Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

seem to be more appropriate to station life in western Queensland. Through the wide-open window the landscape is a gentle, sparse vista washed with morning light, a somewhat English perception of the Australian outback, where in reality drought and flood took their toll and the harsh sun bleached the land.13Victorian painting often reinforced popular taste for the romantic, sentimental and moralising aspects in everyday life, and consequently Neville-Rolfe s image conveys a very reassuring and probably sanitised narrative. Layers of meaning are concealed or erased by her selective interpretation. Breakfast, Alpha has an air of calm which contrasts with the reality of the surrounding social upheaval. There is no sign of the displaced Aborigines who were driven from their land by the squattocracy when the Queensland runs were taken up. In several paintings where Neville-Rolfe does include Indigenous people, she has depicted the women and children as well cared for 'primitives' resident on the station — living under a benevolent but undoubtedly superior regime. This group of paintings, including a watercolour entitled Gins from the verandah o f the quarters, Alpha 1884, records for posterity the prevailing sentiments of the white station owners at the end of the nineteenth century. Starting out, kangaroo hunting 1884 pictures the Neville-Rolfe family and friends riding to hounds at a kangaroo shoot — the antipodean version of a fox hunt. Neville-Rolfe's inscription provides the names of horses and riders as they prepare to begin the chase: 'Carl, wearing a pith helmet is mounted on Pasha, Charlie Wooly, the overseer on Spider and the women riding side saddle are Kunie on Wanderer, Margaret on Princess and HJ on Cupid'. Kangaroo dogs, bred specially for the sport, wait impatiently near the riders for the game to begin.14 Harriet Jane Neville-Rolfe Oins from the verandah of the quarters, Alpha 1884 Watercolour over pencil on wove paper 22.7x33.7cm Gift of the artist's son in her memory 1964 Queensland Art Gallery Harriet Jane Neville-Rolfe Starting out kangaroo hunting 1884 Watercolour over pencil on wove paper 22.8x30.4cm Gift of the artist's son in her memory 1964 Queensland Art Gallery In Lanark Outstation, painted in June 1884, a group sits around the dining table listening to Kong, a station cook, playing the qin yin (Chinese mandolin). The primitive nature of the room, the 'HJ SKETCHES THE SCENE' 49