0:00:10 > 0:00:13A place of golden beaches and bodies...
0:00:13 > 0:00:15barbecues and bikinis...
0:00:15 > 0:00:18endless empty land...
0:00:18 > 0:00:20Sydney Harbour.
0:00:20 > 0:00:22But art and culture?
0:00:24 > 0:00:29Australia has been my home for over 30 years,
0:00:29 > 0:00:33and I've often thought about the first settlers
0:00:33 > 0:00:35who landed here on this fatal shore
0:00:35 > 0:00:38over two centuries ago.
0:00:38 > 0:00:39To these strangers,
0:00:39 > 0:00:43this place seemed utterly devoid of civilisation.
0:00:47 > 0:00:48Of course, they were wrong.
0:00:50 > 0:00:55But how could these often reluctant arrivals make a new life,
0:00:55 > 0:00:58let alone come to feel at home
0:00:58 > 0:01:02in an empty, disturbing and distant wilderness?
0:01:02 > 0:01:04I want to explore how art
0:01:04 > 0:01:10and artists played their roles in this unfolding drama.
0:01:10 > 0:01:12From early settlement till today,
0:01:12 > 0:01:16I'm taking a trip deep into the art of Australia.
0:01:19 > 0:01:22This is one of the great icons of Australian art.
0:01:23 > 0:01:27I'll be looking at the work of significant artists,
0:01:27 > 0:01:29both past and present.
0:01:29 > 0:01:32What is it with this lurid, lurid yellow?
0:01:32 > 0:01:34Their work reveals much
0:01:34 > 0:01:38about Australia's identity and how it evolved.
0:01:40 > 0:01:42She's going up and she's going down.
0:01:42 > 0:01:47For me, Australian art has always been a big part of the quest
0:01:47 > 0:01:50to make sense of this vast continent
0:01:50 > 0:01:52and our place in it.
0:01:52 > 0:01:55Its haunting landscapes,
0:01:55 > 0:01:57its ever present dangers...
0:02:00 > 0:02:03Its dramatic and controversial history.
0:02:03 > 0:02:06And, of course, its great beauty.
0:02:11 > 0:02:14Australian art reflects the development
0:02:14 > 0:02:18of a unique and incredibly diverse culture.
0:02:25 > 0:02:27Who's for an ice cream?
0:02:30 > 0:02:32It's a great story.
0:02:32 > 0:02:36This is my journey into how it all happened,
0:02:36 > 0:02:39the story of the art of Australia.
0:02:56 > 0:02:59I'd left London in the late '70s
0:02:59 > 0:03:02and spent over 30 years here,
0:03:02 > 0:03:06as the director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales,
0:03:06 > 0:03:08in Sydney.
0:03:08 > 0:03:14When I arrived, I had to embrace the dilemma all migrants face.
0:03:14 > 0:03:18How to find your way, how to fit in.
0:03:23 > 0:03:26And one piece of modern art
0:03:26 > 0:03:30that expresses this dilemma says it all for me.
0:03:30 > 0:03:34It's called Longing Belonging.
0:03:40 > 0:03:43In 1997, Hossein Valamanesh,
0:03:43 > 0:03:46an immigrant artist born in Tehran,
0:03:46 > 0:03:49left his home in Adelaide
0:03:49 > 0:03:53and journeyed deep into the Australian bush.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56He brought with him a Persian carpet.
0:04:05 > 0:04:09He'd been in Australia for 24 years,
0:04:09 > 0:04:13but the carpet was still a powerful and comforting connection
0:04:13 > 0:04:16to his previous life in Iran.
0:04:24 > 0:04:27Once Valamanesh had laid it out on the ground,
0:04:27 > 0:04:30he did something extraordinary.
0:04:34 > 0:04:38He set it alight and then photographed it.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46What was he up to?
0:04:46 > 0:04:50Did he mean to burn it? Purify it?
0:04:50 > 0:04:53Or simply get rid of it?
0:04:53 > 0:04:58Was it about remembering or destroying his past?
0:04:58 > 0:04:59Or both?
0:05:05 > 0:05:08I've always loved this work.
0:05:08 > 0:05:13It is so surprising, it's so unexpected and so incongruous.
0:05:13 > 0:05:16But above all, it's about the dilemma of the migrant,
0:05:16 > 0:05:19about making a new life in a new country,
0:05:19 > 0:05:21but without abandoning your past.
0:05:24 > 0:05:26Like Valamanesh,
0:05:26 > 0:05:30the early Europeans were strangers in a strange land, too,
0:05:30 > 0:05:35and art would help them develop a new, distinctive identity.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38In essence, to become Australian.
0:05:38 > 0:05:40And for me,
0:05:40 > 0:05:45becoming Australian meant getting to know Australian art.
0:05:45 > 0:05:47When I first started here all those years ago,
0:05:47 > 0:05:50I have to admit that what I knew
0:05:50 > 0:05:52about the art of Australia
0:05:52 > 0:05:56could be written on the back of a very small postage stamp.
0:05:56 > 0:05:59I used to come down here every day and look at all the paintings
0:05:59 > 0:06:02and really get my eye in.
0:06:02 > 0:06:06I shall never forget the first time I saw this little gem
0:06:06 > 0:06:09of a painting of Sydney Harbour.
0:06:09 > 0:06:12It has such wonderful freshness, such clarity, such brio,
0:06:12 > 0:06:15such air, such colour,
0:06:15 > 0:06:18which gives it a wonderful sense of optimism.
0:06:18 > 0:06:19I looked at it and I said,
0:06:19 > 0:06:22"Well, that's a sort of Impressionist picture."
0:06:22 > 0:06:26For me, I suppose, impressionism meant French.
0:06:28 > 0:06:30But, of course, it isn't.
0:06:30 > 0:06:35This is the most wonderful example of Australian impressionism.
0:06:36 > 0:06:41Arthur Streeton's Sirius Cove, from 1896,
0:06:41 > 0:06:44was just one of the many surprises that awaited me
0:06:44 > 0:06:48as I immersed myself in the question of how art reflected
0:06:48 > 0:06:51Australia's extraordinary transformation
0:06:51 > 0:06:54from convict colony to cultured nation.
0:06:58 > 0:07:02I'm in good company here. This is a land of migrants.
0:07:02 > 0:07:06One in four Australians are born overseas.
0:07:06 > 0:07:11But when the British set up a penal colony here in 1788,
0:07:11 > 0:07:14they were oblivious to any indigenous culture
0:07:14 > 0:07:16and simply brought their own.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27Among the 165,000 murderers,
0:07:27 > 0:07:30social misfits and thieves
0:07:30 > 0:07:35that the British transported, some were artists.
0:07:35 > 0:07:38The most prolific was Joseph Lycett.
0:07:38 > 0:07:43He was a London engraver sent to Australia for forgery in 1814,
0:07:43 > 0:07:46artist and con artist in equal measure.
0:07:49 > 0:07:54Lycett was transported here to serve 14 years in Sydney's penal colony.
