A New Romance

The Romanticism that is now perceived as an important influence in contemporary Australian art can be seen to have its roots in much of the art of the 1970s. Throughout that decade the work of a few artists, most notably Peter Booth (born 1940) and Bea Maddock (born 1934), was difficult to define. However, in the light of recent analysis, their work appears to have been primarily and often exclusively concerned with personal emotional issues.

Certainly the work of Micky Allan, Rosalie Gascoigne and Imants Tillers evolved and matured in the 1980s to reveal these artists as being largely concerned with romantic issues. Micky Allan, who was forced into the fashionable medium of photography when the unpopular realism of her student paintings threatened her success, now chooses once again to express her ideas through painting. The works she executed while living in Paris are full of illusions to a microscopic landscape, verdant and fertile, and express an almost overpowering joy and sexuality. Her more recent work possesses an apparently more arcane symbolism. Rosalie Gascoigne, whose early assemblages possessed wit and sophistication, found her true voice when her work began to reflect her love and understanding of the Australian landscape. In Plenty, 1986, she not only expertly evokes the dry and weathered yellow of the Australian landscape, but also conjures up Wordsworth's 'host of golden daffodils', revealing her knowledge of the Romantic poets. Imants Tillers, whose inclusion in this exhibition could be considered inappropriate, given that his conceptual work is generally perceived as being about the nature of art, has lately produced works which greatly magnify the romantic qualities of his subjects. Mount Analogue, 1985, for instance, exaggerates not just the scale, but also the potency of Eugene von Guérard's North-east view from the northern top of Mount Kosciusko, 1863, from which it is derived. The heightened colour and painterly quality of Tillers's work also contribute to its romantic mood, which is much stronger than that of von Guérard's original painting.

The landscape that so successfully inspired the work of these three artists has also had a powerful effect on a number of other painters. Brian Blanchflower, an Englishman who migrated to Western Australia in 1972, brought with him a deep admiration for the work of the great English Romantic artists J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), William Blake (1757-1827) and John Martin (1789-1854). His painting has a similar feeling for the spectacular natural events – both manifest and mysterious — that so dramatically change the face of the landscape, as well as for the more silent and gentle forces that control the universe. The curiously rich and textured surfaces characteristic of his work are reminiscent of the dry washes of the desert, enlivened by the flashing brilliance of mineralized rocks.

Tim Johnson's Folding earth and literary star, 1986, is a quiet observation of a starry sky, and makes obvious references to Aboriginal art. Ray Arnold's Imaginary landscape: eighteen months in Tasmania, 1984, with its craggy mountains disappearing into mists and clouds, owes much to Chinese landscape painting in subject, composition and format. As an evocation of the landscape and an obvious celebration of its rugged beauty, this work is outstanding.

A more mysterious and personal landscape is presented in Elizabeth Newman's dark and brooding Evening scene, 1986. Similarly, Tim Maguire's Futile enclosure, 1985, seems to capture a sense of hopelessness and despair, both literally and figuratively, in a wasted landscape.

The nightmare that Tim Maguire hints at is most vividly expressed in Sue Norrie's The Sublime and The Ridiculous, 1985. In this painting the personal experiences of the artist are remembered and vividly depicted alongside more clichéd images of gloom and doom. In the rich texture of this collage of images, the astute viewer will find numerous references to horrific scenes and deeds from the art of the past, as well as to the dreams interpreted by Sigmund Freud.

Victor Rubin's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1985-87, race out at us from the ancient biblical story. However, rather than the allegorical riders described in the Book of Revelation — the agents of war, famine and pestilence — these figures, constructed of the detritus of urban civilization, appear as a new and more menacing threat to humanity. Similar monuments, made of the waste from a wrecker’s yard, have been constructed by Victor Meertens.

The despair of Loretta Quinn’s Where have all the flowers gone?, 1986, decorated with plastic flowers and sea shells, remind the viewer of neglected religious shrines. Exactly who or what is involved remains a mystery. Helen Eager’s Bowl, 1986, also subtly alludes to religious ritual.

Hedonism and pagan abandon are celebrated in James Clifford's The Sacred Religions, 1987. In this ecstatic and sensual painting the lush tropical foliage may be identified with holiday resorts or with an Arcadian landscape, and the figures may be seen as part of an exotic society, or as the fantasies of sexual abandonment. Thus a face with feathered headdress, which is initially interpreted as an image from the pages of the National Geographic, may be easily transformed into a member of the chorus at Les Girls. Tom Risley's Drum, 1984, made from the panels of wrecked cars, embodies a similar dichotomy. Its affected primitivism incorporates an instrument with which to beat out a rhythm for the end of the world and an altar upon which to make sacrifices to our modern gods.

This fascination with the primitive and the exotic is complemented by an interest in the past. Tony Clark's Landscape painting, 1984, reminds the viewer of numerous aged and crumbling canvases, the subjects of which are unknown and forgotten, the remains of a golden age. Another relic is Rodney Bamford's Homage to Palissy, 1986. This giant shard of a plate of mythological proportions and decorated with shells, leaves and a serpent — also serves to remind us of previous cultures, long-dead heroes and the futility of human achievement. The glory of ancient civilizations is evoked by Gunter Christmann's Come uptown, 1984-85, in which the figure of Tiresias, the blind Theban seer of Greek mythology, gropes towards the viewer. The image is an eloquent expression of the artist's search for potent imagery, and evokes not only the painter's personal dilemma but also that of modern civilization. Unlike Toni Warburton's Encounter, 1985, in which the blank eyes and mouth suggest a silent and universal cry, Tiresias lurches forward to offer hope rather than despair.

As the artists of this new romance explore their ideas and emotions, they reflect the hopes and fears of a society which, faced with the increasing momentum of scientific achievement, continues to question the value of rationalism.

John McPhee