Australian Modern Painting, Sydney, Melbourne (c.1900-60): Origins, Characteristics читать ~5 мин.

Australian Modern PaintingOrigins, Characteristics: Sydney and Melbourne School. MAIN A-Z INDEX – A-Z of ART MOVEMENTS

Death of Constable Scanlon (1946) By Sidney Nolan.National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.Part of Nolan’s Ned Kelly series, which ranks among the most iconicof all modern paintings by anAustralian artist .

EVOLUTION OF PAINTINGFor details of art movementsand styles, see: History of Art.

MEANING OF VISUAL ARTFor a guide, see: Definition of Art.

ContentsWhat is Australian Modern Painting? • Nationalist Style of Australian Art • Characteristics of Sydney Culture versus Melbourne Culture • Sydney School of Painting • Russell Drysdale and Sidney Nolan • Melbourne School of Painting • Arthur Boyd (1920-99) • John Perceval (1923-2000) and Albert Tucker (1914-99) • Abstract Art in Australia • Australian Painting 1956-1960

Art in Australia SeriesAboriginal Art (c.50, 000 BCE onwards) Australian Colonial Painting (c.1780-1880) Australian Impressionism (c.1886-1900) Australian Modern Painting (c.1900-60)

Sofala (1947) Art Gallery of New South Wales.By Russell Drysdale.Depicting the harsh dry scenery ofa typical Australian township.

STYLES OF MODERNISMFor details of periods and groups, see: Modern Art Movements.

What is Australian Modern Painting? The term "Australian Modern Painting" is a most imprecise description, but it suffices to describe 20th century modern art in Australia up to about 1960, an era which opens with the end of Australian Impressionism (c.1886-1900) – also known as the Heidelberg School – and whose end coincides with the high-point of the career of the great Australian modern painter Russell Drysdale (1912-81). The start of the twentieth century introduced an expatriate period in Australian art. During the Edwardian years the two most important Impressionist painters, Tom Roberts (1856-1931) and Arthur Streeton (1867-1943), were both in London and so were various younger Australian artists. There were others settled in Paris. Some of these expatriates returned to Australia after World War I, especially if, like Streeton, they had not been very successful abroad. Here they succeeded in dominating Australian art between the wars.

Nationalist Style of Australian Art In particular the ageing Streeton’s blue and gold landscape formula was imposed as a nationalist orthodoxy. This academic impressionism devoted to gum-trees and sheep was now a commercial product very different from his youthful sensitivity. To paint otherwise was considered unpatriotic. Following the early era of Australian Colonial Painting (c.1780-1880), an "Australian" art was regarded as necessary, especially since the nationalist movement which led to the federation of the 6 Australian colonies. And since the Impressionists had been the first group to demonstrate an authentic feeling, indeed love, for Australia, and to capture, accurately, the unique quality of Australian light and atmosphere it is easy to understand why the style and its favoured subject matter should take such strong hold.

Aussie ImpressionismFor more about Australian Impressionism, see also: Charles Conder (1868-1909); and Fred McCubbin (1855-1917).

Characteristics of Sydney Culture versus Melbourne Culture Inevitably of course the necessity for an "Australian art" would be questioned – not least one might say, because such a thing already existed: see Australian Aboriginal Art – and the nature of an Australian art would be redefined. The former has happened most frequently in Sydney; the latter in Melbourne. Although none of the six state capitals is provincial, Melbourne and Sydney, sharing a population of four million, are the two major cultural capitals. Here one can hazard a statement of some differences between them.

Sydney is the oldest, an eighteenth century convict settlement more concerned to forget its past than to remember it. It has a strong belief in the new, and little respect for the old. At times it was run by rootless men, hastily making money to take back to Europe. It is warm, sub-tropical, and hedonistic, sometimes vulgar, taking many of its values from outside Australia.

Melbourne, six hundred miles away, had only just been founded when Queen Victoria came to the throne. It was a free settlement of men with dynasty-founding ambitions, with intentions of remaining permanently. Very soon Sydney was temporarily overtaken in size and wealth. Melbourne’s public buildings, unlike Sydney’s, were meant to last forever, and indeed there can be few cities in the world so pervasively Victorian – in morals as well as architecture, and in some ways, as we shall see, in painting too. The cities, one in the colder south, the other hot and humid, have developed different attitudes. Melbourne can be more intellectual and polemical, Sydney more easy-going.