0:07:55 > 0:07:58But he just couldn't break the habit of a lifetime
0:07:58 > 0:08:01and soon he was at it again,
0:08:01 > 0:08:05flooding Sydney with forged five-shilling promissory notes.
0:08:05 > 0:08:07So he was sentenced again,
0:08:07 > 0:08:11to three years hard labour in another penal colony
0:08:11 > 0:08:15about 150km north, in Newcastle.
0:08:20 > 0:08:24Newcastle had a reputation as a hellhole.
0:08:24 > 0:08:27Its coal mines were a brutal punishment
0:08:27 > 0:08:30for the most dangerous criminals and re-offenders.
0:08:30 > 0:08:35But Lycett discovered that the commandant had other plans for him.
0:08:35 > 0:08:39Hard labour meant exploiting Lycett's talents.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41He designed a church for the jail
0:08:41 > 0:08:44and was rewarded with a conditional pardon.
0:08:44 > 0:08:47With his new-found freedom, he accepted commissions,
0:08:47 > 0:08:51painting pictures that showed not only a well-run prison,
0:08:51 > 0:08:54but a place ripe for settlement.
0:08:56 > 0:08:59Lycett was a competent illustrator.
0:08:59 > 0:09:02But for me, his pictures are not really emotive.
0:09:02 > 0:09:06They're descriptive, almost decorative.
0:09:06 > 0:09:11They feature the indigenous people going about their daily lives,
0:09:11 > 0:09:16but for him, they're just part of the strange flora and fauna,
0:09:16 > 0:09:19noble savages in a novel land.
0:09:23 > 0:09:27His work as an artist eventually won Lycett a full pardon.
0:09:27 > 0:09:29He returned to London,
0:09:29 > 0:09:32one of a handful of prisoners ever to do so.
0:09:32 > 0:09:36There, he published what amounted to a promotional brochure
0:09:36 > 0:09:39for the colony, an enticing book,
0:09:39 > 0:09:40Views In Australia.
0:09:42 > 0:09:45Though at this time few Brits, if any,
0:09:45 > 0:09:48had actually seen anything like this
0:09:48 > 0:09:51and even fewer had actually been here.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54So when these pictures were first seen in Britain,
0:09:54 > 0:09:56it was something of a revelation.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00It was a little bit like receiving postcards from another planet.
0:10:04 > 0:10:06The introduction boldly asserts,
0:10:06 > 0:10:08"The dens of savage animals
0:10:08 > 0:10:11"and the hiding places of yet more savage men
0:10:11 > 0:10:15"have become transformed into peaceful villages
0:10:15 > 0:10:16"or cheerful towns."
0:10:21 > 0:10:25Sadly, Views In Australia was not the success
0:10:25 > 0:10:28that Lycett had hoped.
0:10:28 > 0:10:31Shortly after the publication of this volume,
0:10:31 > 0:10:34he went back to forging banknotes
0:10:34 > 0:10:37and was caught yet again.
0:10:38 > 0:10:42In this very volume, in the Mitchell Library in Sydney,
0:10:42 > 0:10:46is a note that tells his fate.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49Barely legible, it says...
0:10:51 > 0:10:55"He was seized by police in his own house,
0:10:55 > 0:10:57"cut his throat,
0:10:57 > 0:11:00"was conveyed to the hospital under a surgeon,
0:11:00 > 0:11:02"then, recovering,
0:11:02 > 0:11:06"tore open his healing wounds and died."
0:11:06 > 0:11:09Lycett chose death
0:11:09 > 0:11:13instead of returning to Australia's darker realities.
0:11:13 > 0:11:16Despite his own propaganda,
0:11:16 > 0:11:20this strange land still had no cultural identity.
0:11:20 > 0:11:22It was still just a convict colony.
0:11:27 > 0:11:32Lycett's art lives on in Joan Ross's work.
0:11:33 > 0:11:36Let me hold it for you, yes.
0:11:36 > 0:11:39She uses it as the starting point for her video art.
0:11:39 > 0:11:42Many contemporary artists like Ross
0:11:42 > 0:11:45are preoccupied with the art of the past
0:11:45 > 0:11:48and the impact of colonisation.
0:11:48 > 0:11:52In this work, Lycett's landscape is invaded by Europeans
0:11:52 > 0:11:55and high-vis safety wear.
0:11:55 > 0:11:59It's called BBQ This Sunday, BYO.
0:11:59 > 0:12:01When the colonials arrive on their magic carpet,
0:12:01 > 0:12:04they're actually coming with all the necessities for barbecue,
0:12:04 > 0:12:08but from my point of view it's the aboriginals that are...
0:12:08 > 0:12:10- They're hosting it? - They are hosting it.
0:12:12 > 0:12:16I wanted to reconfigure colonisation to some degree
0:12:16 > 0:12:20and give the aboriginals more authority in the work.
0:12:20 > 0:12:21Even though I thought Lycett used...
0:12:21 > 0:12:25depicted aboriginal people in quite a sensitive way
0:12:25 > 0:12:27most of the time,
0:12:27 > 0:12:31I still wanted the work to be a little bit of a turnaround.
0:12:34 > 0:12:36What is it with this colour,
0:12:36 > 0:12:39this lurid, lurid yellow?
0:12:39 > 0:12:43I'm using the high-vis fluoro as a metaphor for colonisation.
0:12:43 > 0:12:46Why is yellow that colour?
0:12:46 > 0:12:49Well, this colour has started to invade our lives
0:12:49 > 0:12:51through safety jackets
0:12:51 > 0:12:53and an obsession with safety.
0:12:53 > 0:12:57The thing about that colour is that when you wear it,
0:12:57 > 0:12:59you can have control over land.
0:13:01 > 0:13:05Ultimately you still got a bit of sympathy for Mr Lycett, don't you?
0:13:05 > 0:13:08I have a soft spot for Lycett.
0:13:08 > 0:13:11He was a forger, he couldn't help himself to forge again.
0:13:11 > 0:13:14There's a certain empathy
0:13:14 > 0:13:17with people who want to turn against authority, I think.
0:13:17 > 0:13:19Actually, I think you've just nailed it.
0:13:19 > 0:13:21I think that's what it is.
0:13:25 > 0:13:28BIRDS TWEET AND FOLIAGE RUSTLES
0:13:31 > 0:13:35Another of Ross's cheeky works is 'The Claiming of Things'.
0:13:35 > 0:13:37In this video,
0:13:37 > 0:13:39it's the colonial artist John Glover
0:13:39 > 0:13:42whose painting gets colonised.
0:13:42 > 0:13:45Glover was one of a new generation of free settlers
0:13:45 > 0:13:47who came to Australia.
0:13:47 > 0:13:49Unlike Lycett, he wanted to stay,
0:13:49 > 0:13:51and his landscapes are painted
0:13:51 > 0:13:54with great affection and sensitivity.
