Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

that his students felt or created about Australian life provided the subject matter. Consequently, The first lesson 1869 (Queensland Art Gallery) exhibits pictorial and spatial elements repeatedly found in the work of students at the National Gallery School in Melbourne, in their annual student exhibitions and their Travelling Scholarship entries.6 One of the most fascinating aspects of The first lesson is its deliberateness in responding to Victorian taste and fashion. Painted in Munich, it is a work unmistakably at odds with the epic styles for which the artist is best known. Folingsby's training in the 1850s provided the cornerstone of his intellectual, stylistic and technical approaches to art. He studied under Professor Karl von Piloty, later director of the Munich Academy. Historical subjects expressed with heroic intensity served Folingsby well. His time in Germany — some 25 years in all — and his brief period of study at Thomas Coutures atelier in Paris in 1854 formed the values of his academic realism. These carried through to his teaching at the National Gallery School, but without the inflexible dogma normally associated with an artist of such a background. When Folingsby arrived in Melbourne in 1879 he was already represented in the National Gallery of Victoria, his Bunyan in prison 1864 having been one of the gallery's earliest acquisitions. He was persuaded to come to Melbourne in the expectation that portrait commissions would be plentiful, and indeed one of his first assignments was a portrait of the highly influential and now somewhat legendary Victorian judge, Sir Redmond Barry.7With impeccable credentials Folingsby replaced von Guérard in 1882 in the dual position as Director of the National Gallery of Victoria and Master of the School of Painting, posts that he held until his death in 1891. Folingsby was well received in Melbourne at a time when German art from the academies was attracting a warm local reception. Apainting by Folingsby's former teacher, Karl von Piloty, was purchased for the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery from the Centennial Exhibition of 1888.8 The regional galleries of Bendigo and Warrnambool also acquired paintings from the Exhibition's German Court and Bendigo acquired further German work in the following twenty years. In a loan exhibition from the collection of Toorak resident Robert Kinnear at the Melbourne Exhibition Building in 1891, 'the modern English and German schools' were reviewed in glowing terms, describing the German representation in particular as 'unequalled in this part of the world'.9 Of course this is hardly a landmark claim, but it does serve to illustrate the public and critical attention that was bestowed upon these conservative contemporary works, including those that were not British. The first lesson, however, is very British in temperament (despite being painted in Germany) and reveals an accurate awareness of the kind of response it would enjoy when exhibited at London's Royal Academy exhibition of 1869. By the late 1860s, paintings of incidents in contemporary middle-class life were ensconced as a genre and fully accepted by the Academy. The first lesson shows the artist's wife, Clara, and small daughter, Eleanor, engaged in a familiar Victorian domestic ritual — a mother guiding her child towards the pleasantries of accomplishment and proper conduct. Apart from its predictability as a Victorian genre piece, The first lesson contains evidence of the absorption of another major influence. By the end of the 1860s the work of James McNeill Whistler was well known in London and Paris and his fascination with the arts of Japan and China was demonstrated fully within his work. It seems impossible to believe that Folingsby, who made frequent trips to London and Paris, had not become familiar with the work of Whistler. Leaving aside the similarity of subject matter found in works such as Whistler's At the piano 1858-59, there is a corresponding sense of compressed pictorial space and a shared interest in the overall tonal arrangement and planar elements, such as the framed prints on the wall.10Europe's enchantment with Chinese decorative arts saw its adaptation in chinoiserie flourish from the mid-eighteenth century and Whistler's unabashed appropriation of Japanese art, especially the Ukiyo-e print, and his consistent featuring of Japanese blue and white ceramics, gave the art of the 'Far East' a fashionable presence in Victorian high art. Folingsby must have been aware of these trends. Though there is no direct evidence of contact between the two artists, it is not difficult to find potential sources of interest and influence for Folingsby in Whistler's works from the early 1860s, notably those featuring white as a central colour, an emphasis on drapery, and the representation of fashionable decorative objects as supposedly casual pictorial Left James McNeill Whistler 1834-1903 At the piano 1858-59 Oil on canvas 67x91.6 cm Bequest of Louise Taft Semple The Taft Museum, Cincinnati, Ohio Right G. F. Folingsby Bunyan in prison 1864 Oil on canvas 112x132cm Purchased by the Commissioner of Fine Arts for Victoria. Government Fund 1864 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne Alexander Colquhoun 1862-1941 Divided attention 1887 OH on canvas 86.3 X 109.4cm Bendigo Art Gallery 24 BROUGHT TO LIGHT: Australian Art 1850-1965