Australian early 19th Century Art

Click here for more early Australian art from        ART GALLERY OF NEW SOUTH WALES

If a picture paints a thousand words, then use of these paintings and illustrations will help students know more about the life and times of everyday people  (rich, poor and in between) of 19th Century Australia.

There were two main periods of Australian 19th Century art.  In the earliest representations, much of the Art was completed by naturalists and amateurs.  These included convicts, soldiers and free settlers.  Those artists who did come over from Europe, were affected by the Romantic Movement, a craze that tried to compensate the reality of the ugliness of the industrial revolution with a romantic ideal.  The landscapes were changed to look heroic and beautiful.  This untrue presentation of the World afflicted the artists- most of them second and third rate artists anyway- when they came to Australia.  They painted the Australian landscape and made the scenery like that of Europe.  The trees don’t look Australian and the natives presented clothed.  It wasn’t until the latter part of 19th Century that artists started presenting a more realistic representation of the Australian landscape (Heidelberg School)

Why didn’t these artists paint the colours and plants of Australia?  One convict in the first settlement in Port Jackson (Sydney) complained that the leaves of the Australian trees looked like poo.  The early convicts, settlers and government personnel were use to the lush greenness of the British Isles.  They were not use to the new harsh land of bush, insects and poisonous creatures, not to mention the strange marsupials.  It wasn’t really until their children were born and raised in the landscape and environment that Europeans began to accept and even love their country.  This would later be seen in the literary works of Banjo Patterson, Henry Lawson and the artists of the Heidelberg School.

Go to this link and see two artists representation of the same historical event.  It is the so called ‘treaty’ between the Aboriginal elders of the Port Phillip district with John Batman.

What can you notice about the two portrayals?

How are all the people dressed- the Europeans and the natives?

What sort of messages are trying to be conveyed by the two artists?

Which is the more honest of the two portrayals? What reasons would you give for your answers?

What artistic styles are being used by the two artists?

Tom Roberts – Robbery Underarms.