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Lot Essay
Throughout the 1970s, Olsen9s work continued as a direct response to the
natural environment, with a number of trips to a range of remote areas in
Australia. During this period he also developed an increasing interest in
Eastern art and philosophy which informed his painting, as he had a deep
affinity with many of the ideas and concepts they offered. He embraced the
philosophy of Chinese painting where 3the particular outward appearance of
things, or indeed their accuracy, was
of secondary importance to capturing
the essence or spirit of the subject.2 (D Hart, John Olsen, Sydney, 1991,
p144).
In 1981 Olsen moved to the country town of Clarendon, situated in a picturesque valley on the Onkaparinga River, 30 km south of Adelaide. He and his partner Noela Hjorth lived in a beautiful stone manse, The Old Rectory. He set up his studio in the historic 1853 Institute Building in one of the town's main streets. Olsen knew that this environment, with its voluptuous rolling hills and village atmosphere reminiscent of the villages he had lived in Spain, was the ideal place to embark upon the next phase of his life's work.
This will mark a new period in my life and work. Our house is like an eagle's nest perched over the village opposite is a particularly steep hill that has sheep climbing up it, clusters of crows flying up and down, cockatoos white and splendid soaring past, clouds seem on eye level, & sheeps tracks make fascinating meanders over the hill9s surface. (D Hart, op.cit., p.152)
Olsen's time at Clarendon witnessed the dynamic culmination of the previous decades work and interests with a series of large, significant oil paintings, that demonstrates his deeper understanding of the natural environment. Landscape Leisurely Humming with its inverted aerial perspective has a weightless, dreamlike quality. It is typical of his 1980s landscape paintings, which recall the ideas expressed in the works of the 1960s: of the landscape as a living, pulsing organism suggestive of animalistic shapes and biological forms; of landscape not as static factor but as process, not only seen but felt. (ibid., p. 153).
natural environment, with a number of trips to a range of remote areas in
Australia. During this period he also developed an increasing interest in
Eastern art and philosophy which informed his painting, as he had a deep
affinity with many of the ideas and concepts they offered. He embraced the
philosophy of Chinese painting where 3the particular outward appearance of
things, or indeed their accuracy, was
of secondary importance to capturing
the essence or spirit of the subject.2 (D Hart, John Olsen, Sydney, 1991,
p144).
In 1981 Olsen moved to the country town of Clarendon, situated in a picturesque valley on the Onkaparinga River, 30 km south of Adelaide. He and his partner Noela Hjorth lived in a beautiful stone manse, The Old Rectory. He set up his studio in the historic 1853 Institute Building in one of the town's main streets. Olsen knew that this environment, with its voluptuous rolling hills and village atmosphere reminiscent of the villages he had lived in Spain, was the ideal place to embark upon the next phase of his life's work.
This will mark a new period in my life and work. Our house is like an eagle's nest perched over the village opposite is a particularly steep hill that has sheep climbing up it, clusters of crows flying up and down, cockatoos white and splendid soaring past, clouds seem on eye level, & sheeps tracks make fascinating meanders over the hill9s surface. (D Hart, op.cit., p.152)
Olsen's time at Clarendon witnessed the dynamic culmination of the previous decades work and interests with a series of large, significant oil paintings, that demonstrates his deeper understanding of the natural environment. Landscape Leisurely Humming with its inverted aerial perspective has a weightless, dreamlike quality. It is typical of his 1980s landscape paintings, which recall the ideas expressed in the works of the 1960s: of the landscape as a living, pulsing organism suggestive of animalistic shapes and biological forms; of landscape not as static factor but as process, not only seen but felt. (ibid., p. 153).