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Lot Essay
In 1900 the McCubbin family spent their holidays at Woodend which lies to the north of Melbourne. It was during this holiday that they discovered the cottage at nearby Mt Macedon, which they subsequently purchased. The McCubbins moved in to the cottage at Macedon in 1901, naming it 'Fontainebleau' after the forest outside Paris where the Barbizon school, which included Millet and Corot, had painted. It has been suggested that this painting depicts the garden at Fontainebleau which contained a dilapidated orchard that was used by McCubbin's students from the National Gallery as a summer camp.
The importance of Macedon to McCubbin's painting practice after 1901 has been continuously acknowledged, for while McCubbin was still teaching at the Gallery school in Melbourne and commuting to Fontainebleau on the weekends, it was undoubtedly the bush surrounding Macedon that provided him with his primary artist inspiration as well as a sense of deep domestic contentment over the next six years. The artist's youngest daughter, the late Kathleen Mangan recalled this felicitous mix of the professional and personal in the following way:
"I can see my father going into the bush with his battered old felt hat and his painting coat which was smeared with paint and he carried his easel and paint box. He used to go and find a secluded spot and put down his camping stool and he would paint his subjects right there in the bush on the spot. His easel was collapsible and folded into three and was usually strapped to his paint box. When he opened up his paint box, he had his palette on one side and all his paints and oils and mixers on the other side, along with his brushes and of course his palette knife. He didn't need to wander far because there were so many paintable subjects right there close to the cottage. He would always be within calling distance and would return very punctually for lunch, because my mother put on very good lunches." (Kathleen Mangan, cited in A MacKenzie, Frederick McCubbin The Proff and his art, Melbourne, 1990, p.114)
Mount Macedon was painted during a tremendously important period of evolution for McCubbin's art, as narrative became subordinate to the demands of colour, the effects of light and painterly texture. The bright colour and vivacity of palette evident in this work reveals McCubbin's new focus, while a compositional device, in which the over-arching branches of the tree frame a distant view of civilisation, was one that he first employed to great effect in The Pioneer.
The importance of Macedon to McCubbin's painting practice after 1901 has been continuously acknowledged, for while McCubbin was still teaching at the Gallery school in Melbourne and commuting to Fontainebleau on the weekends, it was undoubtedly the bush surrounding Macedon that provided him with his primary artist inspiration as well as a sense of deep domestic contentment over the next six years. The artist's youngest daughter, the late Kathleen Mangan recalled this felicitous mix of the professional and personal in the following way:
"I can see my father going into the bush with his battered old felt hat and his painting coat which was smeared with paint and he carried his easel and paint box. He used to go and find a secluded spot and put down his camping stool and he would paint his subjects right there in the bush on the spot. His easel was collapsible and folded into three and was usually strapped to his paint box. When he opened up his paint box, he had his palette on one side and all his paints and oils and mixers on the other side, along with his brushes and of course his palette knife. He didn't need to wander far because there were so many paintable subjects right there close to the cottage. He would always be within calling distance and would return very punctually for lunch, because my mother put on very good lunches." (Kathleen Mangan, cited in A MacKenzie, Frederick McCubbin The Proff and his art, Melbourne, 1990, p.114)
Mount Macedon was painted during a tremendously important period of evolution for McCubbin's art, as narrative became subordinate to the demands of colour, the effects of light and painterly texture. The bright colour and vivacity of palette evident in this work reveals McCubbin's new focus, while a compositional device, in which the over-arching branches of the tree frame a distant view of civilisation, was one that he first employed to great effect in The Pioneer.