and encouragement.

Figure 34: Neil Frazer, Red Point, 2011. Acrylic on Canvas. 168 x 336 cm

71 CONCLUSION

In relation to the land, the sublime is discovered and interpreted subjectively via various filters. These filters include experiences, memories and senses, beliefs, cultural background and spirituality. Throughout the course of my research into the sublime I have responded to various artists’ practices, both contemporarily and historically. Each observation of an element of an artist’s practice and each idea I have read has sparked something in me. Layers of information have accumulated in informing my ways of thinking and working as well as how I feel about the land or the way I approach it. Often seeing how another artist uses colour or texture is a starting point for a new understanding or a widening of how you are already working.

I feel like I will never fully be able to capture the glory of a dawn sky, the colours, the movement of clouds and the play of light on the edge of a mountainous horizon line. Nor will I be able to describe the full experience of the sun on your face, dancing in front of your eyes; the wetness of the long grass slapping your legs as you walk a bit closer to get a better viewpoint and the dull awareness of the cold on your back contrasting with the joy of warmth on your arms in any of my paintings. But that is okay with me – it is a journey of pleasurable frustration and for me the inability to capture the fullness of emotions, feelings and experiences is part of what makes it the sublime.

72 Catalogue of Work Produced throughout the Duration of the MFA

1. Reverent, 2009. Oil on Board. 90 x 122 cm (h x w) 2. Hope Refined, 2009. Oil on Board. 90 x 122 cm (h x w) 3. Refuge, 2009. Oil on Board. 90 x 122 cm (h x w) 4. Selah, 2009. Oil on Board. 90 x 122 cm (h x w) 5. Purity, 2009. Oil on Board. 90 x 122 cm (h x w) 6. August Light, 2009. Oil on Board. 120 x 200 cm (h x w) 7. Brooding, 2009. Oil on Canvas. 60 x 60 cm (h x w) 8. Enthroned, 2009. Oil on Canvas. 90 x 90 cm (h x w) 9. Crying Sky, 2010. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 10. Solace, 2010. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 11. Triumphant Procession, 2010. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) Collection: Macquarie Bank 12. Resplendent, 2010. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) Private Collection South Australia 13. Glorious, 2010. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 14. Joyous, 2010. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w). 15. Radiant, 2010. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 16. Lifted Higher, 2010. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 17. Restored, 2010. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 18. Awake My Soul, 2011. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) Private Collection NSW 19. Come Away With Me, My Darling, 2011. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 20. Risen, 2011. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 21. Heart Song, 2011. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 22. Ethereal, 2011. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 23. Cherished, 2011. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 24. Luminous, 2011. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 25. Relentless Love, 2011. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 26. Romanced, 2011. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 27. My Delight, 2011. Oil on Board. 85 x 110 cm (h x w) Hornsby Shire Council Art Collection 28. Exultant, 2011. Oil on Board. 75 x 120 cm (h x w) 29. Peace Divine, 2012. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w). 30. Thou wilt whisper thy peace to my soul, 2012. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w). 31. Swept into Joy, 2011. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w). 32. Beloved, 2012. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w). 33. Enticed, 2011. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 34. Evening Crown, 2012. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 35. Chorus, 2012. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 36. Unfolding Splendour, 2012. Oil on Board. 91. 5 x 120 cm (h x w) 37. Morning Chorus, 2012. Oil on Board. 95 x 160 cm (h x w)

73

1. Reverent, 2009

2. Hope Refined, 2009

74

3. Refuge, 2009

4. Selah, 2009

75

5. Purity, 2009

6. August Light, 2009

76

7. Brooding, 2009

8. Enthroned, 2009

77

9. Crying Sky, 2010

10. Solace, 2010

78

11. Triumphant Procession, 2010

12. Resplendent, 2010

79

13. Glorious, 2010

14. Joyous, 2010

80

15. Radiant, 2010

16. Lifted Higher, 2010

81

17. Restored, 2011

18. Awake My Soul, 2011

82

19. Come Away With Me, My Darling, 2011

20. Risen, 2011

83

21. Heart Song, 2011

22. Ethereal, 2011

84

23. Cherished, 2011

24. Luminous, 2011

85

25. Relentless Love, 2011

26. Romanced, 2011

86

27. My Delight, 2011

28. Exultant, 2011

87

29. Peace Divine, 2012

30. Thou wilt whisper thy peace to my soul, 2012

88

31. Swept into Joy, 2011

32. Beloved, 2012

89

33. Enticed, 2011

34. Evening Crown, 2012

90

35. Chorus, 2012

36. Unfolding Splendour, 2012

91

37. Morning Chorus

Note: not all work will be included for the graduation exhibition due to restrictions of venue space for hanging. Refuge, 2009 is unavailable due to inclusion in The Touring Blake Prize Exhibition. Resplendent, 2010 is in a private collection in SA.

