Australian Impressionists

Beautiful exhibition at the National Gallery of work by four Australian artists painting in the Impressionist style Tom Roberts, Charles Condor, Arthur Streeton and John Russell.

The show focused at first on the three artists who worked in Australia and made a point of how they were helping to define the national identity at a time which covered the centenary of Captain Cooks discover of the continent in 1888 and the formation of the country in 1901.

I loved the section on their 1889 9 x 5 exhibition which features small works painted on the reverse of cigar box lids 9 in by 5 in in size in deep wooden frames with a gold inner frame. These were loose but concentrated pictures such as a lovely one of the bend in the road in the rain.

I liked the contrast between the city and rural pictures. The city ones were darker but showed a pride in what had been built and established in a short time. I liked one by Streeton of the Railway Station at Redfern with a vast expanse of rain soaked road set off my one figure. The rural ones had an amazing sense of light. I liked one again by Streeton of engineers cutting thought the rock to build a railway. This was a large portrait orientated landscape of great rocks and sky however at the bottom was a scene of human tragedy as a dead worker is carried out of the tunnel. It reminded me of an American Sublime landscape.

The last section looked at John Russell, an Australian born painter who moved to Europe and became friends with many of the French Impressionists and post Impressionists. He trained with Lautrec, was friend with Van Gogh, worked with Monet and acted a mentor to Matisse. I liked his work but found it rather influenced by those people and hard to see his style.

Closes on 26 March 2017

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