COLONIAL AND EARLY 27 August – 30 October Dickson & Fine Galleries

Eugene von Guerard Eugene Von Guérard was born in in 1811 and travelled to in 1852 to join the Victorian gold rush. Following an unsuccessful year and a half searching for gold, he returned to painting and became highly successful, remaining in Australia until 1881. Von Guérard Australian painting falls into 2 categories, homestead paintings and wilderness views. Both are represented in this collection and were produced as a result of his sketching tour to the Illawarra in December 1859. During his time in the colonies, Von Guérard also joined a number of exploratory and scientific expeditions.

View of Lake Illawarra with distant mountains of Kiama, 1860, represents Von Guérard paintings of Australian homesteads as sites of colonial expansion. His atmospheric rendering of this light filled scene, together with its sensitive and precise depiction of topographical detail and human activity, shows a broad sweep of landscape from distant mountains of Kiama to the newly granted Berkeley estate on the right of the foreground. The rich greens cultivated land suggest the fertility and prosperity of the new colony. The poetic effect of afternoon light and elevated panoramic viewpoint inspires awe and wonder at the vastness of the sky and the implied realm beyond.

Eugene Von Guerard, View of Lake Illawarra with distant mountains of Kiama, 1860, oil on canvas, 51.1 x 85.3cm, The George and Nerissa Johnson Memorial Bequest, purchased 1992

The foreground of Cabbage tree forest, American Creek, 1860, with its dark, eerie, primeval bush, contrasts dramaticallly with the luminous sky, which is suffused in the afternoon light. The monumental cabbage trees in the foreground are accurately recored with delicate brush marks depicting leaves. The same eye for detail isused throughout the whole painting, even to the tiny tree trunks on the mountains in the middle distance. The work is botanically accurate, we can identify species of trees and ferns. As the late afternoon falls, the shadow of the Illawarra escarpment creates a long, early twilight, a time of day much admired by romantic painters of the 19th century, in their desire to suggest the ‘divine’ and ‘poetical’ in nature.

Eugene Von Guerard, Cabbage tree forest, American Creek, 1860, oil on canvas, 51.0 x 85.5cm, purcahsed with assistance from the Wollongng Gallery Society, NSW Office of the Minister for the Arts, public subscription, 1984.

Von Guérard detailed and picturesque works evoke the syle and mood of german Romantic painter Caspar David Friedrich with its interest in depicting the ‘Sublime’ or ‘Transcendent’. For the German Romantics, each painting was an ‘Erdlebensbildnis’ or painting of the life of the earth. A focus on the microscopic details of nature led to an awareness of the macroscopic presence of soul in the world – or ‘God in a grain of sand’. Von Guérard interest in scientific accuracy also reflected the close links between art and science in the early nineteenth century.

Eugene Von Guérard died in Great Britain in 1901.

Years K – 6

Go on a nature walk and make some detailed drawings of gum trees.

Collect examples of different foilage, including gum leaves and examine the found objects under a microscope, looking at the structure and patterns of each form.

Create a series of botanical drawings based on this collection of natural objects. Draw with pencil and then colour with watercolour paints.

Name and display these works.

Years 7 – 10 1. Look at Cabbage Tree Forest and identify three different types of foilage and textures in this landscape. 2. What types of brushes did the artist use to create these effects? 3. How does this work reflect nineteenth century interests in natural sciences such as botany and geology? 4. What do the fallen trees in the forground suggest to you?

Years 11 - 12 5. Marcus Clarke wrote ‘there is no mountain range which can be compared with the Australian Alps…. For gloom, for greatness of solitude, and for that granduer which is born of the mysterious and silent’. Cabbage Tree Forest captures this air of claustrophobic melancholy. 6. Research the aesthetic categories of Romanticism, the Sublime and the Picturesque, in the art of this period. 7. Analyse the ways in which these styles, promoting the grand, the dramatic and the emotional, reflected contemporary tastes and suited the description of exotic new lands.