92 References

Morely, Simon. “Introduction”. In The Sublime – Documents of Contemporary Art; Morely, Simon Ed.; Whitechapel Gallery and The MIT Press: Wilton, Andrew. Turner and the Sublime. Publications, Jolly and Barber Ltd: London, 1980.

Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Phillips, Adam, Ed.; Oxford University Press: New York, 2008.

The New International Version Study Bible, 10th Anniversary Edition, Published by The Zondervan Corporation 1995. General Editor Kenneth Barker.

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment (1790); trans. J.J. Meredith. Oxford University Press: Oxford and New York, 1973.

Schiller Institute Website. Accessed 24/11/11: http://www.schillerinstitute.org/transl/trans_on_sublime.html

Paulson, Ronald. Literary Landscape: Turner and Constable. Yale University Press: New Haven and London, 1982.

John Martin: Apocalypse. Myrone, Martin, Ed.; Tate Publishing: London, 2011 Farthing, Stephen. One thousand one paintings you must see before you die. Universe: Virginia, 2007

Montgomery, L.M. Emily of New Moon. Random House, Inc.: New York, 2003.

Kennaway, Laurence J. Crusts: a settler’s fare due south. Capper Press: , 1970 (originally published 1874).

Felton, Mathew. The founding of New Zealand: the journals of Felton Mathew, first surveyor-general of New Zealand, and his wife, 1840–1847. A. H. & A. W. Reed: Dunedin, 1940

Murray-Oliver, Anthony. Augustus Earle in New Zealand. Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd: Christchurch, 1968

Galbally, Ann. Frederick McCubbin, Hutchinson Group (Australia) Pty Ltd: Victoria, 1981 Bloem, Maria and Browne, Martin. Colin McCahon – A Question of Faith. Craig Potton Publishing: Nelson, New Zealand, 2002

93 Klepac, Lou. William Robinson Paintings 1987 – 2000. The Beagle Press: Sydney, 2001.

MacAulay, Desmond and MacAulay, Bettina. “A souls solace: Art, faith and music”. In William Robinson – The Transfigured Landscape”; Queensland University of Technology and Piper Press: Queensland, 2011.

Harries, Richard. Art and The Beauty of God. Cassell: London, 1993 Allen, Diogenes. The Traces of God. Church Publishing: New York, 2006

Jones, Elizabeth; Sayers, Andrew; Mankin Kornhauser, Elizabeth with Ellis, Amy. New Worlds from Old – 19th Century Australian and American Landscapes. Thames and Hudson Inc: London, 1998

Strachan, Owen; Sweeney, Doud. Jonathan Edwards on Beauty. Moody Publishers: Chicago, 2010

Pattison, George. Art, Modernity and Faith – Towards a Theology of Art, St. Martins Press: New York, 1991

Ruskin, John. Modern Painters – in 5 Volumes, Volume 2, Everyman’s Library. Rhys, Ernest, Ed.; Richard Clay and Sons, Limited: Suffolk

Fraser, Brooke. Album: Albertine. ‘The C.S. Lewis Song’ (track 6), SONYBMG Music Entertainment, 2006 Judges Report, Blake Prize Website. Accessed 17/12/11: http://www.blakeprize.com.au/news/2011-judges-statement

Cavarnos, Constantine. Byzantine Thought and Art – A Collection of Essays, Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies: Massachusetts, USA, 1980

Stott, John. Favourite Psalms. Baker Books: Michigan, 1995.

Murray-Oliver, Anthony. Augustus Earle in New Zealand. Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd: Christchurch, 1968.

Klepac, Lou. John Coburn: The Spirit of Colour. The Beagle Press: Australia, 2003.

