Land escapes

Depicting the American and Australian frontiers

by Leon Nigrosh

NEW WORLDS FROM OLD: 19TH-CENTURY AUSTRALIAN AND AMERICAN LANDSCAPES At the Wadsworth Atheneum, 600 Main Street, Hartford, Connecticut, through January 3, 1999.

One hundred twenty-three paintings, representing artists from two continents and many different styles, dominate nearly the entire third floor of the Wadsworth. Listening devices, pamphlets, and a scholarly 272-page catalogue sort out this visual feast. Adding to the magic of the exhibit is the fact that none of the Australian works has ever been seen outside of its homeland until now.

Five major themes encompass the attitude changes toward the land that the 19th-century artists and the colonial populace in both nations underwent over time. It is important to remember that these people were chiefly of British birth or descent and brought their own built-in prejudices with them to their "new" lands.

"Meeting the Land" displays works by artists who accompanied scientific and survey explorers cataloguing their finds. William Westall (1781-1850) made many watercolor sketches on an Australian expedition with Matthew Flinders in 1801. He later re-created his scenes in oil paints on large canvases such as View of Port Bowen, Queensland, August 1802. Westall presented the trees and flora with almost pinpoint accuracy while still capturing the romance of the hills surrounding the bay. He also portrays three Aboriginals as they move through the lush vegetation. This may have been an artistic invention by Westall to indicate scale, because according to Flinders's logbook, no Aboriginals were sighted during their stay in Port Bowen.

In the section, "Claiming the Land," the emphasis shifts from the exploratory, farming, and the urbanization of the land. John Glover (1767-1849) painted many views of his Australian farm that he, like other artists, sent back to England for sale to wishful romantics. My Harvest Home shows, in brilliant color, workers happily toiling as they gather hay onto a six-team oxcart. American artist Thomas Birch (1779-1851) glorifies the Fairmount Waterworks, an engineering feat on the banks of the Schuylkill River in Philadelphia, depicting the growing technological domination of natural resources.

As both Americans and Australian colonials became more confident in their mastery of the land, artists could step back and look at and paint "In Awe of the Land." To this end, Fredrick Edwin Church (1826-1900) created Niagara Falls, an eight-foot-long panoramic view of the roaring Horseshoe Fall, which did away with the foreground -- projecting the viewer into the middle of this awesome natural force. Eugene von Guerard (1811-1901) created a nationalistic stir with his rendition of Mount William from Mount Dryden, Victoria. His empathy for the natural Australian landscape and his masterful brushwork brought praise from many newspapers and cultural centers. I'm sure that the romping kangaroos in the foreground had little to do with the effusive praise.

After mid-century, many artists, as well as their admirers, became comfortable in their settings, and they began to create more personal responses in "A Landscape of Contemplation" -- which consists of a great many representations of streams, ponds, or other reflective bodies of water. Evening Shadows, Backwater of the Murray, South Australia by H. J. Johnstone (1835-1907) epitomizes this painting genre. Dwarfed by large, magnificently rendered gum trees, a woman edges across a fallen log over still water, toward a tiny Aboriginal campsite. The only false note in this charming, atmospheric landscape is that by the time the artist painted his picture, the Aboriginals had all been forced out of the area.

The last section of this sprawling exhibition, "The Figure Defines the Landscape," is filled with images of humans as masters of their surroundings. Winslow Homer (1836-1910) depicts parasol-carrying ladies at the beach and Tom Roberts (1856-1931) shows carriages bustling through the main street of Melbourne. The most startling and telling image, however, is Frederic Remington's (1861-1909) Fight for the Water Hole. Five cowboys with repeating rifles ring the crater of a puddle of desert water, defending it from a band of Indians. Anglo-Saxons have finally conquered their "new" land and, along the way, became xenophobes -- intent on preventing strangers from coming in. The irony is that, in this case, these "strangers" are the original inhabitants who have been forced out.

Aside from showcasing some of the finest examples of 19th-century American and Australian landscape painting, this exhibition is a powerful reminder of the colonial attitudes held by the misfits and convicts that escaped or were sent to populate two primordial and pristine continents. As we approach the next century, we have to wonder, have things changed much since the last millennium?

The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Call (860) 278-2670.