Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

LEARNING FROM THE FIRST LESSON: George Folingsby and Genre Painting G. F. Folingsby The first lesson Doug Hall Facing page G. F. Folingsby Germany/Australia 1828-91 The first lesson 1869 Oil on canvas 83.5 X63.8cm Purchased 1990 Queensland Art Gallery Above Sir John Longstaff, 1861-1941, Portrait of G. F. Folingsby Esq. c.1887, La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria, Melbourne / % ustralian public galleries / % established in the nineteenth X . - X . century possess rich and what might now appear to be indiscriminately assembled collections of Victorian paintings, alongside substantial holdings of works from other European academies. For too long the academic paintings have been seen as almost a generic collections category, with some exceptions. Master- works such as Edward Poynter's The Visit o f the Queen o f Sheba to King Solomon 1890 (The Art Gallery of New South Wales) and Chaucer at the Court of Edward III 1847-51 (AGNSW) by Ford Madox Brown have enjoyed long-standing popular and critical acceptance. Even the many mawkish, epic historical narratives by second echelon painters contain a profundity of purpose which struggles to match an equal aesthetic or intellectual intensity, yet they, too, have sustained some public interest.' These collections are significant in revealing nineteenth-century Australian attitudes towards public collecting. They also demonstrate the reach of their bias in Australian figure and genre painting of the last quarter of the century, a factor which remains secondary within mainstream accounts of the period.2 We might ask if the regard for these works, and their presence in Australian collections, can be simply attributed to the transposed British tastes that informed public collecting and private patronage in Australia in the nineteenth century. How were these works seen in their new context? Contemporary material exists which describes in robust and uplifting terms the need for public art museums and support for major cultural events such as the Centennial International Exhibition of 1888; however, there is little evidence of any officially sanctioned cultural policy. In order to understand why certain exhibitions were staged, why particular works of art were collected and which styles of painting predominated, it is necessary to look at the declarations and deeds of individuals — the trustees of state galleries, the landed gentry as collectors, gentlemen philanthropists, critics, and artist/teachers, such as George Folingsby. The consequences of events such as the International Exhibitions, and the influences of those practitioners and experts' who came to Australia, had a greater sway on taste and artistic matters than any public document. Folingsby falls into this loose pattern within the Melbourne art scene in the second half of the nineteenth century; he is one of a succession of painters with established reputations who, on arrival, exerted lasting authority as teachers and art administrators.3 Born in Wicklow, Ireland, in 1828, Folingsby had travelled extensively through North America, Asia Minor and the Mediterranean before establishing his base in Munich. From there he exhibited widely and it is clear that his reputation was enhanced by opportunities to exhibit internationally.4Folingsby was thoroughly schooled in conservative European models of studio practice but he was not insular in thinking. In Melbourne, his ideas and experiences appealed to those eager for first-hand knowledge, especially younger artists. However, unlike the work of Eugène von Guérard, whose landscape paintings attracted public attention and who became a favourite for commissions from the landed gentry, or Louis Buvelot, whose quiet advocacy for a form of plein air realism saw him openly acknowledged by younger painters as a source of innovation, Folingsbys own art has been eclipsed byhis predecessors, contemporaries and students. He seems to have left a legacy based on his teaching even though the initial attraction for emigrating was because of his standing as a painter and the commissions he might secure in this country Subject painting in Melbourne in the last quarter of the nineteenth century owes its stylistic underpinnings to George Folingsby — his practice, teaching and experience shaped a particular academic aesthetic. As Leigh Astbury has pointed out, 'the development of Australian subject painting of this era lay, not in a rebellion from academic values and practice, but in a manipulation of them'.5A consciousness 22 BROUGHT TO LIGHT: Australian Art 1850-1965