Look at the work of Australian artist Imants Tillers.

Consider his painting Mount Analog and its relationship with Von Guerard’s painting Mount Kosciusko.

8. Why has Tillers chosen this title for his work? 9. Discuss the relationship between an original art work and its copy. 10. How has Tillers used a strategy of appropriation to comment on this? Conrad Martens

Conrad Martens was born in in 1801, left in 1833 to sail for India but changed his plans when the ship reached Rio, accepting the opportunity to work as ship’s artist for a scientific survey of the South American Coast abroad the Beagle. Also on board was , who later became famous for his Theory of Evolution, and who became a friend. During this voyage Martens kept extensive sketchbooks in which he closely studied the atmospheric effect at sea, noting weather, wind direction and recording waves and cloud formations. This experience had an effect on Marten’s later approach to depicting the land.

Arriving in in 1835, Martens almost immediately visited the Illawarra for around 10 days. During this visit he took many pencil sketches on which he based paintings throughout his life. Martens’ picturesque style followed the fashion of the day was influenced by English painter J.M.W. Turner. Like Turner, he was concerned with depicting light and effects of light. His preferred medium was watercolour.

Conrad Martens, Mullet Creek, Illawarra, 1853, watercolour, gouache, gum arabic, pencil on paper, 30.0 x 43.0 cm. The george and Nerissa Johnson Memorial Bequest, purchased 1992.

In Mullet Creek, Illawarra, Martens’ attention to detail identifies the place. Distinctive cabbage tree palms, vines, ferns and other rainforest vegetation (with which the Illawarra was covered in the 19th century) create a lush and almost primeval tangle. Cathedral like light streams into the forest glade where stumps in the foreground hint at human encroachment on this wilderness.

Martens died in Australia in 1878.

Years K – 6

Look at this painting of a rainforest.

Find and describe any living creatures.

Imagine you could step into this place and follow the path into the forest.

Describe the sounds you might hear.

What might you smell?

Go on a nature walk and make some ‘observational’ drawings of gum trees and plants.

Create your own artist’s diary by carrying a sketchbook and making drawings of your surroundings over a period of a week.

Make a painting based on your sketches using watercolour paints or watered down acrylics.

Years 7 – 10

1. Cut a circle on a piece of paper or card to create a circular viewfinder. Use this to isolate 4 different textured areas in the painting. 2. Make pencil drawings of these textures. 3. How do these textures contribute to the overall atmosphere of the painting?

Conrad Martens advised landscape painters to:

“Let your whole picture be made up of one or two or three masses of colour… which give an appearance of the truth to the whole effect”.

4. What do you think he meant by the ‘truth’ of an effect?

Look at his painting Mullet Creek, Illawarra

5. Name the dominant colours. 6. How do they contribute to the mood? 7. How would the work be different if there were many different strong colours?

List as many words as you can to describe the qualities of light and dark in this work, For example: filtered, luminous and gloomy.

Years 11 – 12 Case Study

8. Research the ways in which American and Australian colonial painters portrayed a New World. 9. Case study the New Worlds From Old exhibition at the National Gallery of in 1998 http://nga.gov.au/exhibitions/newWorlds/Kit.cfm 10. Consider the difference in attitude to the land which are evident in the scale, mood and human presence or absence in work of the two genres. 11. Explore the similarity and difference in ideas of destiny, the sacred and the secular and attitude to the indigenous people. 12. This exhibition was described as being ‘curatorially inevitable’. Explain what this might mean? Tom Roberts

Tom Roberts was born in England in 1856 and migrated to Australia with his family in 1869. Roberts was a founding member of the Heidelburg School which flowered in the decades immediately before Federation. Distinguished by the square brush stroke, a tactile surface, the habit of ‘en plein air’ (out of doors) and a passionate devotion to capturing in paint the fleeting effects of light and in particular the quality of Australian sunshine, the Heidelburg School became the first distinctively Australian school of painting. Other key members were Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin and Charles Conder.

