| |
| |
| |
"I love a sunburnt
country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!" |
|
| |
Dorothea Mackellar (1908),
My Country
|
|
|
| |
| Heidelberg
School |
| |
|
|
|
In late 18th
and early 19th century paintings, Australian landscapes
were tame and elegant and bared a striking resemblance
to English parkland. If Aborigines were depicted,
they were purely decorative. Sure, there were 19th century artists like John Glover and Eugene von Guérard who did pick up the distinctive qualities of Australia's natural environment. But post-colonial Australian
art did not become truly Australian until the
late 1880's and 1890's, when a group of artists
trained in Europe established the Heidelberg School
outside of Melbourne. Artists like Tom
Roberts, Arthur
Streeton, Frederick
McCubbin, Louis Abrahams, Charles
Conder, David
Davies, Jane
Sutherland, and Walter
Withers introduced impressionist principles
and truly captured the light, color, and atmosphere
of the Australian landscape and sky. They painted
scenes captured by today's Australian movies—ordinary
people, bush life, urban street scenes, and the
outback. Check their paintings at the Art
Gallery of NSW, Art
Gallery of South Australia, Ballarat
Fine Art Gallery, Heidelberg School, In
the Artist's Footsteps, National
Gallery of Australia, and the National
Gallery of Victoria. |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