0:14:05 > 0:14:07By the 1830s,
0:14:07 > 0:14:11the colonists were still grappling with this strange land
0:14:11 > 0:14:14but were settling in ever greater numbers.
0:14:14 > 0:14:16Short on skilled labour,
0:14:16 > 0:14:21the colony was offering free passage to migrants.
0:14:21 > 0:14:24These new settlers soon outnumbered the convicts,
0:14:24 > 0:14:26setting Australia firmly on a course
0:14:26 > 0:14:28to becoming a free society.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31They pushed to new frontiers
0:14:31 > 0:14:33beyond the mainland into the wilds
0:14:33 > 0:14:37of Van Diemen's Land, present-day Tasmania.
0:14:39 > 0:14:41When you're in Tasmania,
0:14:41 > 0:14:44you do feel sort of remote.
0:14:44 > 0:14:48Somehow, you're always conscious of the fact that it's an island.
0:14:48 > 0:14:50The first thing they tell you
0:14:50 > 0:14:54is there is nothing between this and Antarctica.
0:15:04 > 0:15:08John Glover arrived in Australia
0:15:08 > 0:15:1017 years after Lycett.
0:15:10 > 0:15:13He docked here, in Hobart,
0:15:13 > 0:15:16in 1831, on his 64th birthday
0:15:16 > 0:15:19with a reputation back in England
0:15:19 > 0:15:21as a classical landscape painter.
0:15:23 > 0:15:25Keen to follow his immigrant sons,
0:15:25 > 0:15:28he had given up his old life,
0:15:28 > 0:15:32resolving to make a new home on the other side of the world.
0:15:35 > 0:15:37While Lycett came to Australia
0:15:37 > 0:15:40at His Majesty's pleasure,
0:15:40 > 0:15:43Glover came of his own free will,
0:15:43 > 0:15:48was granted this land and made this his home.
0:15:48 > 0:15:51He called it Patterdale after the small town
0:15:51 > 0:15:55close to where he had lived in England's Lake District.
0:15:55 > 0:15:58He painted it with all the love
0:15:58 > 0:16:03and attention you'd expect of an artist making a new Arcadia.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15He arrived hoping to find a beautiful new world
0:16:15 > 0:16:17and declared,
0:16:17 > 0:16:21"There is a graceful play in the landscape in this country
0:16:21 > 0:16:24"which is more difficult to do justice to
0:16:24 > 0:16:27"than the landscapes of England."
0:16:30 > 0:16:33His paintings reflect a new comfort with the place.
0:16:33 > 0:16:37The process of colonisation had moved on.
0:16:37 > 0:16:39Glover's Tasmania is fertile and productive,
0:16:39 > 0:16:42with contented cows and cosy homesteads.
0:16:50 > 0:16:53Glover's paintings have real feeling.
0:16:53 > 0:16:57You can sense his engagement with the landscape.
0:16:57 > 0:16:58In My Harvest Home,
0:16:58 > 0:17:01he celebrates the first wheat harvest on his property.
0:17:03 > 0:17:06Glover's convict labourers
0:17:06 > 0:17:09happily toil as the sun sets.
0:17:09 > 0:17:12There is no hint that the workers are convicts,
0:17:12 > 0:17:14assigned to Glover's farm
0:17:14 > 0:17:17by one of the most cruel and oppressive penal colonies
0:17:17 > 0:17:19on the planet.
0:17:19 > 0:17:22It's a terribly optimistic picture,
0:17:22 > 0:17:26a statement of British triumph over an alien environment.
0:17:28 > 0:17:32John Glover was a professional artist, so less pictorial,
0:17:32 > 0:17:34more interpretive.
0:17:34 > 0:17:37When he saw these eucalypts on his land,
0:17:37 > 0:17:39he painted his trees
0:17:39 > 0:17:42with wonderful twists and curls.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45To me, they look rather like elegant tentacles.
0:17:50 > 0:17:54This was the artist imposing his imagination on the landscape.
0:17:56 > 0:17:59Yet this was a British vision,
0:17:59 > 0:18:02one still tied to the classical ideals, traditions
0:18:02 > 0:18:04and depictions of Europe.
0:18:09 > 0:18:14Like Lycett, Glover painted the original inhabitants
0:18:14 > 0:18:16in many of his landscapes.
0:18:16 > 0:18:19But while Lycett included the indigenous people
0:18:19 > 0:18:22he'd actually seen in Tasmania,
0:18:22 > 0:18:25Glover's depictions were a fantasy.
0:18:25 > 0:18:29There were no Aboriginal people on his land.
0:18:29 > 0:18:32White settlers had been attacked,
0:18:32 > 0:18:35and in reprisal, there were brutal massacres.
0:18:41 > 0:18:43He arrived in Tasmania
0:18:43 > 0:18:46at the back end of the Black War.
0:18:46 > 0:18:49Literally thousands of Tasmanian Aboriginal people
0:18:49 > 0:18:52had been killed or hunted down.
0:18:52 > 0:18:54Now the rest were being shipped off the island.
0:18:57 > 0:19:01Glover's land was empty of indigenous people.
0:19:01 > 0:19:04It had been forcibly cleared.
0:19:08 > 0:19:13The architect of the clearance policy was a government official,
0:19:13 > 0:19:15George Augustus Robinson.
0:19:15 > 0:19:19Ironically, he bore the title Protector of Aborigines.
0:19:23 > 0:19:25To end the bloodshed,
0:19:25 > 0:19:28he brokered peace between settlers and indigenous people.
0:19:28 > 0:19:31Glover was a close friend of Robinson's
0:19:31 > 0:19:34and a supporter of his policies.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42In this work, commissioned by Robinson,
0:19:42 > 0:19:44Glover said he wanted to paint...
0:19:44 > 0:19:46"The natives at a corroboree,
0:19:46 > 0:19:49"under the wild woods of the country,
0:19:49 > 0:19:51"to give an idea of the manner
0:19:51 > 0:19:53"in which they enjoyed themselves
0:19:53 > 0:19:56"before being disturbed by white people."
0:20:03 > 0:20:07Whilst Glover was painting fanciful pictures of a lost world,
0:20:07 > 0:20:10the terrible reality of Robinson's clearance policy
0:20:10 > 0:20:12was still becoming clear.
0:20:15 > 0:20:20In the 1830s, his peace plan meant moving hundreds of indigenous people
0:20:20 > 0:20:23to Wybalenna on Flinders Island,
0:20:23 > 0:20:2620 kilometres off the coast of Tasmania.
0:20:28 > 0:20:30They arrived on the promise
0:20:30 > 0:20:33that they'd soon be returned to their homelands.
0:20:36 > 0:20:39Ricky Maynard is a documentary photographer
0:20:39 > 0:20:43and a direct descendant of the Aboriginal people of the region.
0:20:44 > 0:20:46- Hiya, Ricky.- Hi, how are you, mate?
0:20:46 > 0:20:48- Good to see you. - Great to see you again, mate.