C.S. Lewis – Life, Works and Legacy. Volume 2: Fantasist, Mythmaker, & Poet; Edwards, Bruce L, Ed.; Praeger Publishers: London, 2007.

Astbury, Leigh. Earth to Sky: The Art of Victor Majzner. Macmillan Art Publishing: Victoria, Australia, 2002.

Timms, Peter. Philip Wolfhagen – Surface Tensions. Thames and Hudson Australia Pty Ltd: Australia, 2005.

94

McCrea, Genevieve. MFA Paper: Self Organization in Nature. 2008, COFA, UNSW online archive

The Queensland Art Gallery Website. Accessed 4/01/12: http://www.visualarts.qld.gov.au/content/robinson_standard.asp?name=Robinson _Kingscliff_108

Fink, Hannah. Artlink, 2001, Volume 21, No.4 McDonald, John. The Sydney Morning Herald. May 14, 2011. Accessed: 4/01/12 http://johnmcdonald.net.au/2011/william-robinson

Morton, Marsha. Art Institute of Chicago Muesum Studies. 2002, Vol. 28, No, 1

Stuart, Evelyn Marie. Fine Arts Journal. 2002, Vol. 35, No. 2

Von Simson, Otto Georg. The Art Bulletin, 1942, Vol. 24, No. 4

George Lillie Clark, Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (Great Britian), The New Zealanders. William Clowes: London, 1830 p. 232 Accessed 24/11/11: http://books.google.com.au/ebooks/reader?id=JD5LAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcov er&output=reader&pg=GBS.PA166

Shepherd, Paul. English reaction to the New Zealand landscape before 1850. : Dept. of Geography, Victoria University, 1969, p. 27.

William C. Chittick, Mystics Quarterly, 1993, Vol. 19, No. 1

Schoen, Edward L. Religious Studies, 1998, Vol. 34, No. 4

Tim Olsen Gallery Website. Accessed on 18/01/12: http://www.timolsengallery.com/pages/artists_details.php?artist_id=9

95

i Morely, Simon. “Introduction”. In The Sublime – Documents of Contemporary Art. Morely, Simon Ed.; Whitechapel Gallery and The MIT Press: London, 2010; p. 14 ii Wilton, Andrew. Turner and the Sublime. British Museum Publications, Jolly and Barber Ltd: London, 1980, p. 10 iii Morely, Simon. “Introduction”. In The Sublime – Documents of Contemporary Art. Morely, Simon Ed.; Whitechapel Gallery and The MIT Press: London, 2010; p. 18 iv Wilton, Andrew. Turner and the Sublime. British Museum Publications, Jolly and Barber Ltd: London, 1980, p 28. v Wilton, Andrew. Turner and the Sublime. British Museum Publications, Jolly and Barber Ltd: London, 1980, p10. vi Morely, Simon. “Introduction”. In The Sublime – Documents of Contemporary Art. Morely, Simon Ed.; Whitechapel Gallery and The MIT Press: London, 2010, p.12 viiBurke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Phillips, Adam, Ed.; Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 97. viii Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Phillips, Adam, Ed.; Oxford University Press, 2008, p 48 ix The New International Version Study Bible, 10th Anniversary Edition, Published by The Zondervan Corporation 1995. General Editor Kenneth Barker. Psalm 139, verse 14, p. 925 x The New International Version Study Bible, 10th Anniversary Edition, Published by The Zondervan Corporation 1995. General Editor Kenneth Barker. Psalm 139, verse 6, p. 925 xi Stott, John. Favourite Psalms. Baker Books: Michigan, 1995, p 118 xii Stott, John. Favourite Psalms. Baker Books: Michigan, 1995, p 120. xiii Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Phillips, Adam Ed.; Oxford University Press, 2008, p 63 xiv Wilton, Andrew. Turner and the Sublime. British Museum Publications, Jolly and Barber Ltd: London, 1980, p 29 xv Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment (1790). trans. J.J. Meredith. Oxford University Press: Oxford and New York, 1973, p.106 xvi Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgment (1790). trans. J.J. Meredith. Oxford University Press: Oxford and New York, 1973, p. 74 xvii The New International Version Study Bible, 10th Anniversary Edition, Published by The Zondervan Corporation 1995. General Editor Kenneth Barker. Exodus 3:5&6, p. 90 xviii The New International Version Study Bible, 10th Anniversary Edition, Published by The Zondervan Corporation 1995. General Editor Kenneth Barker. Psalm 147: 11, p. 932 xix The New International Version Study Bible, 10th Anniversary Edition, Published by The Zondervan Corporation 1995. General Editor Kenneth Barker. Proverbs 19: 23, p. 965

