Art Gallery NSW: Australian Classical Art 1800 – 1900

Just as European classical masterpieces are in museums of Europe, Australian classical masterpieces are in Art Gallery of New South Wales, making them a must-see for visitors. Australian classical paintings portray scenes of Australia and Europe by following Greek and Roman ideas and techniques. 

After European settlement, European artists migrated to Australia and continued their artistic practice by painting various subjects and passing their skills to the next generations of European painters in Australia.

Active Australian classical artists had diverse geographical backgrounds. They grew up and had art education either in Europe or Australia. 

Art Gallery NSW has a large collection of significant Australian masterpieces painted by classical artists. Among them, I carefully selected works that evidently show key characteristics of Australian classical art. Selected masterpieces show Australian nature, the arduous lives of the Australian working class, the sumptuous lives of privileged Europeans, and voluptuous feminine beauty. 

Selected Works

• Nature of Sydney and Australia
• Arduous Lives of Working Class in Australia
• Sumptuous lives of High Society in Europe
• Voluptuous Feminine Beauty

Nature of Australia

Australia is renowned for its scenic and unpolluted nature. It ranks as one of the best in the world. Captivated by the charms of Australia's nature, artists passionately painted the land and sea of the beautiful land. Portrayed nature shows Australians' common sense of the nature of Australia. The nature is too immense and sublime that it is beyond human grasp and imagination. Thus, people are minuscule compared to mighty nature. Accordingly, Australian classical art portrays nature as vast and people and traces of civilization as small.

Tom Roberts, Holiday sketch at Coogee, 1888, Oil on canvas

The artist painted this en-plein air(outdoor painting) at Coogee Beach, Sydney. The impressive beach consists of a glistening turquoise sea with bleached white sand and sun-kissed seaside vegetation. The beach is a well-known tourist attraction in the present day. The artist painted the beach with an impressionist technique, which delineates the subject by painting shades of light instead of accurate depiction. his technique is evocative of the blazing sun in tropical northern Australia.

Sydney Long, Pan, 1898, Oil on canvas

The art-nouveau and Symbolist masterpiece shows an Arcadian pagan god blowing his pipe while a group of naked people dancing along to his music and lying down in a geometrical forest. The decorative and art nouveau-inspired trees symbolize the sensuous mood of the erotic spectacle. Naked people represent bucolic liberty and erotic frisson.

Arthur Streeton, Fire's on, 1891, Oil on canvas

The painting captures a critical moment during the construction of a railway line across the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney: the death of a railway worker in an explosion. 'Fire's on' was the warning call before the blast, as the gang dynamited the Lapstone Tunnel through the hillside. The human drama of the painting, however, is overshadowed by the immensity of the landscape itself. Arthur Streeton's visions of the landscape have defined an image of Australian nature.

John Glover, Patterdale Farm, c1840, Oil on canvas

The farm painting shows the English painter's depiction of his farm at his new home, Tasmania, an island state in Australia. Image on right is a close up of the livestock in the painting. Notice the difference in scale between the vast landscape and the domesticated animals.

Henry James Johnsone, A billabong of the Goulburn, Victoria,
1884, Oil on canvas

Arduous Lives of the Working Class in Australia

The divine land of Australia gives life and breeds myriad kinds of flora and fauna. the fertile land is blessed with a wide variety of climates from the warm tropical north to the cooler southern region. Accordingly, there's little that the land can't grow or produce. The majority of European descendants' duty was to process the resources from nature into consumable commodities. Australian classical artists, informed about the importance of labor, captured various angles of the lives of the Australian working class.

Oswald Brierly, Whalers off Twofold Bay, NSW, 1867, Watercolor 

The masterpiece features a commercial whale slaughter operation at Twofold Bay, on the far south coast of New South Wales.

Tom Roberts, The Golden Fleece, 1894, Oil on canvas

Henry Herbert La Thangue, Cider apples,
1899, Oil on canvas

Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo, The strike's aftermath,
1913, Oil on canvas

The social realist painting shows a weary Australian miner seated with the Labor Party newspaper after rallying for demanding an increase in the minimum wage. The British National Coal Strike of 1912, in which coal miners fought to obtain a minimum wage, inspired similar campaigns across Australia and New Zealand. The artist drew on these turbulent times in this portrayal of a dispirited miner.

Sumptuous Lives of Privileged Europeans

In the early 20th century, European artists active in Australia had affluent family backgrounds, as becoming an artist demanded high financial costs for education and art material. So since childhood, the artists were well acquainted with privileged and materialistic life. They traveled to various countries in Europe extensively. After their art education in Melbourne and Sydney, they traveled to Europe and painted admired lives of wealthy Europeans, scenes that they are familiar with. Consequently, some artists left masterpieces to be preserved as timeless images of European high life. They received recognition in European art institutions including Paris Salon and Royal Academy, London.

  

E Phillips Fox, The ferry, c1910-1911, Oil on canvas

The setting of this masterpiece takes place at outdoors in Trouville, a luxury beach resort in northern France. The artist positions the viewer as if peering down at the elegant boating party and immerses us in a sumptuous, genteel world of vibrant colors, luscious fabric textures, and a warm summer atmosphere.

Rupert Bunny, A summer morning, 1908,
Oil on canvas

This greatly admired painting portrays the life of privileged women in lacy dresses. The artist's wife, kittenish herself, plays with a lapful of cats. Her companion accepts a basin of milk from a meaningfully shadowed maid.

 

George Lambert, Holiday in Essex, 1910, Oil on canvas

The subject of this monumental painting was derived from the family holiday at Mersea Island in Essex and features Lambert's wife Amy and sons Constant and Maurice. The painting is a deliberate attempt to emulate Velasquez, a Baroque art pioneer. Lambert studied his composition to place subjects and incorporated chiaroscuro to establish contrast.

