Fieldwork

Fieldwork brings together iconic and wide-ranging depictions of Sydney’s western environs drawn from the Art Gallery of NSW collection. Produced during an exceptionally rich period in Australian art history, between the late 19th and mid 20th centuries, many of these artworks were collected by the Gallery at the time they were made.

A key focus of Fieldwork is the practice of plein-air (outdoor) painting in artist camps and during expeditions organised to Sydney’s western outskirts, the Hawkesbury region and the Blue Mountains. With the westward extension of the railway lines and a deepening appreciation of Australian life and scenery in the 1860s and 1870s, this region became popular with plein-air artists looking to escape the city and portray nature and rural pastimes. Outlining the development of a Sydney school of plein-air painting, Fieldwork also addresses the influence of modern art and the shock of the First World War on this tradition.

Presented here is a focus work from each section of this Art Gallery of NSW touring exhibition, along with questions and activities for students from Years K–12.

Click on an image for more information (including medium and dimensions) and to view the work in the Gallery collection.

These wilderness and pioneer subjects were painted by colonial artists who had settled in Sydney in the 1870s. This period is significant for Australian art history because the popular perception of Australian landscape as ‘weird and melancholy’ was diminishing and artists were becoming increasingly interested in representing local scenery in a positive light.

Painted among the pristine bushland and fertile pastures of Gundungurra Country west of Sydney, these sublime and picturesque views show us how colonial artists interpreted the Australian landscape largely through European eyes. Their propensity for travelling and immersing themselves in the landscape they portrayed, so that they could render nature from direct observation, foreshadowed the development of Australian impressionism in Sydney in the 1880s and 1890s.

The lack of an Indigenous presence in these works sadly speaks to the frontier violence and dispossession that occurred during the expansion of New South Wales in the 19th century.

Focus work: Lucien Henry Devil's Coach-House, Fish River Caves 1883

Education
Years K–6
Look at this painting and describe what you see. What sort of a place is this? What is the time of day? How would you feel being in this environment? Why do you think the artist chose to paint this particular place?

Write a story about how you found yourself here. What happens next?

Years 7–12
What is your first response to this artwork? How has the artist created a sense of drama? Why is the work called Devil’s Coach-House, Fish River Caves? Research the caves. How does this help you to have a deeper appreciation of the work?

Experiment with light and shade in art-making. Compare your artwork to Henry’s approach in Devil’s Coach-House, Fish River Caves.

The practice of plein-air painting originated in Europe in the early to mid 19th century. By the end of the century, it had become widespread in Sydney and Melbourne.

This development was due to the influx of immigrant artists who had encountered plein-air painting in Europe, and a nascent appreciation of Australian subjects in the lead up to Federation. These artists advocated painting outdoors in front of the motif in natural light instead of composing their pictures from studies in their studios.

Artist and teacher Julian Ashton was among the earliest proponents of plein-air painting in Sydney. One of Ashton’s favourite painting locations was the Hawkesbury region north-west of Sydney, home to the Darug and Darkinjung. The art historian William Moore (incorrectly) claimed the Hawkesbury had been discovered by artists Arthur and George Collingridge in 1879, when in fact it had drawn artists from Sydney since the early 1800s. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s several prominent plein-air artists, such as Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder and Sydney Long, made painting expeditions to the region, enshrining the Hawkesbury River and surrounding landscape in colour and light-filled works that celebrated the Australian countryside. Although these artists did not have first-hand contact with impressionism in France, they are today known as the Australian impressionists, a local variant of the international movement.

Focus work: Sydney Long Midday 1896

Education
Years K–6
Look at this painting and find the foreground, middle ground and background. Describe the colours, textures and shapes. What was the weather like on the day this work was painted?

Experiment with painting your own landscape with a similar colour palette.

Years 7–12
Research the history and practice of plein-air painting, looking at both Australian and international artists. Why do you think it was so important for these artists to immerse themselves in the landscape? How do their paintings differ to works created in a studio?

Paint a landscape you know well from memory. Hold your knowledge of this place in your mind and depict the geography, landmarks, colours, atmosphere and light. Contrast this approach with painting directly from the landscape.

These wistful works were produced during or shortly after the First World War in 1914–18. Although modern art had emerged in Sydney in the same decade, the depiction of pastoral landscapes endured and took on new meaning during the inter-war years as familiar and wholesome images of the past provided comfort and certainty to a young nation reeling from the impact of the war.

The artist and publisher Sydney Ure Smith depicted many historic buildings found in former colonial towns west of Sydney on Country belonging to Darug, Tharawal and Gundungurra. Ure Smith was likely influenced by his former art teacher Julian Ashton, who in the early 1900s encouraged artists to depict ‘Old Sydney’ subjects in an effort to preserve the memory of Australia’s colonial heritage which was under threat from overdevelopment. Ure Smith later led a successful campaign to protect the Hyde Park Barracks and the Mint in Sydney from demolition in the 1930s.

Works by Charles Meere, Lloyd Rees, Elioth Gruner, JJ Hilder, Freda Robertshaw and Lorna Nimmo address similar sentiments in their depiction of colonial buildings and agrarian landscapes.

Focus work: Charles Meere The old coach house yard, Brownlow Hill 1953

Education
Years K–6
Find out about the history of the land your home or school stands on. Look for old photos in school or council records. How was the land different in the past? What kinds of native plants might have covered it?

