School of Culture and Communication - Theses
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ItemTom Roberts and Australian impressionism, 1869 to 1903( 1962)“To Tom Roberts, from whose quick perception and expression of the principles of impressionism in the year 1886, sprang the first national school of painting in Australia”. It was thus that Arthur Streeton in 1915, dedicated an exhibition catalogue to his friend and teacher, Tom Roberts. In this study, I propose to investigate the implications of such a claim. My thesis will be divided into four sections as follows: The first contains a discussion of the sources of Roberts’ art in Australia, England and Europe; and of the works which he brought back to Australia in 1885. It was these works which Streeton claimed had a profound effect on the painters of Melbourne. The second section is primarily concerned with the question of the nature of Roberts’ principles of impressionism; with the question of the development of such principles in the Australian context during the second half of the 1880’s. Also discussed is the nature of Roberts’ influence on the formation of the ‘national school of painting’. Section three centres around a discussion of Roberts’ subject-matter. In it are raised the problems of Roberts’ allegiance to a realist-impressionist programme and of the nature of his response to the Australian environment. The fourth section deals with the developments in Roberts’ maturing style and attitudes inspired by the change of place and of time, in the Sydney of the 1890’s.