96 xx Schiller Institute Website. Accessed 24/11/11: http://www.schillerinstitute.org/transl/trans_on_sublime.html xxi Wilton, Andrew. Turner and the Sublime. British Museum Publications, Jolly and Barber Ltd: London, 1980, p.8 (Quoted from: Ruskin, John. Modern Painters, ,1843, Book 1, Section II, Chapter 3) xxii Paulson, Ronald, Literary Landscape: Turner and Constable. Yale University Press: New Haven and London: 1982, p. 13. xxiii McCrea, Genevieve. MFA Paper: Self Organization in Nature, 2008, COFA, UNSW online archive, p. 3 xxiv Paulson, Ronald, Literary Landscape: Turner and Constable. Yale University Press: New Haven and London: 1982, p. 9 xxv John Martin: Apocalypse. Myrone, Martin, Ed.; Tate Publishing: London, 2011. p.12 xxvi Farthing, Stephen. One thousand one paintings you must see before you die. Universe: Virginia, 2007, p. 367 xxvii Wilton, Andrew. Turner and the Sublime. British Museum Publications, Jolly and Barber Ltd: London, 1980, p. 40 xxviii Wilton, Andrew. Turner and the Sublime. British Museum Publications, Jolly and Barber Ltd: London, 1980, p. 67 xxix Wilton, Andrew. Turner and the Sublime. British Museum Publications, Jolly and Barber Ltd: London, 1980, p. 99 xxx Montgomery, L.M. Emily of New Moon. Random House, Inc.: New York, 2003, pp. 6-7. xxxi Kennaway Laurence J., Crusts: a settler’s fare due south. Capper Press: Christchurch, 1970 (originally published 1874), p. 9. xxxii Felton, Mathew. The founding of New Zealand: the journals of Felton Mathew, first surveyor-general of New Zealand, and his wife, 1840–1847. A. H. & A. W. Reed: Dunedin, 1940. p. 150. xxxiii Murray-Oliver, Anthony. Augustus Earle in New Zealand. Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd: Christchurch, 1968, p.81 xxxiv Murray-Oliver, Anthony. Augustus Earle in New Zealand. Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd: Christchurch, 1968 p. 153 xxxv Galbally, Ann. Frederick McCubbin. Hutchinson Group (Australia) Pty Ltd: Victoria, 1981, p. 48 xxxvi Galbally, Ann. Frederick McCubbin. Hutchinson Group (Australia) Pty Ltd: Victoria, 1981, p. 133 xxxvii Bloem, Maria and Browne, Martin. Colin McCahon – A Question of Faith. Craig Potton Publishing: Nelson, New Zealand, 2002, p 176 (excerpt from a letter to his wife) xxxviiiBloem, Maria and Browne, Martin. Colin McCahon – A Question of Faith. Craig Potton Publishing: Nelson, New Zealand, 2002, p 173 xxxixThe Queensland Art Gallery Website. Accessed: 4/01/12 http://www.visualarts.qld.gov.au/content/robinson_standard.asp?name=Robinson _Kingscliff_108 xl Fink, Hannah. Artlink, 2001, Volume 21, No.4, p14

