COLONIAL AND EARLY AUSTRALIAN ART 27 August – 30 October Dickson & Fine Galleries Eugene von Guerard Eugene Von Guérard was born in Austria in 1811 and travelled to Australia 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 London in 1801, left England 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 Charles Darwin, 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 Sydney 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

Canberra 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 New Zealand and soon

established himself as a prominent part of Sydney’s artistic community, regularly

contributing to exhibitions organised by the New South Wales 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 Augustus Earle,

George French Angas 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’.