Brought to Light Australian Art 1850-1965

working in Brisbane at the time, and criticisms of the 'English style' favoured by the Queensland Art Society were thinly veiled references to Rivers and his work.25 The animosities that resulted from this local controversy may have been the stimulus for an oil by Rivers entitled An alien in Australia c.1904 (QAG). Painted only one year after Under the jacaranda, the unusual and somewhat negative connotations of the title belie the beauty of the vibrant, vermilion blossoms of a 'flame of the forest' tree. Like the jacaranda, the flame of the forest was an imported exotic, planted in Brisbane's Botanic Gardens by Walter Hill during the 1860s.26The inference of An alien in Australia is obvious: like the imported flame tree, even an outsider such as Rivers was capable of uplifting the colony with his vision of beauty, culture and distinction. It is interesting to note that the same 1898 Queensland Art Society annual report in which Rivers's essay 'Sunlight in pictures' was published also included a paper calling for the planting of more trees in the city in the interests of creating a sophisticated urban environment: We have been too absorbed in the mere clearing of the forest to think much of the decoration of our dwellings, too engrossed in the chaffering oftrade to care for the adornment of our market places. But it is time that this hobbledehoy phase of our existence began to give place to a more gracious youth and a more cultured manhood .27 Although Rivers, perhaps Brisbane's most prominent artist of the time, was not overtly influenced by the techniques of the Australian impressionists, the style was not unknown in Brisbane. While publications and exhibitions on Australian Impressionism have tended to ignore Brisbane — all the significant artists working in the style came from the southern states — a number of works that had been influenced by the movement were being created and exhibited in Brisbane. The inclusion of works by prominent southern artists, including Julian Ashton, Sydney Long and Tom Roberts, in the Queensland Art Society Annual Exhibitions during the 92 BROUGHT TO LIGHT: Australian Art 1850-1965