Australian Impressionists

Its been a quiet weekend - except for Mother's Day with Sue enjoying lunch with her two boys, well men really these days (they are in their 20s). Reading through some posts of other bloggers over the weekend, it sparked a subject that I've lightly touched on in the past.
Impressionism. A style of painting that emerged out of Europe, and France in particular was an influence to some of our local artists.


Arthur Streeton - Hoddle Street




Arthur Streeton

Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts, Walter Withers, Fred McCubbin and Charles Conder are some of the artists that I'm more familiar with. Up at the Paris end of Collins street Melbourne in the 1880s were the studios of Roberts and Streeton. Needing to get out of the studio and into the environment, these artists initially travelled to our suburb of Mentone to paint. It was the summer of 1886 when Arthur Streeton met Tom Roberts at Mentone.
Later they established Artist's Camps in the northern hill area of Heidelberg, about 10 km or more from the Melbourne CBD. These camps evolved into what is now known as the Heidelberg School of Artists, our Australian Impressionists.


Charles Conder - Blossom



Charles Conder - Going Home



Charles Conder

 

Tom Roberts - Mentone Beach



The infamous 9 x 5 Impressionist's Exhibition 1889



Poster advertising the 9 x 5 Exhibition



The Buxton Rooms in Swanston Street where the 9 x 5 Exhibition was held.

 Their early exhibition held in Swanton Street Melbourne in August, 1889 was not that well received especially by one art critic who wrote a fairly negative critique in the Argus newspaper.

The modern impressionist asks you to see pictures in splashes of colours, in slap-dash brushwork, and in sleight-of-hand methods of execution leading to the proposition of pictorial conundrums, which would baffle solution if there were no label or catalogue. In an exhibition of paintings you naturally look for pictures, instead of which the impressionist presents you with a varied assortment of palettes. Of the 180 exhibits catalogued on the present occasion, something like four-fifths are a pain the eye. Some of them look like faded pictures seen through several mediums of thick gauze; others suggest that a paint-pot has been accidentally upset over a panel of nine inches by five; others resemble the first essays of a small boy, who has just been apprenticed to a house-painter.



James Smith, Argus, 17 August 1889



Charles Conder 9 x 5 painting with the typical wood framing.

 The exhibition became described as the 9 x 5 Exhibition. It took its name from the fact that all the paintings were based on the panels of a cigar box. Of the paintings on show at the exhibition, about one third still exist in public collections. In 2009, one of Charles Condor's 9 x 5s sold at Southerby's for just under $500,000. Not bad for a painting at an exhibition that was lampooned by a newspaper art critic.



Tom Roberts - By the Treasury




Arthur Streeton - Burke & Wills statue near Princess Theatre




Arthur Streeton - Residence of J Walker



Maybe I'll follow up with more specific Australian Impressionist posts in the future.

Rupert Bunny - Melbourne Artist - 1864 to 1947

I use to draw things as a child at home, later I would draw cartoons. Terrible at the more scholastic subjects, I went to art school, not that it did much good - although it did give me an appreciation of art and an interest in the Heidelberg School of artists. They were my favorites along with the French Impessionists.
A group of Australian Impressionist (late 1800s) initially painted in the Bay area of Melbourne (where we now live) before they moved on to the then rural district of Heidelberg. I grew up in this district and enjoyed riding my bike there as a teenager.

Rupert Bunny - Self Portrait

I was aware of Charles Condor, Walt Withers, Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton, well known Australian impressionist artists, but not Rupert Bunny.
You can read more about the Heidelberg School artists here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidelberg_School

That is until I was driving down the freeway and saw that the Rupert Bunny exhibition was advertised. This Melbourne artist spent most of his life in Paris and areas of France during the end of the 1800s and the early 1900s.

Summer Morning

If you click on the link below a video will describe his career better than I can here.
A video of the Rupert Bunny Exhibition
http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/events/multimedia/rupert_bunny

Last Fine Day

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rupert Charles Wulsten Bunny (29 September 1864 – 25 May 1947) was an Australian painter, born in St Kilda, Victoria.
Bunny was the third son of Victorian Country Court Judge, Brice Frederick Bunny, and Marie Hedwig Dorothea Wulsten. He travelled to England in 1884 and studied at Calderon's art school in London. After 18 months he went to Paris to study at the atelier of Jean-Paul Laurens. In 1902, he married Jeanne Heloise Morel, a former art student and model, who appeared frequently in his paintings. He lived in France until 1911 when he returned to Australia for a visit. For a number of years he travelled back and forth between Australia and France. After his wife died in 1933, he returned permanently to Australia and settled in South Yarra, Victoria.[1]

Dolce Farniete - Sweet Idleness

From the ABC website - http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2007/06/12/1949232.htm
Rupert Bunny is one of Australia's best known and loved artists, at the height of his career at the end of the 19th century he was living a life of success in Europe, befriending some of the most brilliant painters, writers, musicians and dancers of the day.

Returning from the garden

Dame Nellie Melba - Australian Opera singer. Her home in Coldstream, Victoria is about an hours drive from home. The area is in the Yarra Valley, home to many fine vineyards.

We still don't why we didn't get to the Exhibition that was held here at the time. We have missed seeing a great Melbourne artist's works. I have enjoyed researching through the above links and hope you had an opportunity to appreciate some of our Australian artists as well.

Art or Vandalism - You tell me!!!

Art or Vandalism, I'm not quite sure. 

In specific places I'm sure it adds to the color of the city. 

I've posted six photographs from my morning rides - the first three come from a recent ride in the Melbourne suburb of Balaclava. It's a predominent Jewish area with some wonderful pastry/bakery shops. I attend a weekly gym session here and enjoy a cup of the best coffee I've tasted anywhere before rushing off to work.

I'm not sure whether I should label these as graffiti or murals. 

The colors are intense and the graphics are very well executed. My initial thoughts are that these were probably comissioned.

What really gets up my nose though is the "tagging" on public property. I've seen tagging on someone's picket fence or brick wall. How does this property owner feel when they get up to go to work and there it is, some vandal's spray canned name across their private property.

Two years ago we were in Provence and there on the Pont de Gard was someone's name carved into the stone (from the 1700s).

Rome was worse!!!!!!!

I must say though, I love the intensity of color in these first three "murals".

The following three come from again my early morning rides, but this time, during 2007 in the streets of Paris. 
What is significant about these shots are that they contain my name. 

The tagging wasn't done by me (although Sue was suspicious, even after my denials) but I kept coming across "Leon" tagged in various steets on these rides.

I remember back in 1979 when I spent a summer in San Francisco, I noticed some grafitti that was AC/DC which I presumed was done by someone that admired our great Aussie band. Then again????

I'd be interested in the thoughts you might have on Graffiti.