97 xli MacAulay, Desmond and MacAulay, Bettina. “A souls solace: Art, faith and music”. In William Robinson – The Transfigured Landscape”; Queensland University of Technology and Piper Press: Queensland, 2011, p.68 xlii Klepac, Lou. William Robinson Paintings 1987 – 2000. The Beagle Press: Sydney, 2001, p. 26 xliii Fink, Hannah. Artlink, 2001, Volume 21, No.4, p17 xliv MacAulay, Desmond and MacAulay, Bettina. “A souls solace: Art, faith and music”. In William Robinson – The Transfigured Landscape”; Queensland University of Technology and Piper Press: Queensland, 2011, p. 88. xlv McDonald, John. The Sydney Morning Herald. May 14, 2011. Accessed: 4/01/12 http://johnmcdonald.net.au/2011/william-robinson xlvi Harries, Richard. Art and The Beauty of God, Cassell: London, 1993, p. 15 xlvii Morton D. Paley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the Fine Arts, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 229 xlviiiHarries, Richard. Art and The Beauty of God, Cassell: London, 1993, p. 91 xlix Harries, Richard. Art and The Beauty of God, Cassell: London, 1993, p. 15 l Morton, Marsha. Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies. 2002, Vol 28, No, 1, p. 12 li Stuart, Evelyn Marie. Fine Arts Journal. 2002, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Feb., 1917), p 91 -92, Vol. 28, No. 1, Negotiating History: and the Past (2002), pp. 8-23+106- 107 lii Von Simson, Otto Georg. The Art Bulletin, 1942, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 335-350, The College Art Association (Publisher), p. 336 liii Burke, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Phillips, Adam, Ed.; Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 75 liv The New International Version Study Bible, 10th Anniversary Edition, Published by The Zondervan Corporation 1995. General Editor Kenneth Barker. Psalm 8:1 & 3- 4 p. 786 lv George Lillie Clark, Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (Great Britian), The New Zealanders. William Clowes: London, 1830 p. 232. Accessed 24/11/11: http://books.google.com.au/ebooks/reader?id=JD5LAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcov er&output=reader&pg=GBS.PA166 lvi The New International Version Study Bible, 10th Anniversary Edition, Published by The Zondervan Corporation 1995. General Editor Kenneth Barker. Psalm 19: 1, p. 796 lvii Jones, Elizabeth; Sayers, Andrew; Mankin Kornhauser, Elizabeth with Ellis, Amy. New Worlds from Old – 19th Century Australian and American Landscapes. Thames and Hudson Inc: London, 1998, p 41 lviii The New International Version Study Bible, 10th Anniversary Edition, Published by The Zondervan Corporation 1995. General Editor Kenneth Barker. Exodus 13:21, p. 105 lix The New International Version Study Bible, 10th Anniversary Edition, Published by The Zondervan Corporation 1995. General Editor Kenneth Barker. Isaiah 19:1, p. 1036

98 lx The New International Version Study Bible, 10th Anniversary Edition, Published by The Zondervan Corporation 1995. General Editor Kenneth Barker. Luke 21:27, p. 1579 lxi The New International Version Study Bible, 10th Anniversary Edition, Published by The Zondervan Corporation 1995. General Editor Kenneth Barker. Revelations 14:14, p. 1941 lxii Strachan, Owen; Sweeney, Doud. Jonathan Edwards on Beauty. Moody Publishers: Chicago, 2010, p 142 lxiii The New International Version Study Bible. 10th Anniversary Edition, Published by The Zondervan Corporation 1995. General Editor Kenneth Barker. Ezekiel 43:2, pg. 1280 lxivMurray-Oliver, Anthony. Augustus Earle in New Zealand. Whitcombe & Tombs Ltd: Christchurch, 1968, p 153 lxv Shepherd, Paul. English reaction to the New Zealand landscape before 1850. Wellington: Dept. of Geography, Victoria University, 1969, p. 27. lxvi Pattison, George. Art, Modernity and Faith – Towards a Theology of Art. St. Martins Press: New York, 1991, p. 58 lxvii Pattison, George. Art, Modernity and Faith – Towards a Theology of Art. St. Martins Press: New York, 1991, p. 58 lxviii Strachan, Owen; Sweeney, Doud. Jonathan Edwards on Beauty. Moody Publishers: Chicago, 2010, p 52 lxix Allen, Diogenes. The Traces of God. Church Publishing: New York, 2006, p.43 lxx Harries, Richard. Art and The Beauty of God. Cassell: London, 1993, p. 4 lxxi Harries, Richard. Art and The Beauty of God, Cassell: London, 1993, p. 96 lxxii Harries, Richard. Art and The Beauty of God, Cassell: London, 1993, p. 35 lxxiii Ruskin, John. Modern Painters – in 5 Volumes, Volume 2, Everyman’s Library. Rhys, Ernest, Ed.; Richard Clay and Sons, Limited: Suffolk, p.172 lxxiv Chittick, William C.; Mystics Quarterly, 1993, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 4-16 Published by: Penn State University Press, p.7 lxxv Chittick, William C.; Mystics Quarterly, 1993, Vol. 19, No. 1, pp. 4-16 Published by: Penn State University Press, p.7 lxxvi Mazumder, Aparajita. Comparative Literature Studies, 2003, Vol. 30, No. 1 , pp. 32-52 Published by: Penn State University Press. lxxvii Schoen, Edward L. Religious Studies, 1998, Vol. 34, No. 4. Perceiving an Imperceptible God, pp. 433-455 Published by: Cambridge University Press, p. 447 lxxviii The New International Version Study Bible, 10th Anniversary Edition, Published by The Zondervan Corporation 1995. General Editor Kenneth Barker. Psalm 65:8b, p. 844 lxxix The New International Version Study Bible, 10th Anniversary Edition, Published by The Zondervan Corporation 1995. General Editor Kenneth Barker. Psalm 91: 1-2, p. 876 lxxx Judges Report, Blake Prize Website. Accessed 17/12/11 http://www.blakeprize.com.au/news/2011-judges-statement

