Heidelberg School

The Heidelberg School was one of the most important and influential Australian art movements, the first truly Australian style of painting. The Heidelberg School describes the style of painting in the Melbourne area by several Australian artists. While there are several artists who were involved in the Heidelberg school, the most important ones were Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Charles Condor and Frederick McCubbin. I will focus on those artists in this essay, and will discuss the era between the start of the painting camp being set up at Box Hill in 1885, and the breaking up of the group following the second summer at Heidelberg in 1890, when Roberts and Streeton left for New South Wales, and Condor sailed to Paris. The broader definition of the 'Heidelberg school' has sometimes been used to include later painting around Melbourne by other painters in the 1890s and early twentieth century, up to Roberts' return to England in 1903. However, I will focus on the four main Heidelberg artists in the late 1880s, and their paintings at Box Hill, Mentone and Eaglemont at Heidelberg, the most important part of the period when all four artists were together.

*During this time, McCubbin, Roberts, Streeton and Conder* painted the Australian bush in a style which was similar to European Impressionism, but had developed on its own. Partly this was a reaction against galleries in Australia buying master works from Europe and doing little to encourage local artists. The new style which they painted changed Australian art from being realistic depictions of European style landscapes, to an art which was about individualism and developing a unique style, encouraging Australian artists to stop looking overseas for inspiration, instead finding it from within their own country.

The desire to have a unique Australian style of painting, separate from Europe, led to the emergence of the Heidelberg School. During the mid-nineteenth century in Australia, the Australian landscape was painted from a European perspective, painters such as Von Guerard giving Australia an idealized look, reminiscent of lush, fertile valleys of Europe. Other painters such as Glover would misrepresent details about the Australian bush, such as by painting eucalyptus trees with curved wavy branches, instead of the straight branches which they actually have. Painters would paint the Australian bush with an eye to sending the paintings back to Europe to sell, rather than trying to paint the landscape realistically. Aborigines were often depicted in ways which were unrealistic, such as in Glover's paintings of the Aborigines in Tasmania, which hid the sad fact that there were not many left on the island after many of them had been killed by the colonists. Most of the painters of the Australian bush, were born in Europe, who had immigrated to Australia.

*There was a desire amongst the local born Australian population for the Australian outback and people to be depicted in art in a realistic manner, rather than these European versions of the country which they were used to. It co-coincided with a time when Impressionism as a style was becoming popular in France, a school of art which was devoted to painting outdoors getting an impression of light in nature in one sitting as a finished painting. This contrasted with the traditional method where an artist would make sketches outdoors and finish the painting in the studio. Thus the style of art which a painter was trying to paint was less important than sitting outside carefully observing the way in which the world looked. Australian painters who visited Europe in this period brought back new ideas of looking around them for inspiration, and when this school of thought would be applied to Australia, it would mean that painters would paint the bush as they saw it, rather than how Europeans wanted it to be seen. Tom Roberts, who returned from Europe in 1885 after visiting many artists in Paris came back with these new ideas about the new way of painting. He felt, as did many other Australian artists, that the galleries of Melbourne and other cities in Australia, were looking to old European styles of traditional academic painting to exhibit in the galleries, and were somewhat out of touch with the new painting styles, such as plein air painting. As Australian artists started to paint the bush as they saw it, they felt that the galleries were not buying their work, were more interested in buying works of art from Europe, rather than encouraging local artists to develop their own unique styles. "A sense that their [local artists] work was being passed over in favour of the more spectacular and expensive imported art rankled with the new generation centred around Tom Roberts." (Galbally 2002: 31) Tom Roberts set up a camp at Box Hill with some other artists, where they encouraged painting outdoors, and shared ideas about the new direction art was headed. This became the first time in Australia where the outdoor plein air painting of doing a finished work outdoors, rather than in the studio, was significantly used. "The Box Hill paintings represent the first effective realization of the plein air method in Australia and, as such, mark the beginning of the Heidelberg School." (Splatt 1988: 27) While they painted many landscapes at Heidelberg, several of the painters had started out their careers doing figure painting.

While Streeton focused primarily on landscapes; Conder, Roberts and McCubbin early on wished to become figure painters and thought they would create a unique Australian style of figure painting. In fact, many of their paintings show elements of figure or genre painting, with McCubbin's The Pioneer set in a landscape, yet showing a story unfolding as a Pioneer builds his home, a family and ends with him making a grave. Some of Tom Roberts' paintings show a theme of rural work with depictions of ordinary Australian people at work. One example is Shearing the Rams which shows very large figures in the foreground, where the primary focus is the figures, all based on drawings of models done from life. Conder, McCubbin and Roberts had all learned life drawing at art school, and wanted to base a new style of Australian art around drawing the human figure. "While students in Melbourne during the 1870s, the future Heidelberg artists had one overriding ambition: they wished to become figure painters." (Astbury 1986: 15) In their painting, sometimes of landscapes, these painters showed figures possessing a dominant role.