Voluptuous Feminine Beauty

Rich in natural resources, colonized Australia eventually became wealthy. The abundant life of materialistic pleasure in Australia greatly influenced Australian classical artists. As a result, they choose women of voluptuous beauty as subjects to represent bountiful life in Australia. Plump depiction of fabric and flesh is a common characteristic of Australian classical painting featuring feminine beauty.

Charles Landelle, Ismenie, nymph of Diana,
1878, Oil on canvas

Violet Teague, Dian dreams, 1909,
Oil on canvas

Art Gallery NSW: European Classical Art 1400 – 1900

Topics Covered

• Venue
• Background Knowledge
• Classical Art
• Classical Paintings at Art Gallery NSW
• Selected Works
• Narrative: Myth and Legend
• Composition: Beautified Representations of European Lives

 

Venue

Art Gallery of New South Wales is the Australian version of The Met and MoMA. When walking into the museum, the audience would get the impression that artwork collections at the renowned museums are reduced to a smaller scale and housed on one vast floor. The 20th-century gallery on the left displays modern art of Australia and Grand Courts on the right exhibit European and Australian classical art of the 15th - 20th century. Due to expansive collections of works, viewing one collection per day is recommended.
I was overwhelmed by the loads of artworks displayed at the Courts. Paintings were too crammed into the walls of the Courts that several paintings hung vertically. Paintings were not as well organized as that of Modern Art displayed in the left galleries. Though classical paintings on display were masterpieces, too many of them cause viewers confusion by distracting focus and fatigue from overworking cognition. The best solution, in this case, is to concentrate on your field of interest and pay attention to a few works.

Background Knowledge

Classical Art

Classical art has over nine centuries of history, so its history is certainly longer than that of modern art, which has 60 years. The history of classical art took place in Europe and began in the medieval period of the 500s, and it lasted until the emergence of impressionism, an initial modern art movement, in the late 1800s. Accordingly, classical art boasts an immense collection of art created during the period of classical antiquity.

Technically, classical art refers to art created in the style of Greek and Roman art. Artists studied classical ideas and techniques and followed visual rules of form, proportion, and perspective to create their art. Their main purpose in creating artwork was to depict ideal representations of people and objects in the real world. Artists realized their vision in a variety of genres including sculpture, painting, fresco, ceramics, mosaic, and more. Each genre had corresponding techniques, meaning skills done by hand.

Classical artworks portray subjects realistically, so viewers can understand the happenings in the images. Unlike experimental and expressive artworks of modern art, classical artworks show the subject rationally and directly. The two main types of subjects were narrative and composition. The narrative captures a scene of an important story from the bible or myth and thus contained morals. Composition reconstructs reality by beautifying subjects and rearranging compositions. As time progressed, ideas, subjects, and techniques of art gradually changed within the frame of classicism. Those changes are also known as art movements.
Conclusively, classical art shows the power of European civilization. Based on investment from affluent sponsors of art, visually intelligent Europeans formulated basic theories about art, cultivated various genres, and devised mediums and techniques to visualize ideas. As a result, educated artists had the capacity of rendering their ideas with high precision in visually pleasing compositions. Artists painted countless masterpieces that showed the lasting legacy of advanced civilization.

Classical Paintings at Art Gallery NSW

As classical art originated in Europe, the masterpieces are consequently in art museums in Europe. Though Art Gallery NSW does have classical artworks of high quality, they are comparatively less significant than works in Europe. Yet, I still selected the best works from the Australian museum's European classical paintings, as works painted in Europe show the power of European civilization. 
Grand Court has an overwhelming amount of Classical Art created across five centuries. To prioritize the artworks, I divided them into two groups, setting European Settlement in Australia as a milestone. The first group of paintings is European Classical Art from 1400 to 1900. The second group of paintings is Australian Classical Art from 1800 to 1900. In two groups of paintings, I carefully selected important works based on four standards.

1. large scale: large images are meant to be seen by many people
2. defined subject: the depicted subject is well delineated
3. completed within five years
4. has description: important works usually accompany an explanation

Then I categorized them according to their type of subjects.
1. narrative

• captures a scene of a story
• similar function as modern-day TV - a reminder of an important story
• the depicted story taught and endorsed morals

2. composition

• subjects indicate how people lived in the era of creation
• reconstructs reality by beautifying subjects and rearranging compositions

For paintings of narrative subjects, artists froze a scene of a story into a painting by depicting the scene realistically. Painted biblical tales, myths, and legends showed morals that formed the basis of European civilization and enforced endorsed values. Based on those morals, Europeans build their lives. Composition paintings suggest how people lived when artworks were painted.

Selected Works

Narrative: Legend and Myth

Edward Coley Burne-Jones, The fight: St George kills the dragon VI, 1866, Oil on canvas

Ford Madox Brown, Chaucer at court of Edward III, 1847-1851,
Oil on canvas

A celebration of the English language, the painting was the first work to be purchased by the museum. Subject shows a significant historical event of Chaucer, the father of English literature, is reading lines from Canterbury Tales to King Edward III, who ruled England from January 1327 until his death in 1377.  

Composition: Beautified Representations of European Lives

Ambrosius Benson, Portraits of Cornelius Duplicius de Scheppere and his wife Elizabeth Donche, c1540, Diptych: oil on panel

Duplicius de Scheppere was an important scholar and diplomat who traveled extensively in the service of the Kings of Denmark in the 16th century.

Abraham van Beyeren, Still life with fruit, a glass, and a Chinese
Wanli porcelain bowl, 1656, Oil on canvas

William Marlow, The Rialto bridge, Venice, 1780s, Oil on canvas

Francois Salle, The anatomy class at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, 1888,
Oil on canvas