99

lxxxi Fraser, Brooke. Album: Albertine. ‘The C.S. Lewis Song’ (track 6), SONYBMG Music Entertainment, 2006 lxxxii The New International Version Study Bible, 10th Anniversary Edition, Published by The Zondervan Corporation 1995. General Editor Kenneth Barker, Psalm 60, p. 839 lxxxiii Cavarnos, Constantine. Byzantine Thought and Art – A Collection of Essays, Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies: Massachusetts, USA, 1980, p.100 lxxxiv Dowes, Barbara. Scape Catalogue Essay. Show held at Artereal Gallery, 2011 lxxxv Klepac, Lou. John Coburn: The Spirit of Colour, The Beagle Press: Australia, 2003, p. 15 lxxxvi Klepac, Lou. John Coburn: The Spirit of Colour, The Beagle Press: Australia, 2003, p. 15 lxxxvii Klepac, Lou. John Coburn: The Spirit of Colour, The Beagle Press: Australia, 2003, p. 20 lxxxviii Klepac, Lou. John Coburn: The Spirit of Colour, The Beagle Press: Australia, 2003, p. 20 lxxxix Klepac, Lou. John Coburn: The Spirit of Colour, The Beagle Press: Australia, 2003, p. 16 xc Pattison, George. Art, Modernity and Faith – Towards a Theology of Art, St. Martins Press: New York, 1991, p. 85 xci Klepac, Lou. John Coburn: The Spirit of Colour, The Beagle Press: Australia, 2003, p. 26 xcii Klepac, Lou. John Coburn: The Spirit of Colour, The Beagle Press: Australia, 2003, p. 26 xciii Ruskin, John. Modern Painters – in 5 Volumes, Volume 2, Everyman’s Library. Rhys, Ernest, Ed.; Richard Clay and Sons, Limited: Suffolk, p.194 xciv Ruskin, John. Modern Painters – in 5 Volumes, Volume 2, Everyman’s Library. Rhys, Ernest, Ed.; Richard Clay and Sons, Limited: Suffolk, p.227 xcv C.S. Lewis – Life, Works and Legacy. Volume 2: Fantasist, Mythmaker, & Poet; Edwards, Bruce L. Ed.; Praeger Publishers: London, 2007, p. 249 xcvi Pattison, George. Art, Modernity and Faith – Towards a Theology of Art, St. Martins Press: New York, 1991, p. 167 xcvii Astbury, Leigh. Earth to Sky: The Art of Victor Majzner, Macmillan Art Publishing: Victoria, Australia, 2002, p. 95 xcviii Astbury, Leigh. Earth to Sky: The Art of Victor Majzner, Macmillan Art Publishing: Victoria, Australia, 2002, p. 169 xcix Astbury, Leigh. Earth to Sky: The Art of Victor Majzner, Macmillan Art Publishing: Victoria, Australia, 2002, p. 35 c Tim Olsen Gallery Website. Accessed on 18/01/12: http://www.timolsengallery.com/pages/artists_details.php?artist_id=9

100 ci Timms, Peter, Philip Wolfhagen – Surface Tensions, Thames and Hudson Australia Pty Ltd: Australia, 2005, p. 12 ciiTimms, Peter, Philip Wolfhagen – Surface Tensions, Thames and Hudson Australia Pty Ltd: Australia, 2005, p. 12

101