Work Of The Week - The River Nile,van Diemen's Land, From Mr Glover's Farm (1837)

The Age

Saturday August 14, 2004

Victoria Gurvich

ART REVIEW: The River Nile,Van Diemen's Land, from Mr Glover's farm (1837) John Glover (1767-1849)

The painting is one of the earliest successful attempts by an artist to capture Australian sunlight, with which this work is flooded.

Glover was a successful English landscape painter who migrated to Tasmania aged in his early 60s, with his wife and their eldest son, to join three other sons.

Terence Lane, the NGV's senior curator of Australian art to 1900, says Glover started painting almost as soon as he arrived and celebrated his new life in his art.

"He finds this new, untidy landscape, swamped with Australian sunlight. He was challenged by it and I think he was liberated by it," says Lane.

The river depicted in the work ran through Glover's property and the view is from the edge of his land.

The painting includes Aboriginal figures and, Lane says, although the landscape is true to the time in which it was painted, Glover recreated the lifestyle of the Aborigines as he imagined it before European settlement.

"It's a very beautiful evocation of their (former) lifestyle," Lane says. "It's simple and idyllic."

Australian works by Glover were exhibited in England, and many people were curious about them - the strangeness of the landscapes and the brightness of the light.

"There was great interest in the educated community in these new lands and in travel," says Lane.

John Glover and the Colonial Picturesque, which is presented in association with the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and Art Exhibitions Australia Limited, is at the NGV until October 3.

The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, Federation Square. Admission fees apply for John Glover and the Colonial Picturesque.

© 2004 The Age

Back to News Index | Back to Home