0:20:49 > 0:20:51He lived on Flinders Island
0:20:51 > 0:20:56and photographed its landscape as an act of remembrance,
0:20:56 > 0:21:00to restore the forgotten history of what happened here.
0:21:02 > 0:21:06This place here, Wybalenna, it was established by a forced removal
0:21:06 > 0:21:09from our traditional lands in the northeast of Tasmania.
0:21:11 > 0:21:13Wybalenna was titled the Friendly Mission
0:21:13 > 0:21:15which, in fact, became a death camp.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19That's why I made this picture, Death In Exile,
0:21:19 > 0:21:21which happened to our people.
0:21:27 > 0:21:31In this church, Robinson, the pious Methodist,
0:21:31 > 0:21:34tried to convert the people to Christianity
0:21:34 > 0:21:38and educate them in the ways of civilised Europeans.
0:21:44 > 0:21:47But the island was soon rife with disease.
0:21:48 > 0:21:52Within four years, half the population had perished.
0:21:54 > 0:21:58Hundreds were buried here, in unmarked graves.
0:22:06 > 0:22:08People died not only of disease
0:22:08 > 0:22:11and the brutality of the soldiers themselves,
0:22:11 > 0:22:13but they also died of broken hearts.
0:22:23 > 0:22:26In this evocative image, Broken Heart,
0:22:26 > 0:22:31Ricky imagines himself as one of Robinson's victims,
0:22:31 > 0:22:33looking due south to his homeland.
0:22:42 > 0:22:44His work exposes
0:22:44 > 0:22:47not only the terrible realities of what happened here,
0:22:47 > 0:22:49but also celebrates
0:22:49 > 0:22:52the extraordinary survival of his people.
0:23:03 > 0:23:05After the demise of Wybalenna,
0:23:05 > 0:23:08one of the few survivors was Truganini.
0:23:08 > 0:23:12She became a macabre poster girl
0:23:12 > 0:23:17for the extinction of the entire population.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20The so-called last Tasmanian Aboriginal.
0:23:22 > 0:23:28And, see, this is where the great Western myth begins,
0:23:28 > 0:23:31the myth of Truganini as the last Tasmanian,
0:23:31 > 0:23:33which, of course, is just absolute nonsense.
0:23:33 > 0:23:37Around all these islands in the strait, we had many communities.
0:23:40 > 0:23:42But history doesn't want to deal with all that.
0:23:42 > 0:23:47It wants to deal and create the myth of the Aborigine dying off,
0:23:47 > 0:23:48as a dying race.
0:23:57 > 0:23:59The reason why I do my work
0:23:59 > 0:24:03is not only to tell the journey of deaths in exile of our people,
0:24:03 > 0:24:06and so we are telling the truth of our history.
0:24:10 > 0:24:12Today, Ricky's art
0:24:12 > 0:24:16puts Aboriginal Tasmanians back in the historical picture.
0:24:16 > 0:24:18In the mid-19th century, however,
0:24:18 > 0:24:22Aboriginal people were fading fast from Australian art,
0:24:22 > 0:24:25just as the white population was about to soar.
0:24:29 > 0:24:34In 1851, Victoria split from New South Wales
0:24:34 > 0:24:38and eventually, there would be six self-governing colonies.
0:24:38 > 0:24:40Victoria would become the richest.
0:24:40 > 0:24:43When prospectors discovered gold near Melbourne,
0:24:43 > 0:24:47the population swelled rapidly to four times its size.
0:24:49 > 0:24:52At its peak, two tonnes of gold
0:24:52 > 0:24:55flowed into Melbourne's Treasury building each week.
0:24:55 > 0:24:57Shipped back to the motherland,
0:24:57 > 0:25:02it enabled Britain to pay off all her foreign debts.
0:25:04 > 0:25:07One of Victoria's fortune-hunters
0:25:07 > 0:25:10was the Austrian artist Eugene von Guerard.
0:25:10 > 0:25:13He didn't strike it rich, but spent his time painting.
0:25:14 > 0:25:18Like this view of the newly founded gold town of Ballarat.
0:25:28 > 0:25:30He was part of a new breed of artists,
0:25:30 > 0:25:35arriving from all over Europe, who were influenced by Romanticism,
0:25:35 > 0:25:38an art movement that embraced emotion
0:25:38 > 0:25:40and the sublime power of nature.
0:25:42 > 0:25:47Part painters, part explorers, they pushed deep into the countryside
0:25:47 > 0:25:51to record the vast, untouched wilderness in rich detail.
0:25:54 > 0:26:00In 1855, von Guerard headed over 250 kilometres west of Melbourne
0:26:00 > 0:26:02to paint this dramatic landscape,
0:26:02 > 0:26:05an extinct volcano, its crater filled with water.
0:26:07 > 0:26:09These volcanic lakes, he said,
0:26:09 > 0:26:13reminded him of the landscape in Germany around where he studied art.
0:26:13 > 0:26:15He was a Romantic.
0:26:15 > 0:26:18He believed it was the job of the artist
0:26:18 > 0:26:21to reveal the beauties of nature.
0:26:21 > 0:26:27Von Guerard had an unerring eye for the details of the natural world.
0:26:27 > 0:26:31He was both meticulous and symphonic in his art.
0:26:35 > 0:26:40Like Glover, von Guerard included indigenous people in his work.
0:26:40 > 0:26:42But, again, they're idealised.
0:26:42 > 0:26:46They appear as tiny, made-up, foreground figures,
0:26:46 > 0:26:50dwarfed by the vast, panoramic landscape.
0:26:50 > 0:26:54At least here, though, Aboriginal people were actually present.
0:26:56 > 0:27:00In fact, one young man sat next to von Guerard.
0:27:00 > 0:27:03His name was Johnny Kangatong.
0:27:04 > 0:27:07I think von Guerard believed that the Aboriginal population
0:27:07 > 0:27:09was rapidly disappearing
0:27:09 > 0:27:14and he wanted to capture this image before it was too late.
0:27:14 > 0:27:19And so he produced this tender, intimate, thoughtful portrait.
0:27:21 > 0:27:25What's so surprising is that then, Johnny turned round
0:27:25 > 0:27:28and did a drawing of Von Guerard, sketching.
0:27:30 > 0:27:32And it's a totally different drawing.
0:27:32 > 0:27:35It's almost a modern drawing.
0:27:35 > 0:27:37He's given colour to the coat and the boots
0:27:37 > 0:27:39and the trousers and the hat.
0:27:41 > 0:27:44And it's fascinating to see the two side by side.
0:27:44 > 0:27:48Two completely different ways of seeing things.
0:27:50 > 0:27:52After this picture,
0:27:52 > 0:27:56indigenous people featured less and less in Australian painting.
0:27:56 > 0:28:00By now, they were largely settled on reserves or missions,
0:28:00 > 0:28:03and from now on would be seen mainly in photographs
0:28:03 > 0:28:05as objects of scientific study.
