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Lot Essay
Hans Heysen won the Wynne prize for landscape painting eleven times over his long career and has the reputation of being one of the most popular of all Australian artists.
In this early landscape, a developing highly academic approach is exemplified. In 1899, the year in which the work was painted, Heysen travelled to Europe on a scholarship provided by a group of Adelaide citizens who realised his enormous formative potential. He studied in both Paris and Florence coming under the influence of the Barbizon school, however it was the Barbizon school's English precursor Constable who initially influenced Heysen. "'I love my Constable', he said in 1942 and love his outlook and achievements'. Like the English master Heysen made the countryside of his boyhood rovings and adult residence his subject matter, exploring it intimately and drawing incessantly." (D Thomas Heysen, Hans Heysen Centenary Retrospective , Adelaide. 1977 p.11) The artist here uses many of Constable's devices and the theories of naturalism and its traits relating to faithfulness to nature.
In this early landscape, a developing highly academic approach is exemplified. In 1899, the year in which the work was painted, Heysen travelled to Europe on a scholarship provided by a group of Adelaide citizens who realised his enormous formative potential. He studied in both Paris and Florence coming under the influence of the Barbizon school, however it was the Barbizon school's English precursor Constable who initially influenced Heysen. "'I love my Constable', he said in 1942 and love his outlook and achievements'. Like the English master Heysen made the countryside of his boyhood rovings and adult residence his subject matter, exploring it intimately and drawing incessantly." (D Thomas Heysen, Hans Heysen Centenary Retrospective , Adelaide. 1977 p.11) The artist here uses many of Constable's devices and the theories of naturalism and its traits relating to faithfulness to nature.