Tom Roberts, at Clifton, 1898, oil on wood panel, 12.3 x 19.2 cm. The George and Nerissa Memorial Bequest, purchased 1999

At Clifton captures the brooding presence of the Illawarra coastal escarpment. The shadowed cliff, painted in deep browns, introduces a sense of solidarity into an otherwise light and shimmering scene. A small work, it is painted on a cigar box lid like the works exhibited in The 9x5 Impression Exhibition of 1889, so called because most works were painted on cigar box lids, 9 by 5 inches in area. This exhibition was the first self-consciously avant garde event in what was then still a colony and shocked the staid Australian art establishment with its fresh approach to painting.

Tom Roberts died in Australia in 1931.

Years K – 6

Look at this painting by Tom Roberts.

Build yourself an imaginary hang glider and cruise along this stretch of coast, riding the up drafts of air.

Look down and describe what you can see.

Notice the temperature, the sounds and smells, the air against your body.

What time of day is it?

How can you tell? Find an interesting spot and zoom in to land.

Look around and describe how your viewpoint has changed.

Years 7 – 10

Look closely at the surface of this painting.

1. Describe the qualities of paint and brushstrokes. 2. Analyse the composition of this painting and the use of colour, line, scale, tone, shape mass and texture. 3. Consider the use of atmospheric perspective, space, air, distant blues and the positioning of the road in creating a sense of distance and timelessness.

To the Public An effect is only momentary, so an Impressionist tries to find his place. Two half-hours are never alike; and he who ties to paint a sunset on two successive evenings must be more or less painting from memory. So in these works it has been the object of the artist to render faithfully, and thus obtain first records of effects widely differing, and often of very fleeting character. The 9 x 5 Impression Exhibition Catalogue, 1889

Read and think about these words written by Roberts, Streeton and Conder.

Find out more about the 9 x 5 Exhibition.

4. Consider the comments of James Smith, the art critic on the Argus newspaper, who wrote that the paintings ‘look like a paint-pot has been accidently upset over a panel nine inches by five, (they) are a pain to the eye’ and criticised their ‘splashes of colour (and) slapdash brushwork’. Do you agree with him? Give reasons to support your view. 5. Using charcoal, pastels or watercolour, make a series of quick sketches of the changing effects of light on the same scene. 6. Try and capture ‘light and air’ in your work.

Years 11 – 12 Case Study

7. Research the formation of the Heidelburg School and the role it played in the development of an Australian national identity. What were the artistic interests and concerns of these artists? 8. Identify elements of the Australian character and identity which were developed by these artists and writers such as Banjo Patterson and Henry Lawson, for example: mateship, hard yakka, the heroic pioneer. 9. What part did such national myth making – the celebration of the courage and perseverance of the settler, the common man in the bush play – in the lead up to Federation in 1901?

Compare this photograph by John Paine with Roberts’ painting of the same area at around the same time. 10. Look at composition, mood, detail and size. 11. Research the role of photography in documenting the changing face of the Illawarra. 12. Why did John Paine select an elevated viewpoint for this work? 13. Find an elevated position from which to take some landscape photographs yourself. Find the location of this photograph was taken from (if you can). Take a panoramic photography turning around 360 degrees on the same spot and linking up the edges of each shot to create one continuous picture.

J. H. Carse

James Howe Carse was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1818. He moved to Sydney around 1871 after travelling extensively in Australia and and soon established himself as a prominent part of Sydney’s artistic community, regularly contributing to exhibitions organised by the Academy of Art. His work found a ready market, including the artist Eugene Von Guérard.

J.H. Carse, Bulli Pass, Wollongong, c. 1900, oil on canvas, 50.0 x 67.0 cm. The George and Nerissa Memorial Bequest, purchased 1995

Carse made many painting and sketching trips to then isolated region of the Illawarra between 1880 and 1910, often painting ‘en plein air’ using cigar box lids. His works reveal a lively and intimate knowledge of the landscape. His romantic style of depicting the landscape was intensely felt and very personal.

