Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

"TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.S.W. A N 19hk Why landscape, Mr. Wynne? THERE is a very enjoyable book by Kenneth Clark called "Landscape into Art," which says that Petrarch, a poet, was the first person to look at a view simply for pleasure.. Tills was in the late middle ages. Seine then landscape. for an agricultural world, was too close at hand to be of any interest. It was the commercial world, the trading ci es of Venice and Holland, that took up landscape painting, as something romantic, glamorous and distant from the daily life of busy mer- chants, For them it didn't need to be specific, or accurate to represent a particular spot. It was mostly imaginary and poetic. By the 19th century, although poetic land- scape reached its great- est heights, there was also a strong demand for accurate representa- tion. Various scientific pur- suits-geology, botany, meteorology, geography had altered people's ex- pectations of what a landscape should be. Ruskin seems to us to waste a lot of time ex- plaining what a good geologist Turner was; when all we care about is his intense romantic mood. Mystique A revolutionary mys- tique grew up of paint- ing "directly f r o m Nature," on the spot, in the open air. It reached Austra- lia less than 100 years ago, in the early 1880s, and there are several artists who claim to have first painted an Australian landscape in the open, either near Heidelberg or on the Haw kesbury. Artists, who are by necessity city people, probably couldn't have taken up open-air painting until the rail- ways came and made their painting trips more convenient. Once an artist was no longer allowed to in- vent imaginary land- scapes he had to find landscapes that looked picturesque. This Is why Austra- lian landscape painting before the 1880s is full of crags and alps. For- mulas for those already existed in European painting Even after the 1880s artists would still get possessive about a land- scape. It would be carefully rememb ered that W. T. Butler first discovered the pictur- esque Shoalhaven dis- trict of Berry, and that Butler told Fischer, who told Mahoney, who told Daplyn, who told Lister Lister, who fin- ally made it his own. And it a landscape ART with Daniel Thomas was chosen because it resembled ex.stl ig pic- tures, so wer land- scape element i; Lis- ter Lister likeo Bank- sias because he thought Corot would like them too. But after the 1880s artists often looked consciously for new formulas which could deal with those aspects of Australian landscape which didn't coreepond with existing European pict tres. Why did the ambiti- ous Australian artists, the art -artists. get so obsessed with landscape at that time, so much so that now, 80 years later, we still find people arguing in their terms? One reason is Or,: the best art in the world just then (F rench Impressionism), also happened to be much concerned with land- scape anyway. Another is that every- body In Australia was nationalistic at that time. The place had just achieved 100 years of settlement (1188) and Federation of the Col- onies was being bus- ily campaigned for. And a third reason may be a curious over- lap between art pat- ronage and other ac- tivities in one or two key individuals. The most active founder of Sydney's princlpni art society and also of the Art Gallery of New South Wales was a Mr. Du Faur, He was as in- terested in geography and map-making as in art. He worked in the Surveyor - Gen era l's office, then in the Crown Lands Office, made a map of New South Wales, Invented the Blue Mountains as a resort area, sent geo- graphical expeditions to New Guinea, became a land agent, created the National Park called Kuringal Chase. In his old age he even wanted Burns Philp to start tourist summer cruises to Antarctica. (I work in a building he helped design airless, unventilated, humid, for several months each summer I am wet through with sweat all day. I can sympathise with his Antarctic idea). Endowment Ho was specially in- terested in developing Mount Wilson, and his good friend there was Richard Wynne, who on his death in 1895 left an endowment for what is now the oldest art prize in Austraa. Al- though the Wynnlie Prize Is also offered for flugre sculpture it is the "land- scape painting of Aus- tralian scenery" which has always produced the best entries and won the most prizes. What patrons expect of a landscape and what an artist makes of it are different matters how- ever. Du Faur and Wynne alight have approved the national significance of Lister's painting of the "Federal Capital Site," the geological in- terest of Heysen's "Bra - china Gorge." The nat- ionalists of the Federa- tion period might have liked Lambert's "Across the Blacksoll Plains," But most of the win- ing pictures seem to have been personal, poetic. and romantic like Walter Withers' "The Storm" (the Brat award), Heysen's art nouveau "Mystic Morn", Gruner's "Morning Light." The best Australian landscape painters con- tinued to look to exist- ing European artists, like Whistler or Monet, and to paint for them- selves, not for map - makers, tourist bureaux or Immigration depart- ments. (It's not long, remember, since Drys - dale's paintings were disapproved for foreign exhibition because of their possible had effect on limn ig ra t ion ). What's On Art Gallery of New South Wales: Archibald, Wynne Sulman, prize- winners only. Telegraph Home Cen- tre, Park Street: Select- ed entries for Archibald, Wynne, Sulman (9.30- 430). David Jones: Fine and decorative arts, Macquarie: Gordon Rintoul. Aladdin: Pottery. Stern: Mixed Show. Bonython: Geoffrey De Omen; Salvatore Zofrea; Australian En- tries for International Craft Exhibition, Stutt- gart (Tuesday).