The Heidelberg painters changed Australian painting by painting in a style unique to Australia, encouraging Australian artists to develop their own styles independently from overseas art. They chose many different genres of painting in which to show the new style. Some themes which were prevalent in the art were that of rural work, frontier life, the Australian landscape and modern scenes of Melbourne and the surrounding suburbs. Roberts and McCubbin set up a camp at a property which was given to Streeton, at Box Hill, about 15km to the east of Melbourne. They also painted at the beaches at Mentone, a seaside suburb to the south east where they met Arthur Streeton, before setting up the most famous camp at the property at Eaglemont, at Heidelberg, to the north east of Melbourne city. The four artists all participated in an exhibition in the city called the 9 x 5 exhibition, referring to the size in inches of the cigar box lids which most of the paintings were done on. Roberts wished that artists in Australia would paint the landscape and the world around them in a way which was relevant for them, rather than trying to copy older styles. While critics of Shearing the Rams said that the theme should not be held to be great art because it was not like the paintings in the style of French Rococo or of the Italian Renaissance, Roberts would argue that his art captures the mood of the present in Australia. Instead of looking at art which had been made that was appropriate for 18th century France, Roberts made an art which was the right thing for his time and place. As he wrote, "that by making art the perfect expression of one time and one place, it becomes art for all time and all places." (Astbury 1986: 113) In all his art was this feeling that he was trying to capture the mood of the world around him as he saw it.

Tom Roberts did many paintings showing the Australian landscape in the new light. As well as being a great portrait painter, Roberts, who was nicknamed the "Bulldog" for his tenacity, had many ideas about a new school of Australian art. His painting of Shearing the Rams showed an idealised look at a theme which many people in Australia could identify with. At the time it was criticised because many critics did not feel it fit the definition of 'high art'. However, since the wool industry was Australia's greatest export industry at the time, it was a theme in which many Australian people could identify with. "The puzzle is not why Roberts chose to paint pastoral labour, but why any artist was doing anything else, given that wool earned 60 per cent of Australia's export income." (McQueen 1996: 294) The painting showed a view of the shearing sheds which was not in some cases realistic. Shearing would probably have been much messier; for instance the sheerer on the left has picked the ram up to move it, when normally it would have been dragged backwards. He loved this theme of the value of the work of ordinary Australian people. He made many other paintings showing country people working, with a similar image of the shearing sheds in The golden fleece, a drover racing after sheep breaking away from the flock in A Break Away!, and with men chopping trees in Woodsplitters. Many of Roberts' paintings were landscapes or ideas done on small canvases that he did very quickly, "..during the Heidelberg days, Roberts' output was almost exclusively confined to 'impressions' of modest proportions which were executed rapidly." (Splatt 1988: 53) In fact, he had more works on display in the 9 x 5 exhibition that anyone else.

The 9 x 5 Impression exhibition of 1889 that the Heidelberg painters held in Melbourne was one of the most important exhibitions they held and the chief way in which people found out about the new style of painting which they were doing. There was a great deal of interest by the public in the unusually titled exhibition, with a cover illustration to the catalogue designed by Roberts, and all four of the main Heidelberg painters having paintings in the exhibition. Roberts had the most works in the exhibition, while McCubbin only had five works on show, mostly because of the commitments he had with his job, while the others were painting full time. Most of the paintings were done on cigar box lids, which were about five by nine inches, hence the name of the exhibition. The show was different because it presented what were considered to some tiny sketches, to the public as finished works of an artist, a revolutionary idea at the time. Many of the paintings had humorous touches and anecdotes, showing Tom Roberts' humour and Charles Conder's flair. One of Conder's paintings on show was How We Lost Poor Flossie shows an anecdote about how McCubbin's dog was lost in Melbourne. A lovely painting by Roberts shows a couple from behind silhouetted against the reflection of the light in the street, with a beautiful sunset in the background. It is a very simple picture, yet has a lovely feel to it, of a couple walking home arm in arm, on a rainy, yet picturesque evening. The whole exhibition was also a showcase of what the four painters were achieving at Eaglemont at Heidelberg, such as Streeton's works in the show. These included more landscapes such as Pastoral in yellow and grey: a colour impression of Templestowe, smaller examples of the larger works he was doing at Heidelberg.

Arthur "Smike" Streeton painted many landscape scenes showing the Australian bush in its natural beauty. When he did paint people, the people were less significant than the landscape and the light of the picture. As with Impressionism, Streeton captured images of the beautiful light of the Australian countryside. "It is Streeton who definitively captures the quality of Australian light." (Galbally 1979: 15) In his beautiful painting of the Yarra River valley, Still glides the stream and shall forever glide 1890, Streeton shows a winding river in the middle of the picture and a landscape of bright yellowish colour, very typically Australian. The painting was the first of his landscapes which was bought by a large art gallery, with the Art Gallery of New South Wales purchasing it in the same year that it was painted. Another beautiful painting Streeton did was Golden Summer, Eaglemont showing clearly the differences in the light outdoors between sunshine and shade, with the focus of the picture being the glorious yellow-gold colour of the sunlit field. The figure of the man with some sheep seems subservient to the colour of the fields, whereas in the paintings of Conder the figure was more important. An interesting example where the two artists together painted the same scene at the same time, is with Streeton's The Selector's Hut: Whelan on the Log, where the bright yellowish light on the land seems to be the most important aspect of the picture, while in Conder's Under a Southern Sun, there are touches of things of a more personal and humorous nature, such as a little girl in the foreground and clothes hanging on he line.