0:28:07 > 0:28:10In the huge panoramas of Von Guerard and other Romantics,
0:28:10 > 0:28:12people are incidental.
0:28:12 > 0:28:14Their views, like Glover's,
0:28:14 > 0:28:17were framed by the world they'd left behind.
0:28:18 > 0:28:23They made the distinctive Australian landscape look distinctly European.
0:28:25 > 0:28:28Nicholas Chevalier was a Russian emigre
0:28:28 > 0:28:30who painted the Buffalo Ranges in Victoria
0:28:30 > 0:28:34as if they were the European Alps.
0:28:34 > 0:28:37This up here is completely weird.
0:28:37 > 0:28:40There's a whole lot of kind of iridescent green.
0:28:41 > 0:28:43God knows where that came from.
0:28:51 > 0:28:54Another Romantic was William Piguenit.
0:28:54 > 0:28:58Australian-born, he was taught to paint by a Scotsman,
0:28:58 > 0:29:02and when he painted the upper Nepean Valley in New South Wales,
0:29:02 > 0:29:04it looked like the Scottish Highlands.
0:29:06 > 0:29:08It was as though these artists
0:29:08 > 0:29:12were looking at Australia through a distorted lens,
0:29:12 > 0:29:16by bringing their own familiarities to this unfamiliar place.
0:29:16 > 0:29:18But nonetheless, they loved that landscape,
0:29:18 > 0:29:19they embraced that landscape,
0:29:19 > 0:29:22its scale, its physicality,
0:29:22 > 0:29:24its sheer presence, its wilderness.
0:29:34 > 0:29:39The Romantics revelled in the majesty of the landscape.
0:29:39 > 0:29:41But they were blind to its realities.
0:29:44 > 0:29:50Yet one artist, who experienced the brutal fury of nature, wasn't.
0:29:50 > 0:29:54He created a ground-breaking painting, Black Thursday,
0:29:54 > 0:29:58the first to really capture the human drama of life in Australia.
0:30:08 > 0:30:12The English artist William Strutt was a sensitive soul,
0:30:12 > 0:30:13educated in Paris.
0:30:16 > 0:30:22In February 1851, he experienced temperatures in Victoria
0:30:22 > 0:30:27soar to near 50 degrees and ignite the mother of all firestorms.
0:30:29 > 0:30:31By the end of Black Thursday,
0:30:31 > 0:30:33about a quarter of the state had been burnt out.
0:30:34 > 0:30:38At least 12 people had lost their lives
0:30:38 > 0:30:42and around one million sheep had perished.
0:30:42 > 0:30:48Even a ship 20 miles offshore had been covered in burning embers.
0:30:58 > 0:31:01These terrible events stayed with Strutt.
0:31:01 > 0:31:03He kept newspaper accounts of the day
0:31:03 > 0:31:08and captured the horror of the fire in an epic historical painting.
0:31:10 > 0:31:13This is a terrific picture. I love it.
0:31:13 > 0:31:17Right in the tradition of epic European history painting,
0:31:17 > 0:31:19full of detail and drama.
0:31:39 > 0:31:43Let me just show you some of the amazing detail in the picture.
0:31:45 > 0:31:46Look down here.
0:31:46 > 0:31:51This bundle of dead birds and the old boot and the open book here.
0:31:52 > 0:31:56And then along here is a figure that really intrigues me.
0:31:56 > 0:32:02To me, he looks as though it's taken directly from Goya's Third of May.
0:32:02 > 0:32:05The figure just doing this.
0:32:07 > 0:32:10Along this end, I've always loved these horses.
0:32:10 > 0:32:13This one leaping and bounding over the cattle here.
0:32:13 > 0:32:15And this one - that's a wonderful face.
0:32:15 > 0:32:19That staring, glaring, fearful eye in the horse.
0:32:23 > 0:32:25Strutt depicted other human dramas,
0:32:25 > 0:32:30expressing the hazards and the hardship of colonial life.
0:32:31 > 0:32:36He painted a brazen highway robbery that took place in 1851,
0:32:36 > 0:32:40showing not only that anger and despair of the victims,
0:32:40 > 0:32:42but also, long before Ned Kelly,
0:32:42 > 0:32:46the figure of the bush ranger as popular hero.
0:32:50 > 0:32:52He also painted the burial
0:32:52 > 0:32:56of ill-fated explorer Robert O'Hara Burke,
0:32:56 > 0:32:58shrouded in the Union Jack,
0:32:58 > 0:33:01immortalised in a grand history painting.
0:33:03 > 0:33:07The irony is that these pictures were painted not in Australia,
0:33:07 > 0:33:12but back in England, and many years after the events.
0:33:12 > 0:33:17Black Thursday was painted 13 years after the fire,
0:33:17 > 0:33:21and the burial of Burke, 50 years after the burial.
0:33:22 > 0:33:24They are great historical records,
0:33:24 > 0:33:28but they could hardly have spoken to Australians at the time.
0:33:30 > 0:33:34Wildfires, the bush ranger, Burke and Wills.
0:33:34 > 0:33:38These are all key elements of the Australian story,
0:33:38 > 0:33:41parts of the country's creation myth.
0:33:42 > 0:33:44But these carefully composed paintings
0:33:44 > 0:33:48often struggle to find a home either in Britain or in Australia.
0:33:50 > 0:33:54Strutt had missed the boat artistically,
0:33:54 > 0:33:57unlike the next generation of artists, who took Impressionism,
0:33:57 > 0:34:00the defining art movement of their time,
0:34:00 > 0:34:03and made it distinctively Australian.
0:34:13 > 0:34:17In the 1880s, the founding fathers of this revolutionary art movement
0:34:17 > 0:34:20were students at the School of Art
0:34:20 > 0:34:23of the newly built National Gallery of Victoria.
0:34:23 > 0:34:27Arthur Streeton, whose nickname was Smike,
0:34:27 > 0:34:30and Tom Roberts, known as Bulldog.
0:34:30 > 0:34:31Both attended classes here.
0:34:33 > 0:34:38Roberts led a student mutiny in the form of a letter to the newspaper,
0:34:38 > 0:34:41publicly rejecting the methods of their teacher,
0:34:41 > 0:34:44the Romantic painter, Eugene von Guerard.
0:34:46 > 0:34:50They thought that laboriously copying classical statues
0:34:50 > 0:34:54and the works of Old Masters was hopelessly outdated.
0:34:54 > 0:34:56Von Guerard soon resigned.
0:34:58 > 0:35:00Roberts, who had been to Europe
0:35:00 > 0:35:03and was inspired by French Impressionism,
0:35:03 > 0:35:07led the charge out of the studio and into the bush.
0:35:16 > 0:35:21The spiritual home and nerve centre of Australian Impressionism
0:35:21 > 0:35:25was here, in Heidelberg on the outskirts of Melbourne.
0:35:27 > 0:35:31Smike Streeton was given the run of a large, abandoned farmhouse
0:35:31 > 0:35:33and invited Bulldog Roberts
0:35:33 > 0:35:38and other young artistic men and women to share their summers here.
