Australian Impressionists - Frederick McCubbin

Frederick McCubbin (1855-1917) is the third Australian Impressionist we have studied this year.
His earlier paintings, in particular, tended to be sombre works which often depicted the harshness of pioneer living.
The Australian Impressionists, known as the Heidelberg School, set up camp at Box Hill and later Heidelberg in Victoria around 1885 and practiced out of doors studying the effects of light and colour. They differed at first from the French Impressionists in that they didn't use 'broken colour.'

Whisperings in Wattle Boughs

Down on his Luck

The Lost Child

The Bush Sawyers

The North Wind

On the Wallaby Track



Lost

Girl With a Bird at the King Street Bakery

For more information on Australian Impressionism and the Heidelberg School see here.

Australian Impressionists - Tom Roberts

Tom Roberts (1856-1931), one of Australia's most important painters, was born in England but emigrated to Australia when he was thirteen years old.

After a study tour abroad he adopted the idea of "plein-air" (open-air) Impressionistic painting and applied its theories of light and colour to the depiction of the Australian landscape.

Along with three other artists, Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin and Charles Conder, he established what was later to become known as the Heidelberg School or Australian Impressionism. The artists set up camp at Box Hill, Mentone, and later Heidelberg in Victoria in order to practice the new Impressionistic techniques out-of-doors.

We've covered the following paintings for our artist study. All images are taken from The Athenaeum. The paintings became a little blurred when I enlarged them here, unfortunately, but I gave up trying to reduce them as I kept messing up the titles and couldn't get them matched up to the actual paintings. Technology is not my strong point.
Information on Tom Roberts: Handbook of Art by Graham Hopwood and Great Australian Paintings - a Landsdowne publication.

 Bailed Up, 1895

 

 

Break Away! 1891

 

 'A' Battery Field Artillery, NSW.  1896

 Wood Splitters, 1886

 Holiday Sketch at Coogee,  1888

In a Corner of the Macintyre, 1895

Picture Study

Our current picture study is the work of the Australian Impressionist, Arthur Streeton (1867 - 1943).

These paintings are what we've covered so far and the plan is to go on to other artists from what is known as the 'golden era' of Australian painting - Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin in particular.

Blue Mountain Tunnel

When we first started studying the works of Arthur Streeton I’d chosen this painting partly because we’ve had numerous trips to that area and partly because I thought the subject of the painting would appeal to the boys.

This particular painting was done with watercolour on canvas but then we realised that there was another  painting of the same scene at Lapstone, ‘Fire’s On,’ which was done in oil on canvas. 

 

At first glance we noticed the oil painting was more intense but then we saw the smoke and different groupings of people, including the accident victim being carried out of the tunnel, and realised the difference in the paintings was more than just the medium used to paint them.

 Fire's On

This narration was done by my 12 year old son.  He had studied the paintings for a few minutes each day for a about week and then I asked him to write down his observations from memory - he added the pictures later.

 

We’d read the story behind the paintings from an art book we have, Great Australian Paintings, a Lansdowne publication.

Purple Noon's Transparent Might

Redfern Station

Autumn

  Circular Quay

Online paintings of Australian artists large enough to use as a screensaver were difficult to find and then I discovered this great site http://www.the-athenaeum.org/ 

The images above are from The Athenaeum.

Below are some picture study narrations some of my children have done at different times from different artists.