Choose one part of your local area and take a panoramic photograph by turning around 360 degrees on the same spot and linking up the edges of each shot to create one continuous picture. Display your images on the classroom wall. What information do they give about the place they represent?

Years 7–12
What is your personal definition of ‘landscape’? Compare your definition to one in a dictionary. Look at the landscape around you. Describe what you see to a classmate and ask them to draw the landscape from only your description. Has their image captured what you see?

The 1920s and 1930s were a dynamic period in Australian art – a time when the ingrained tradition of landscape painting was confronted by the ascendency of modern art from overseas.

The adoption of modernist tendencies in landscape painting by Elioth Gruner and Roy De Maistre, two expatriate artists who returned from Europe in the mid 1920s, suggested a new way forward to the artist and publisher Sydney Ure Smith. In a 1926 issue of Art in Australia sub-titled ‘The new vision of Australian landscape’, Ure Smith asserted that the ‘Australian landscape lends itself to simpler, harder treatment. It is severe in form and outline. It is uncompromising in colour and geographical contour’.

Modern artists in Sydney revitalised the traditional landscape genre by painting archetypal subjects in a boldly un-naturalistic and semi-abstract manner. The medium of linocut and woodblock printing also lent itself to modern depictions of landscape, encouraging artists to distil their compositions into simplified and decorative forms.

Focus work: Hilda Rix Nicholas Through the gum trees, Toongabbie c1920

Education
Years K–6
Make a chart of the colours and shapes in this modernist painting, then use this chart to create your own painting of an outside scene.

Go on a nature walk and make detailed drawings of trees. Find out their botanical names. Make a series of botanical drawings using pencil and watercolour. Name and display the works.

Years 7–12
Describe the formal qualities of this artwork, such as perspective, brushwork, composition, colours, linework and sense of space. Find evidence of repetition, rhythm and design in the painting.

Compare the modernist approach to landscape with more traditional depictions in this exhibition. Write a list of words and phrases that describe each approach.

Why do you think the motifs Rix Nicholas painted were seen as masculine? How is this a reflection of the time? In what way did the modernist sensibility enable female artists to pursue their careers?

Known endearingly as ‘the last of the impressionists’, Elioth Gruner is one of Australia’s most admired and significant landscape artists. A former student and colleague of Julian Ashton, Gruner was a committed plein-air painter who travelled widely in search of rural subjects to paint.

Gruner is perhaps best known for his celebrated series of pastoral works painted at Innes Farm in Emu Plains on Darug Country. Gruner was introduced to this place, which is located near Penrith at the foot of the Blue Mountains, by fellow Julian Ashton student Gordon Esling. There, Gruner rented a modest two-room cabin on Mr Innes’s property. He favoured painting in front of his motif in the morning, when the contrasts between light and shadow were strongest, depicting his subjects swathed in rays of light beaming from the rising sun.

A key influence on Gruner’s Emu Plains series was Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot’s The bent tree 1885 –90, which he saw at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne in 1915. Other touchstones include the agrarian subjects of JJ Hilder, Max Meldrum’s theories of tonalism and the broken brushwork of Emmanuel Phillips Fox. The shock of the First World War also influenced Gruner’s Emu Plains series, inspiring his atmospheric and deeply reverent depictions of nature and light.

Focus works: Elioth Gruner Spring frost 1919 and Morning light 1916

Education
Years K–6
Look at these two paintings. List their similarities and differences. What has changed in the landscape during the three years between when Morning light and Spring frost were painted?

Why do you think Spring frost is so popular? Write an article about seeing this artwork for the first time.

Imagine yourself in a place you love. How would it feel to be there? What sounds, smells and other sensations would you experience? Notice the light, colours, temperature. Create a series of artworks based on your connection with this place using text and images.

Years 7–12
These works were produced during or shortly after the First World War (1914–18). Research the impact the war had on the Australian psyche.

What is it about Gruner’s works that audiences respond to, at the time they were created and now?

Gruner painted landscapes in the morning, when the contrast between light and shadow is strongest. Explore your own environment first thing in the morning over one week. Take photographs each day and list words that describe the qualities and features you notice. Create an artwork based on these explorations.

The Blue Mountains on Darug and Gundungurra Country have captured the imagination of Australian landscape artists ever since colonial artist John William Lewin accompanied Governor Macquarie on his crossing in 1815. The Blue Mountains became accessible by train from Sydney with the extension of the Main Western Railway in the late 1860s and were the site of Eccleston Du Faur’s pioneering sketching and photography camps in 1875. They subsequently became a popular painting destination for following generations of plein-air artists.

By the early 20th century, the Blue Mountains had become a unique and distinctly Australian icon and a popular destination for tourists from Sydney. Artists probably realised that there was a market for Blue Mountains pictures because it was a favourite with the public, besides being a unique and attractive subject to paint.

Focus work: Lorna Muir Nimmo Collitts Inn and the dark pines 1948

Education
Years K–6
Imagine jumping into this painting. Describe the colours, sights, sounds and smells around you. What time of day is it? What is the weather? Who lives in the house in the background?

Create a play about this artwork and perform it in class.

Years 7–12
What is the focal point of this composition? How has the artist led you towards it? What are they wanting you to see? Find other artworks depicting the Blue Mountains. What do they have in common?

Investigate ways that different artists have used light to create atmosphere in their work. Take photographs of a place under various light conditions. Make a selection of the finished images to create a series for exhibition.