0:35:40 > 0:35:45They were young and ambitious. Their art, new and refreshing.
0:35:45 > 0:35:48They became known as the Heidelberg School.
0:35:52 > 0:35:57It was in a farmhouse on this very site that, in 1888,
0:35:57 > 0:36:00the Heidelberg School was born.
0:36:00 > 0:36:03And thanks to Roberts and Streeton,
0:36:03 > 0:36:08these views have become immortalised in their art
0:36:08 > 0:36:11and firmly fixed in the Australian psyche.
0:36:34 > 0:36:38Finally, Australia had artists who found the harsh light,
0:36:38 > 0:36:41the strange trees and the parched land beautiful
0:36:41 > 0:36:44because they were painting a place they considered home.
0:36:56 > 0:36:59This is Streeton, writing in a note.
0:36:59 > 0:37:02"I sit on a hill of gold.
0:37:02 > 0:37:06"The wind seems sunburnt and fiery as it runs through my beard.
0:37:06 > 0:37:09"And I smile as all the light, glory
0:37:09 > 0:37:13"and quivering brightness passes slowly and freely before my eyes."
0:37:24 > 0:37:28Now, this picture, Golden Summer by Arthur Streeton.
0:37:28 > 0:37:33This is the quintessential Australian Impressionist painting.
0:37:33 > 0:37:36The long shadows and the warm glows
0:37:36 > 0:37:40evoke the feeling of lazy summer afternoons.
0:37:45 > 0:37:47Colonial painting
0:37:47 > 0:37:50was the descriptive art of the European arrivals,
0:37:50 > 0:37:54but Streeton, he was born and bred here.
0:37:54 > 0:37:59He saw a beauty in this landscape that his predecessors had not.
0:37:59 > 0:38:04This is a welcoming place, a painting with atmosphere.
0:38:13 > 0:38:18By now, the country was keen to shed the memories of its convict past.
0:38:18 > 0:38:20And what better way to do that
0:38:20 > 0:38:23than with pictures of simple, honest folk
0:38:23 > 0:38:27toiling in golden pastures under blue skies?
0:38:33 > 0:38:37Soon, these artists began to spread their revolution further afield,
0:38:37 > 0:38:43depicting Melbourne's beaches, city streets and Sydney's harbour.
0:39:07 > 0:39:11Streeton and his good friend Tom Roberts
0:39:11 > 0:39:13came up to Sydney from Melbourne.
0:39:13 > 0:39:17They wanted to paint Sydney Harbour and they came to this very spot.
0:39:18 > 0:39:21They wanted to soak up the atmosphere,
0:39:21 > 0:39:24to feel the light, the colour, the breath of wind.
0:39:25 > 0:39:27But they actually made quite a home of it.
0:39:27 > 0:39:32They pitched their tents around here, they had a dining tent
0:39:32 > 0:39:34and, apparently, they even had a piano.
0:39:36 > 0:39:37They didn't want to be in the studio.
0:39:37 > 0:39:40They wanted to paint out here in the open air.
0:39:40 > 0:39:42And I think there's something wonderful
0:39:42 > 0:39:45about a painting that's done in the open air.
0:39:47 > 0:39:49These paintings have a truth to them
0:39:49 > 0:39:52that could never be captured in a studio.
0:39:58 > 0:40:01Inspired by the French Impressionists,
0:40:01 > 0:40:06they worked quickly with bold brush strokes to capture fleeting moments.
0:40:08 > 0:40:14Mosman's Bay by Tom Roberts has a wonderful, luminous quality.
0:40:14 > 0:40:17The water is still, silent and deep.
0:40:17 > 0:40:21Moving clouds are caught in transient reflection.
0:40:28 > 0:40:32Yet these Bohemians of the bush weren't quite as they seemed.
0:40:35 > 0:40:40They were never really sons of the soil. Far from it.
0:40:40 > 0:40:44Their real home was the urbane world of marvellous Melbourne.
0:41:00 > 0:41:04The city was transformed by the 1850s gold rush
0:41:04 > 0:41:08into one of the largest and wealthiest cities in the world.
0:41:08 > 0:41:11By the late 1880s, it had grown in stature,
0:41:11 > 0:41:16boasting grand cultural institutions and a burgeoning social scene.
0:41:19 > 0:41:23It was a world in which Tom Roberts was right at home.
0:41:23 > 0:41:27He was a dandy, who dressed in the latest fashions
0:41:27 > 0:41:30and befriended the smartest circles in town.
0:41:32 > 0:41:35When he wasn't roughing it in Heidelberg,
0:41:35 > 0:41:38he worked in a studio in Grosvenor Chambers
0:41:38 > 0:41:40on fashionable Collins Street.
0:41:40 > 0:41:44Here, he painted portraits of society's great and good.
0:41:55 > 0:41:59Roberts was far more interested than Streeton in making money,
0:41:59 > 0:42:04and he suggested they put on an exhibition of their work,
0:42:04 > 0:42:07what's become one of the most celebrated exhibitions
0:42:07 > 0:42:09in Australian history.
0:42:10 > 0:42:12Roberts had the thought
0:42:12 > 0:42:17of producing small paintings on the lids of cigar boxes,
0:42:17 > 0:42:19which they could then sell to his friends
0:42:19 > 0:42:21for a couple of guineas each.
0:42:21 > 0:42:25He actually got the idea from one of his artist pals,
0:42:25 > 0:42:28Louis Abrahams, who worked in his father's cigar shop.
0:42:30 > 0:42:35They'd cut the lids off the cigar boxes and paint on the inside.
0:42:37 > 0:42:41They were a standard size, nine inches by five inches,
0:42:41 > 0:42:44so it became known as the 9 by 5 Exhibition.
0:42:45 > 0:42:49In 1889, these rough and ready pictures were exhibited
0:42:49 > 0:42:54on the first floor of Buxton's Rooms in the heart of Melbourne.
0:42:57 > 0:43:01It was the first time in Australian art that a group of artists
0:43:01 > 0:43:05had banded together to present such a bold, unified vision.
0:43:05 > 0:43:09It caused a sensation and divided the critics.
0:43:11 > 0:43:15A report in the Evening Standard encouraged readers to attend.
0:43:15 > 0:43:16It said,
0:43:16 > 0:43:19"These daring young Impressionists are making an effort
0:43:19 > 0:43:22"to engage amateur art lovers by presenting,
0:43:22 > 0:43:27"for the first time in Australia, a series of their impressions.
0:43:27 > 0:43:31"Persons interested in art should not fail to visit it."
0:43:32 > 0:43:34And they did.
0:43:34 > 0:43:37The exhibition was well attended by the public,
0:43:37 > 0:43:39but Melbourne's leading art critic,
0:43:39 > 0:43:42James Smith of the Argus, loathed it.
0:43:42 > 0:43:47To him, these weren't paintings, but unfinished, slapdash sketches.