During the time that Charles "K" Conder was in Australia, he painted in a style which he showed a unique Australian influence. Charles Conder was a fun loving man who painted with an often humorous touch. His painting of A Holiday at Mentone 1888 shows people at the beach relaxing. He shows the current culture how the men and women at beaches at this time were clothed from head to foot, the men in suits and hats; the ladies in long girdled dresses with boots and pretty hats. The man and woman at the front of the painting face away from each other, yet possibly are interested in one another and watching each other through the corner of their eye. The mood is one of simple elegance and with a relaxed feel, as in the background people are strolling along the beach into the distance. The composition of the painting, with the bridge in the middle has possibly been borrowed from a James A.M. Whistler painting where there was a bridge running horizontally in the middle of the picture, as Conder among other painters such as McCubbin had been directly or indirectly influenced by Whistler.

Frederick the "Prof" McCubbin painted with the other three painters while he had a teaching position as a drawing teacher. His painting of Down on his luck shows a sombre mood of a man with his head resting against his arm, looking melancholy while stroking a fire with a stick, against an Australian landscape. The emotion of the figure is very strong, a powerful feeling of sadness throughout the picture. It is also a very typical Australian image, the dry bushland with its gum trees, and the man with workmen's trousers, boots, hat and a bushy beard. He showed that he admired the Australian bush, for the sadness of the man contrasts with the bright bushland which takes up most of the picture. He showed an understanding of what the Australian bush looks like as well as painting it in his own unique style. "At Box Hill, McCubbin strengthened his empathy with the bush and developed an idiosyncratic method of painting it." (Galbally 1981: 65) McCubbin's style of many brushstrokes of very different colours to represent the overall colour of the bush he developed later in such works as The Pioneer. This triptych is a great masterpiece in Australian painting, capturing the mood of the Heidelberg school even if it was painted many years later, it showed "how effectively McCubbin summed up the ideology of Heidelberg and how perfectly attuned this ideology was to the mood of the times" (Allen 1997: 78) The freedom that the Heidelberg artists showed by painting their view of the landscape, allowed other artists to develop Australian art further, with its own unique character, in the twentieth century.

The Heidelberg artists influenced many of the painters of the 20th century, by showing that Australian artists could paint a style which did not have to be imported from Europe. During the time that the Heidelberg school was painting in Melbourne, there was much discussion about what artists should be painting. The Australian critic, Sidney Dickinson, concluded in What Should Australian Artists Paint? in 1890 that Australian artists should paint the world around them. As he said, they should paint: "the expression; with all the power and feeling that the artists can command, of the intimate facts of our own life and environment." (Galbally 1981: 70)
The Heidelberg School of painting was Australia's first significant locally developed art movement. The four painters had different styles; Roberts the energetic leader who explored many ideas, who made paintings about rural work, and who idealised Australian figures such as the stockman or the farmer; Streeton, whose huge landscapes showed the beauty of the Australian countryside; the playful Conder, who painted many pictures with a sense of fun and humour; and the part time painter McCubbin, who painted in a more serious, worked over and historical style. Although only lasting a few years in Melbourne, they had a strong influence on Australian art because they showed that Australian artists could successfully paint the world around them as they saw it. By portraying this world of late 1880s Melbourne in such a magnificent way, to paraphrase Roberts, the art of the Heidelberg painters became an art for all time and of all places.


*Note: I edited the essay in a couple places from the original one submitted, after advice from my tutor (2 new paragraphs)

Bibliography

Astbury, L. (1986) City Bushmen. The Heidelberg School and the Rural Mythology. Oxford University Press, Melbourne

Chilvers, I. (2003) Oxford Concise dictionary of Art & Artists. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK
Galbally, A. (1979) Arthur Streeton. Lansdowne Editions, East Melbourne
Galbally, A. (1981) Frederick McCubbin. Hutchinson Group, Richmond, Victoria
Galbally, A. (2002) Charles Conder. The last bohemian. Melbourne University Press, Melbourne
McCaughey, P. (1980) Australian painters of the Heidelberg School. The Jack Manton Collection. Oxford University Press, Melbourne
McQueen, H. (1996) Tom Roberts. Pan Macmillan, Sydney
Radford, R. & Hylton, J. (1995) Australian Colonial Art 1800-1900. Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Splatt, W. & McLellan, D. (1988) The Heidelberg School. The Golden Summer of Australian Painting. Penguin Books Australia, Ringwood, Victoria.

Internet research
http://www.artistsfootsteps.com/html/

Australian_critic.htm
http://www.acn.net.au/articles/painters/
http://www.lonker.net/art_heidelberg.htm