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Ocean to Outback: Australian Landscape Painting 1850-1950

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Ocean to Outback: Australian Landscape Painting 1850-1950

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Image 1- Eugene von Guérard (1873), New South Wales

Image 2- Nicholas Chevalier (1863), Victoria

Image 3- Tom Roberts (c.1886)

Image 4- Walter Withers (1895)

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Setting: 1900 Victoria, Australia

Themes: Dreams, puberty, sexuality

Key characters: Mrs Appleyard (greying hair in a pompadour), Miranda (straight straw yellow hair), Irma (Black ringlets, pretty), Marion (slim), Edith (plain faced), Sara, Miss McCraw (odd fashion sense, grey hair, head consumed by maths)

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Flies/ insects everywhere near Hanging Rock

Subtle exploration of relationships & themes, many things are unseen

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Picnic....

This film is magnificent! From the storyline, the settings, the atmosphere, the cinematography, the Victorian repression, the music throughout, the sense of the ordinary, the epic and the bizarre all clashing together to make something altogether superb from such disparate parts.

Whether it is supernatural, otherworldly, plain disappearances, a murder scene, or who-knows, no one ever really finds out. And what might seem important, might not be, and what might seem trivial might not be either! It is the imagination made reality on film, and the most dreamy and atmospheric film I have seen.

The fact that it is in Australia as well, at the turn of the century counts for a lot. The story in the movie could be read in countless ways; as symbolic of the horrors and hypocrisy of Victorian society; as a criticism of European ideals imposed on an alien landscape; as the end of one society, that of Victorian, to the beginnings of the modern world we all now live in. It is this that is the crux for me; the appearance of something new from something so old; the old landscape, the passing values of Victorian society, the passing values of class deference in English-speaking societies, and obviously Australia.

There is another thing that gets me about this movie; the down to earthness of Australians up against the bizarre and epic nature of an ancient landscape that refuses to be tamed.

There is for me a sadness in this film, and repression of every kind, but, somewhere, in tiny glints throughout the movie, the future is glimpsed when ordinary people can be free of such repression, and somewhere the story of Oz itself is in this movie. I don't know how or why, but it is! I think! Whatever, I love this movie and can't get it out of my head.

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Picnic at Hanging Rock: Directed by Peter Weir. With Rachel Roberts, Vivean Gray, Helen Morse, Kirsty Child. During a rural summer picnic, a few students and a teacher from an Australian girls' school vanish without a trace. Their absence frustrates and haunts the people left behind.

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Art Textiles of the World: Australia Volume 2

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Art Textiles of the World: Australia Volume 2

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Julie Ryder (Image 1,2)

Silk, dyes, screen printing, stitch

Pattern, colour, form

Inspired by Japanese wabi-sabi

"Fabric forest"

Bacteria & fermented fruit dye and mark fabric

Anne Farren (Image 3,4)

Silk fibres, machine embroidered lace, ink

Relationship between textiles, garments, and the body

Fusing fibres & overworking to disintegration

Fibres likened to skin

Jeannie Mooney (Image 5)

Cloth, textile ink, rust, hand stitching

"Precarious state of nature"

Connection to the ground, nature, life & death

Jane Whiteley (Image 6)

Silk, hand stitching, acid dye, cotton

Human presence of cloth (emotion, energy, memories, wear)

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Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia

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Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia

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Artwork from mostly 1940s onwards and not from Victoria, but still gives an insight into Australian art history, influences, atmosphere

Artists working on ground, arcylic paint is used

Stripes & dotted patterns

Warm colours

Organic forms

Abstract imagery

Elongated forms

Large scale murals

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Heavy on imagery- maggots on Mrs Appleyard's shoes, falling petals, snake skin/ stockings

Plays with dreams- Mrs Appleyard's visions, deceptive writing, "Are you haunted by memories?", lots of sleeping (literal and sexual), dreamy lighting & high exposure

Sexuality- intimacy of female friendships/ relationships, loneliness, trauma bonding, fear of self or partner

Bright colours (creates illusion of happiness and good fortune at the house), costumes are historically inspired but intentionally inaccurate

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Picnic at Hanging Rock (TV Mini Series 2018) ⭐ 6.2 | Drama, Mystery, Romance

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Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia

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Dreamings: The Art of Aboriginal Australia