0:43:49 > 0:43:51Here are some that have survived
0:43:51 > 0:43:56out of the 183 that were in the exhibition.
0:43:56 > 0:44:01They are little sort of intimate, spontaneous cameos of the landscape,
0:44:01 > 0:44:03of the cityscape...
0:44:03 > 0:44:05and of people too.
0:44:07 > 0:44:11And typically, Roberts made the best of a bad thing,
0:44:11 > 0:44:15so he pasted that appalling review up at the exhibition.
0:44:15 > 0:44:18People came in their droves, bought the paintings
0:44:18 > 0:44:20and it was a great commercial success.
0:44:21 > 0:44:24And then he wrote a response to the Argus,
0:44:24 > 0:44:29which then became a kind of Impressionist manifesto.
0:44:31 > 0:44:34He said, "It is better to give our own idea
0:44:34 > 0:44:38"than a repetition of what others have done before us,
0:44:38 > 0:44:42"which could never help towards the development of what we believe
0:44:42 > 0:44:45"will be a great school of painting in Australia."
0:44:50 > 0:44:52Suddenly, Roberts' commercial venture
0:44:52 > 0:44:55took on the status of a rebellion
0:44:55 > 0:45:00an attack on the stuffy conservatism of the old guard.
0:45:06 > 0:45:11These pocket-sized paintings are now prized Australian works of art.
0:45:11 > 0:45:16They were crucial in redefining painting for generations to come,
0:45:16 > 0:45:21and publicly launched the first school of truly Australian painting.
0:45:25 > 0:45:28The Heidelberg paintings were very timely.
0:45:28 > 0:45:32They were full of good, decent people. Hard workers.
0:45:32 > 0:45:37Industrious settlers. Rugged individuals, making a new home.
0:45:47 > 0:45:49The art was an inspiration.
0:45:49 > 0:45:51It spoke to the settlers and pioneers
0:45:51 > 0:45:54that they could make something of this place
0:45:54 > 0:45:57and transform it into a nation.
0:45:58 > 0:46:02For the first time, artists weren't merely passive observers,
0:46:02 > 0:46:05craving the colours and landscapes of home.
0:46:05 > 0:46:07They were agents of change.
0:46:10 > 0:46:151891 marked the end of a 40-year economic boom
0:46:15 > 0:46:21that saw Australia rise from colonial outpost to modern society.
0:46:21 > 0:46:27It was now colonised by factories, businesses, roads and railways.
0:46:28 > 0:46:32Arthur Streeton travelled to the Blue Mountains west of Sydney
0:46:32 > 0:46:35to paint one of the great engineering feats of the age.
0:46:37 > 0:46:39The cutting of the Lapstone Tunnel.
0:46:42 > 0:46:45This picture, Fire's On, with its vertical structure
0:46:45 > 0:46:49and high horizon, was a radical departure for Streeton.
0:46:51 > 0:46:56It's a powerful image that shows intrepid men taming the landscape.
0:46:58 > 0:47:02I feel hot. I want to mop my brow as I look at this painting.
0:47:02 > 0:47:05But then I go in and look more closely...
0:47:05 > 0:47:08and I see something very different.
0:47:08 > 0:47:11A real moment of human drama.
0:47:14 > 0:47:20In a letter to Roberts, he reports, "All is serene as I work,
0:47:20 > 0:47:25"but now I hear, 'Fire, fire's on,' from the gang close by.
0:47:25 > 0:47:28"Boom, and then rumbling of rock.
0:47:29 > 0:47:33"The navvy with me and watching said, 'Man killed.'
0:47:33 > 0:47:36"Then men, nippers and a woman hurry down."
0:47:40 > 0:47:43"And they raise the rock and lift him onto the stretcher,
0:47:43 > 0:47:45"fold his arms over his chest...
0:47:48 > 0:47:51"..and slowly, six of them, carry him past me."
0:47:56 > 0:47:59It's about the forging of a new nation, it's about building,
0:47:59 > 0:48:02it's about construction, it's about the blood, sweat and tears
0:48:02 > 0:48:04that went into the building of that nation.
0:48:04 > 0:48:07And, somehow, Streeton's caught that moment
0:48:07 > 0:48:10and enshrined it in a great Impressionist painting.
0:48:12 > 0:48:17Art was creating new heroes and sending a message.
0:48:17 > 0:48:22"This land is ours. Rightly or wrongly, we have tamed it."
0:48:26 > 0:48:31While Streeton was captivated by the cutting of a railway tunnel,
0:48:31 > 0:48:33Roberts found another symbol
0:48:33 > 0:48:36that summed up the achievements of the nation.
0:48:36 > 0:48:38Sheep shearing.
0:48:41 > 0:48:45By the late 1800s, sheep were the new gold.
0:48:45 > 0:48:50Australia was the largest producer and exporter of wool in the world
0:48:50 > 0:48:54and the fleece from its Merino sheep earned millions of pounds.
0:48:58 > 0:49:00Roberts travelled to a sheep station
0:49:00 > 0:49:04to pay homage to this great Australian success story
0:49:04 > 0:49:09and described in his own words the hum of hard, fast working,
0:49:09 > 0:49:11the rhythmic click of the shears,
0:49:11 > 0:49:13the spirit of strong, masculine labour.
0:49:17 > 0:49:23In 1888, Roberts sought a subject that would sum up the 100 years
0:49:23 > 0:49:28since European settlement, and he said to himself, "Wool."
0:49:28 > 0:49:31After all, the wool industry was supporting the nation.
0:49:33 > 0:49:37Roberts was fascinated by the shearing of the rams.
0:49:37 > 0:49:39They were the last in line,
0:49:39 > 0:49:42so the end of the shearing season was in sight.
0:49:45 > 0:49:49This is one of the great icons of Australian art.
0:49:49 > 0:49:52Tom Roberts' Shearing the Rams,
0:49:52 > 0:49:57painted over a two-year period, from 1888 to 1890.
0:49:58 > 0:50:00It's a really studied composition.
0:50:00 > 0:50:05He did over 70 preparatory drawings for this painting.
0:50:08 > 0:50:10It's at the height of the Impressionist period
0:50:10 > 0:50:13and it has Impressionist moments.
0:50:13 > 0:50:14And it was always thought
0:50:14 > 0:50:17that it must have been painted in the studio
0:50:17 > 0:50:21but, interestingly, recent research indicates
0:50:21 > 0:50:25that he actually painted it pretty much in situ.
0:50:26 > 0:50:31And I think it's that which gives it its quality of authenticity.
0:50:31 > 0:50:35There's a sense of spontaneity in this kneeling figure here.
0:50:35 > 0:50:37You know, he was there, he caught that.
0:50:37 > 0:50:42The man drinking up here with a cup the size of a bucket.
0:50:42 > 0:50:47But above all, I love this little face here. A nine-year-old girl.
0:50:48 > 0:50:51She's looking at Mr Roberts painting.
