Arthur Streeton
It's Sunday, so we continue our special month with the National Gallery of Victoria's collection. :) Enjoy!
Arthur Streeton’s images celebrating the blue and gold palette of Australia’s sun-drenched landscape struck a nationalistic chord during the lead-up to Federation. In early 1896 Streeton traveled to the upper reaches of Dyarubbin, the river now known as the Hawkesbury River, along Darug and Darkinjung Country between Richmond Bridge and Windsor. It was here Streeton was inspired by the expansive view looking towards the Blue Mountains. The Purple Noon's Transparent Might takes its title from a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley that embraces the natural world—sun, sky, water, and mountains—and was painted in two days "during a shade temperature of 108 degrees," in a state of "artistic intoxication with thoughts of Shelley in my mind."
P.S. Streeton was one of the key members of the Heidelberg School, known broadly as Australian Impressionism!
P.P.S. If you're mesmerized by the Impressionists' paintings, be sure to check out our Impressionists Notebook! :)