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Malcom Yorke and His Circle- Edward Bawden

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Malcom Yorke and His Circle- Edward Bawden

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Australian Painters of the Twentieth Century- edited by Lou Klepac

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Australian Painters of the Twentieth Century- edited by Lou Klepac

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Australian Painters of the Twentieth Century- edited by Lou Klepac

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Australian Painters of the Twentieth Century- edited by Lou Klepac

Peregian Codex

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Australian Painters of the Twentieth Century- edited by Lou Klepac

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Flowers (gardens), collage, dreamy/ whimsical

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Sarah Perkins | Artist | Artist Partners

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Sarah Perkins is a digital artist who combines painting, textures, sourced imagery, mark making & typography. Browse her work on Artist Partners.

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Caroline Smith | Artist | Artist Partners

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Browse a selection of work by Caroline Smith, influenced by Vivianne Westwood, Dolce & Gabbana, & baroque decoration. Represented by Artist Partners.

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Texture, landscapes

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Hannah graduated in 2010 from Brighton University, where she studied illustration. She now lives and works on the Quantock Hills, in Somerset.

Hannah's unique creative process begins with pencil sketches that are traced, before meticulously hand-cutting each intricate segment of her illustration into a stencil. She then uses vibrant inks to fill these stencils with texture and colour. Hannah digitally enhances the separate elements of her illustration and rearranges them to create her final composition. This process allows her to create highly textured illustrations, capturing the look and feel of wildlife, natural objects and landscapes, in a distinctive colour palette.

Hannah likes to bring facts and wordplay into her work and is inspired by the natural world, maps and history. She loves non-fiction books and collects new titles as well as unusual books from second-hand bookshops.

Full artist interview

The Artworks interviews

Hannah Bailey

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Hannah Bailey, illustrator | The Artworks Illustration Agency

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A portfolio of the work of illustrator Hannah Bailey, represented by The Artworks Illustration Agency.

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Daniela Terrazzini, illustrator | The Artworks Illustration Agency

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A portfolio of the work of illustrator Daniela Terrazzini, represented by The Artworks Illustration Agency.

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Rebukes myth of flower bouquets containing secret messages, suggests educated Victorians would be familiar with meanings

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The Victorian Language of Flowers, Explained

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The Language of Flowers - Margaret Pickston (written c.1913)

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The Language of Flowers - Margaret Pickston (written c.1913)

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Acacia (yellow)- secret love

Ambrosia- love returned

Apple, thorn- deceitful charms

Ash-leaved trumpet flower- separation

Butterfly weed- let me go

Catchfly, red- youthful love

Corchorus- impatient of absence

Cowslip, American- you are my divinity

Daisy, red- unconscious

Geranium, oak-leaved- true friendship

Geranium, scarlet- comforting

Gladiolus- strength of character

Harebell- submission, grief

Hemlock- you will be my death

Holly- foresight

Honey, flower- love, sweet & secret

Ivy- friendship, fidelity, marriage

Jasmine, Carolina- separation

Jonquil- I desire a return of affection

Justicia- the perfection of female loveliness

Lichen- dejection, solitude

Lilac, purple- first emotions of love

Lily, day- coquetry

Milkvetch- your presence softens my pains

Mulberry, tree, black- I shall not survive you

Pea, everlasting- an appointed meeting, lasting pleasure

Persimmon- bury me amid nature's beauties

Scilla, white- sweet innocence

Sweet pea- delicate pleasures & departures

Tuberose- dangerous pleasures

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Mrs Appleyard 'sees' the eye of Sara's dead body in a crack in the rocks before taking her life

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Idea of Australia as new (post-colonialisation after end of 18th Century), neo-gothic architecture

Aboriginal erasure & dehumanisation in literature- "Casts Aborigines back into the remote past in order for readers to experience them solely as 'an object of aesthetic pleasure'."

Theme of mysterious experiences in the bush- Australia seen as other and fantastical

Jonathan Rayner's 'Gothic rural community'- Australian outback portrayed as violent (degeneracy, masculinity, misogyny, xenophobia), "straight endless roads"

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Victorian and Edwardian Fashion: A Photographic Survey

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Victorian and Edwardian Fashion: A Photographic Survey

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Visiting the mysterious hanging rock | Back To Nature

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4K | Hanging Rock and Australian wildlife