Reference:
Figure 1
Artist: Arthur
Streeton
Title: Fire’s
On (Lapstone Tunnel)
Date: 1891
Medium: Oil on
Canvas
Dimensions: 183.8
x 122.5cm; 204.7 x 142.7 x 6cm frame
Collection:
NSW Art Gallery
“Completed on site at the mouth of a railway tunnel under construction in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, the painting depicts the death of a railway worker in a premature explosion. However, the human drama is overshadowed by the heroism of the landscape itself.”[1]
Arthur
Streeton produced the painting “Fires On” in 1891 at a time when there was a
dawning awareness of the greatness of the Australian Landscape and it’s people.
A century had passed since the English settlement and the birth of the
Australian Federation was eminent. The harsh life of the bush along with the
resilience and sheer necessary creativity of it’s people had been romanticised
in the works of Henry Lawson (1867–1922) and Banjo Patterson(1864–91), the
shearers, the drovers and the swagman where becoming legend, there was intense
curiousity and fear surrounding the indigenous Australians and the uniquely
beautiful native flora and fauna were being illustrated and published in
scientific journals. All of this led to a sense of pride in the Australian way
of life and a desire to represent the country in all it’s harsh beauty
accurately, it was no longer acceptable to mix nostalgia with fact and paint
the Australian landscape in a Brittish attitude.
In 1886
there was a nationwide call to “fill our National Gallery with representative
works of our artists and our nation, its early historical scenes, and pictures
of the true rude life that must have and did exist in the early days of the
colony.” This led to the development of a National School of Australian
Painting and plein-air landscape artists were being “urged” by their fellows to
leave ‘the suburban bush’ and ‘paint the national life of Australia’. Arthur
Streeton like many other Australian artists had been entranced by the landscape
and demonstrated a desire to represent this “sun burnt country” and it’s
occupants in a genuine manner capturing “the light, colour and character of the
local landscape”
With
regard to the painting “Fire’s On”, Arthur Streeton, the artist spent many days
at the site of the Lapstone Tunnel as it was being constructed, sketching and
completing studies in watercolour, often lamenting the medium drying too
quickly in the heat. In a letter to Frederich McCubbin he described the
landscape and his subsequent choice of pallet as “a perfect blazing glory of
white orange cream and blue streaks here and there where the blast has worked
its force”, as he endeavored to capture this initially in watercolour and later
in oil. He appears to have established a rapport with some of the workers
throughout the time he completed his studies, commenting on their interest and
appreciation of art, and of taking cover together from the blasts “work a while
-then again "Fire! Fire's on" - and off we go, and then work
again”.
The
landscape itself was dramatic and the life of the workers he was befriending
was harsh and unpredictable, Arthur Streeton had no way of knowing that on one
particular day as he arrived “at his cutting (sic)”, he would encounter tragedy. He wrote that all was “serene as I
work & peg away ... 12 o'clock ... & now I hear 'Fire! Fire's on!',
from the gang close by ... BOOM! & then rumbling of rock. The navvy under
the rock with me, & watching, says, 'Man killed' ... more shots &
crashing rock we peep over; he lies all hidden bar his legs. All the shots are now
gone except one, and all wait, not daring to go near; then men, nippers, and a
woman hurry down, ... and they raise the rock and lift him on to the stretcher,
fold his arms over his chest, and slowly six of 'em carry him past me ...”
The
surprise death of a worker became a subtext of the final painting, an
unexpected addition whispering from the mouth of the tunnel amidst the scale
and prominence of the mountain.
“Fire's
on” captures the essence of a distinctly Australian theme, and is “possibly the
artist's greatest evocation of Australian heat and sunlight”. It is successful
in depicting the landscape’s harshness in the sheer exposed rock faces and the
stoicism of the Australian people, seemingly insignificant but ever forging
through and into the heart of Australia.
[1] http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/work/832/
cited 05/05/11
Bibliography
‘Tusque’, ‘The National Gallery: “On the
Line”’ Australian Magazine, July 1886, p. 138
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