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Arts essays | Australian Colonial Art

Choose two artists and briefly discuss their contribution to the presentation of the Australian landscape

Taken literally ‘Colonial Art’ spans from 1788, when the first British colony in Australia was founded, to 1901, when the six British colonies were federated to become the Commonwealth of Australia. This classification has become more accepted for the work of artists active between 1820 and 1885 – when the convict artist Joseph Lycett began working on the first major series of ‘views of N.S.W and Tasmania’ until Tom Roberts’ return from Europe, leading to the formation of the ‘Heidelberg School’.

The aim of the artists in this era was to capture the uniqueness of the Australian landscape. Art critics such as Gleeson, J (1976) and Campbell, J (1983) believe that the true nature of the Australian land and the sharpness of Australian light was not rendered by these colonial artists, but rather, tarnished by their European training; and that the true scenery of Australia had not been captured until the times of the Heidelberg School.

Of all the colonial artists, John Glover and Conrad Martens are most widely recognised for their quality of work. Both brought with them styles of painting formed by the taste of their time, but it was Glover who made the more serious attempt to modify his style in an effort to express the appearance of the Australian landscape. His attempts however, were not truly acceptable in depiction.

“Patterdale” which features in quite a number of his paintings, is the home John Glover built for his family on land granted to him in 1832 near Launceston, Tasmania; a year after he had emigrated at the age of sixty four. He painted using watercolour and very much to a recipe producing stylized and unrealistic Australian landscapes. From his four major works hung in the N.S.W Art Gallery the strong English influence of pastoral painting is very much evident. The harsh light, colour, and shape of Australian trees and land formations has not been captured; instead we see a romantic interpretation of hazy light and dull, dark colours.

The trees appear extremely smooth and twirling, not at all true to the gums and eucalypts of Australia. Rather than the use of bright, distinctive colours he gives us pastel blues and greys. Glover is known for his invention of a special brush with separated points, which he used to speed up the execution of niggling details in clouds, sea, and foliage. Not surprising then, that through the application of this technique he is scarcely able to convey the unique character of the Australian landscape.

He does however capture an aspect of ‘Australianess’ with the feelings of isolation and sparsity of the land. His paintings are truly beautiful, and definitely would have appealed to the eye of most English people who were thinking of starting a life in Australia; as they were more English than Australian.The other prevalent painter of this period, Conrad Martens, arrived in Sydney in 1835 and travelled extensively throughout N.S.W and southern Queensland.He, like Glover was one of the leading watercolourists in England, and tried to make an attempt to break away from these predispositions to depict the Australian landscape.But again, like Glover his attempts were not truly successful and this can be clearly seen in his three paintings hung at the N.S.W Art Gallery. It appears that he was happiest when he could find an excuse to impose his European vision on the facts of Australian landscape.

The majority of his paintings feature aspects of Sydney harbour and reflections of the picturesque European style can be seen with an added sense of drama quite uncommonly generated from an Australian landscape. Martens gives the landscape and vegetation quite exotic characteristics, such as in “Wiseman’s Ferry”; which does not come to terms with the peculiarities of an Australian scene. He uses quite dull colours giving a certain darkness to the land and vegetation, and again like Glover, he uses pastel blues and greys for the sea and sky creating that rather mystic and hazy look unfamiliar to the Australian beauty. The chosen scenes have not been rendered in factual terms but converted into dreamy and most visually pleasing scenes which may be quite familiar in such places as Italy, but not Australia.

Although Martens’ paintings are great works of art, they bear no resemblance to the Australian landscape in terms of colour and detail. There is no hint of the harsh light and uniqueness of the trees and vegetation, with their distinctive colour and brightness; instead he gives us romantic versions of the landscape that at times appear almost transparent.

Perhaps the reasoning behind Glover and Martens inability to depict the true Australian landscape, like all colonial artists, was due to the fact that they were unable to adapt to the changed settlement, and so were unable to depict the truth; but preferred to see the Australian landscape through English rose-coloured glasses.