Years K – 6

Look closely at this painting of Bulli Pass, Wollongong.

What kinds of animals do you see?

Count them. Find shapes which repeat. Pretend to be a weather reporter on television and give a weather report while looking at this artwork.

Years 7 – 10

1. How do you think artists originally accessed this rugged area with its physical barriers of escarpment and dense bush to the north? 2. Why do you think artists often use small, easily transportable, fragile media such as pencils, paper and cigar box lids? 3. Research the European tradition of picturesque Neo-Classical landscape painting. Identify the compositional elements in this painting which conform to these conventions.

Years 11 – 12

Research images by other artists to visit the Illawarra such as , and Nicholas Chevalier.

Look particularly at Earle’s painting ‘A Bivouac of Travellers in Australia, in a Cabbage Tree Forest Daybreak’ which was set near Bulli Pass and features a high hollowed out tree known as “Government House’. What does it tell us about bush life in this region in the 1820s? John Skinner Prout

John Skinner Prout was born in England in 1805. He migrated with his family to Australia in 1840 where he travelled widely and published several folios of lithographic prints based on watercolours made on his travels. These depicted views of Sydney, the Blue Mountains, Tasmania, Victoria and the Illawarra.

John Skinner Prout, Thom Thumb’s Lagoon, New South Wales, c. 1844, after John Skinner Prout (E Brandard, engraver) 1873-76, steel engraving, hand coloured, 21.6 x 26.9 cm. The George and Nerissa Memorial Bequest, purchased 1995

Prout visited the Illawarra between 1843 – 44 where he made this small, fresh and atmospheric work, part of his ‘Australia Illustrated’ folio. Prout’s style was light, charming and simple. He sought to capture picturesque effects with a few deft washes and well placed brush strokes. This portrayal of an Aboriginal family group is sympathetic and romantic, a conventional depiction of the “Noble Savage’ in harmony with an idyllic, Edenic world. Moonlight bathes the scene in a soft glow. Such picturesque images, nostalgic for an idealised past, would have been symbolised by a historic ruin.

Prout returned to England in 1848 where he successfully exhibited dioramic views of Australia based on his drawings. The scenes he chose were selected to appeal to prospective migrants and emphasised the appealing aspects of the New World. He died there in 1876.

Years K – 6

Look carefully at this engraving.

When do you think it was made, in the past or present? Why?

Imagine you could travel by time machine into this place. What would you see, hear and feel when you step outside? What sights and sounds would be missing? Walk up to the people and say hello. How do you think they would react? What questions would you ask them?

Write a story about this meeting.

Imagine your own perfect, harmonious and tranquil place. Create a painting of this vision using colours and a style to suit.

Years 7 – 10

1. Describe your first impression of this work and its mood. Is this a slice of reality or fantasy? 2. Find elements in the work to support your ideas. 3. Research this particular place and discover what it’s like today. How has it changed over time? 4. Consider the portrayal of the people in this work. How does the nostalgic and timeless mood contribute to our feeling for their character and place in the world? 5. Make a painting of a place familiar to you as it exists now. Research its past and make another version showing this place 100 years ago, 1 million years ago. Imagine what it may look like in the future and make a painting or diorama of this imagined place. Consider the way the landscape looks, the housing, transport used, clothes worn and the kinds of activities people would be engaged in. Display your works in chronological order. Discuss the changes between them.

Years 11 – 12

‘After JS Prout’ means an engraving has been made by an engraver of a painting by JS Prout in order to allow widespread reproduction of the image through newspapers, books and other printed material. There was a popular market for images of the new colony, both here and in Europe, which was met by books of lithographed views such as those by John Skinner Prout.

1. Choose an artwork by someone else in your class and make an etching on scratchboard to copy this image. Print the image in various colours. 2. Find out about the printing press, its impact on the reproduction of images, text and the dissemination of knowledge. Read Walter Benjamin’s essay “Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’. 3. Discuss changes in attitudes to an original work of art and its ‘aura’.