0:50:51 > 0:50:53I'm reminded of any Raphael painting.
0:50:53 > 0:50:56In every Raphael painting...
0:50:56 > 0:51:01there's a figure looking directly at us, the viewer.
0:51:01 > 0:51:05And I think... I think Roberts picked that out from Raphael,
0:51:05 > 0:51:07that little trick.
0:51:07 > 0:51:10But it's a wonderful moment of engagement.
0:51:11 > 0:51:14It celebrates the wealth and optimism
0:51:14 > 0:51:17the wool industry was giving Australia.
0:51:25 > 0:51:30The irony is that by the 1890s, things had moved on.
0:51:31 > 0:51:34The click of the shears was fast being replaced
0:51:34 > 0:51:36by the clatter of machines.
0:51:40 > 0:51:43Within a year of this picture being painted,
0:51:43 > 0:51:45the shearers went on strike.
0:51:49 > 0:51:52But for Roberts, that wasn't the point.
0:51:52 > 0:51:55The heroic rural worker had played a lead role
0:51:55 > 0:51:58in Australia's coming of age.
0:52:08 > 0:52:12Ultimately, this is a declaration of independence
0:52:12 > 0:52:17on the behalf of a new country ready to stand on its own two feet.
0:52:31 > 0:52:36Nationalistic fervour reached new heights in 1901
0:52:36 > 0:52:39when the six self-governing colonies came together here
0:52:39 > 0:52:42in the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne
0:52:42 > 0:52:45and formed the Commonwealth of Australia.
0:52:50 > 0:52:54And who better to immortalise the opening of the first Parliament
0:52:54 > 0:52:58in this huge painting than Tom Roberts?
0:53:03 > 0:53:07It took two and a half years to complete the picture
0:53:07 > 0:53:12and he had to make 250 portraits of the great and the good
0:53:12 > 0:53:14and then place them all correctly.
0:53:14 > 0:53:18All this took a huge toll on Roberts' health.
0:53:18 > 0:53:22His eyesight suffered and his will was drained.
0:53:22 > 0:53:26He once called it his 17-foot Frankenstein.
0:53:29 > 0:53:33It's a long way from the fresh air of Impressionism.
0:53:36 > 0:53:41As Roberts struggled with his stuffy record of the birth of a new nation,
0:53:41 > 0:53:45Australia came of age and art had helped it to do so.
0:53:50 > 0:53:53The work of the Impressionists resonated powerfully
0:53:53 > 0:53:58because they were the first artists to accept this strange land,
0:53:58 > 0:54:01to see Australia simply as home.
0:54:01 > 0:54:03They were strangers no longer.
0:54:07 > 0:54:10Truly getting to know this vast continent
0:54:10 > 0:54:12remained central to Australian art.
0:54:14 > 0:54:16What it's like to experience the place
0:54:16 > 0:54:20in many ways is the great muse for Australian artists.
0:54:34 > 0:54:38I'm obsessed with it. The scale, the colour, the atmosphere.
0:54:38 > 0:54:41It's just an incredible environment to work in.
0:54:41 > 0:54:45Internationally acclaimed video artist Shaun Gladwell
0:54:45 > 0:54:46is just as preoccupied
0:54:46 > 0:54:50with interpreting Australia's unique environment
0:54:50 > 0:54:52as the Impressionists were.
0:54:52 > 0:54:56Inspired by the desert and the famous film Mad Max,
0:54:56 > 0:55:01Gladwell's mesmerising video, Interceptor Surf Sequence,
0:55:01 > 0:55:05sees him take centre stage as a daredevil stuntman.
0:55:05 > 0:55:10To me, it's like a landscape painting in perpetual motion.
0:55:10 > 0:55:12It's always been a great interest of mine,
0:55:12 > 0:55:16a composition of landscape painting, and that sense of space
0:55:16 > 0:55:19that was always, you know, played out within the frame.
0:55:19 > 0:55:23I actually think about painting all the time when I'm making video art,
0:55:23 > 0:55:25but I actually want to be in that landscape.
0:55:25 > 0:55:29Somehow, the landscape here, maybe because it's so empty,
0:55:29 > 0:55:33is very physical, it's got a very strong physical presence to me.
0:55:33 > 0:55:38- Is that...is that something that you feel?- Yes, absolutely.
0:55:38 > 0:55:41I feel like, as an artist, I understand it with my body.
0:55:42 > 0:55:44But it's also a very humbling space physically,
0:55:44 > 0:55:47because I always relate the scale of my body
0:55:47 > 0:55:49to the scale of this environment.
0:55:50 > 0:55:53I just cannot stop thinking about this space,
0:55:53 > 0:55:58I cannot stop engaging it, because it's such an ancient landscape,
0:55:58 > 0:56:02but it's also layered with, you know, cinema, art, history,
0:56:02 > 0:56:05but also the myth that's been generated from this space,
0:56:05 > 0:56:07it's just so incredible.
0:56:07 > 0:56:11I feel like we all have something to owe this space
0:56:11 > 0:56:14in terms of how we've constructed our national identity.
0:56:23 > 0:56:25Keep pedalling.
0:56:30 > 0:56:31You've got a long way to go.
0:56:33 > 0:56:36Shaun's work is driven by the ongoing need
0:56:36 > 0:56:40to forge a relationship with the Australian landscape.
0:56:42 > 0:56:47By Federation, Australia had grown from a penal colony
0:56:47 > 0:56:49into a fully fledged nation
0:56:49 > 0:56:55with its own character, myths and icons, its own national identity.
0:56:58 > 0:57:02Lycett's propaganda, Glover's idealism
0:57:02 > 0:57:05and Von Guerard's romanticism
0:57:05 > 0:57:08had been replaced by home-grown Impressionists
0:57:08 > 0:57:10like Streeton and Roberts,
0:57:10 > 0:57:14who painted Australia as it really was.
0:57:17 > 0:57:21But the vision of Australia they created was moving on.
0:57:21 > 0:57:25It was fast becoming an industrial power,
0:57:25 > 0:57:29a nation of miners, factory workers and city dwellers.
0:57:30 > 0:57:33At the turn of the 20th century,
0:57:33 > 0:57:36nearly one third of the population lived in cities,
0:57:36 > 0:57:39and that number was set to rise.
0:57:45 > 0:57:48The Impressionist paintings of Arcadian landscapes
0:57:48 > 0:57:50were now of another era.
0:57:50 > 0:57:53Of course, they still had great emotional appeal.
0:57:53 > 0:57:59They still do. But after Federation, the focus was firmly on the future.
0:57:59 > 0:58:03Australia was marching into the 20th century.
0:58:07 > 0:58:12It would take another 50 years and the upheaval of two world wars
0:58:12 > 0:58:15before Australian art would come of age.
0:58:18 > 0:58:22And when that moment comes, the results are violent,
0:58:22 > 0:58:25dramatic and utterly bewitching.
0:58:51 > 0:58:55Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd