Historic artists Heidelberg School Artists Trail Map - Finns Reserve GoogleMaps Feb2023 Text: Templestowe. Finns Reserve: 24 David Davies "Evening Templestowe" 1897; 25 Louis Buvelot "Summer Afternoon" Templestowe 1866; 26 Arthur Streeton "The Road to Templestowe" 1889; 27 David Davies "Moonrise" 1894
Louis Buvelot
Louis Buvelot was a Swiss who arrived in Australia relatively late in life having spent much time in Brazil painting.
By 1865, he was in Australia and his influence on Australian art was profound. Many experts regard him as a link between the former colonial academic landscape school and the later Heidelberg School "en plein air" (open air) impressionists.
This painting was purchased by the National Gallery in 1869. A fellow artist described Buvelot's method of painting "He would stop before a tumbledown old humpy with a big tree growing over it and perhaps a distant hill in the background and make a very careful and beautiful pencil drawing. This he would take home to his studio and redraw on a larger scale."
Louis Buvelot's lovely painting may be seen in Finn's Reserve Templestowe.
Often called the "Father of Australian Landscape"; he caught the olive, blue and grey tints of the local landscape but sometimes the European style of vegetation can be seen in his paintings. Buvelot had been schooled in the French Landscape style but his interest in the quiet domestic scene featuring ordinary people going about their everyday tasks, fitted in well with the current trends in Australian landscape.
Not keen on grandiloquent majestic scenes or large open vistas, he is best known for his quiet rural landscapes often painted in the late afternoon or at twilight.
Summer afternoon, Templestowe 1866 Louis BUVELOT (1814-1888) oil on canvas 76.6 × 118.9cm. National Gellery Vic http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/4461/ Feb2023
His "Summer Afternoon near Templestowe", painted in 1866 is typical of Buvelot. It shows a view looking down Thompson Road to the north. A drover has driven his flock across what is now Templestowe Road. Cows are gathered by a milking shed on the right and in the background is Bell's Upper Yarra hotel. Perhaps one might say that the tall gums in the picture resemble Lombardy poplars reminiscent of Europe rather than gums but the blues, purple tones and shades of colour and the characteristic pinkish twilight pre-empt the Heidelberg School which was to follow.
This painting was purchased by the National Gallery in 1869. A fellow artist described Buvelot's method of painting "He would stop before a tumbledown old humpy with a big tree growing over it and perhaps a distant hill in the background and make a very careful and beautiful pencil drawing. This he would take home to his studio and redraw on a larger scale."
Louis Buvelot's lovely painting may be seen in Finn's Reserve Templestowe.
Arthur Streeton 1867-1943
"At Templestowe" also known as "The Road to Templestowe". 1889 Arthur Streeton. oil on canvas 25.4 x 40.7 cm, Elder Bequest Fund, 1941. Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide/ Artists Footsteps (Feb2023)
Arthur Streeton was another artist of the Heidelberg School who painted in the Yarra Valley. Born at Mt. Duneed near Geelong, he became a lithographer and studied aft at evening classes at the National Gallery School. With fellow artists Tom Roberts and Charles Condor, Streeton moved into the old house on the "Eaglemont" estate with the help of David Davies' brother. They slept in sacks tied between trees lit by candles. They were always short of money and Streeton opened a school for landscape and still life which was attended by many girls keen to learn art. While at Eaglemont, Streeton and the other artists painted the famous 9 by 5 cigar box paintings, Streeton contributing 40 of these for the exhibition held in Swanston Street on 17th July 1889.
Streeton and David Davies were friends and often made painting trips around the settlement of Templestowe. Whilst on one of these painting excursions, Streeton wrote "It was my interest in Buvelot's "Summer Afternoon in Templestowe" which caused me to walk from Heidelberg Station to Templestowe and paint a small canvas." This is ‘The Road to Templestowe" painted in 1889. The painting shows a buggy rolling along the road towards Templestowe. There are cows in the field to the left and Finn's Upper Yarra Hotel is in the distance. Fittingly the reproduction of the famous landscape can be admired in Finn's Reserve. The original is in the Art Gallery of South Australia.
2000 06 DTHS Newsletter
Streeton and David Davies were friends and often made painting trips around the settlement of Templestowe. Whilst on one of these painting excursions, Streeton wrote "It was my interest in Buvelot's "Summer Afternoon in Templestowe" which caused me to walk from Heidelberg Station to Templestowe and paint a small canvas." This is ‘The Road to Templestowe" painted in 1889. The painting shows a buggy rolling along the road towards Templestowe. There are cows in the field to the left and Finn's Upper Yarra Hotel is in the distance. Fittingly the reproduction of the famous landscape can be admired in Finn's Reserve. The original is in the Art Gallery of South Australia.
2000 06 DTHS Newsletter
David Davies
David Davies (21 May 1864 – 26 March 1939) was an Australian artist who was associated with the Heidelberg School, the first significant Western art movement in Australia.
Born and raised in Ballarat, Victoria, Davies attended art classes at the Ballarat School of Mines and Industries. He subsequently attended the National Gallery of Victoria Art School in Melbourne, studying under Frederick McCubbin and George Folingsby from 1886 to 1890. During this time, he often visited Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder and other plein air painters at their Mount Eagle "artists' camp". The artists stayed in a farmhouse on the property owned by Charles Davies, the brother of David Davies' future wife.
In 1890, Davies submitted his painting Under the Burden and Heat of the Day to the National Gallery School's Travelling Scholarship competition, but lost. Nonetheless, private collector James Oddie purchased the painting and later sold it to the Art Gallery of Ballarat. Davies used the funds from this purchase to travel to Europe.[1][2] While there, he studied under Jean-Paul Laurens in Paris, and later joined the St Ives School, an artists' colony in Cornwall.
Returning to Melbourne in 1893, Davies moved to the rural suburb of Templestowe, where he began painting the local scenery en plain air during the evening. These nocturnal landscapes, many of them simply named Mooonrise, are among his best-known works, and can be found in the collections of many of Australia's major art museums, including the Art Gallery of South Australia, the National Gallery of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria.[1]. Early in 1896, Davies and his family moved to Cheltenham, Melbourne. Davies held a one-man exhibition in Melbourne in May 1926 which was reported to have been successful.[2]. In 1932 Davies moved to Looe, Cornwall, England, where he died on 26 March 1939.[1]
Legacy
A major exhibition of Davies' work, organised by the Art Gallery of Ballarat, toured a number of Australia's state galleries in 1985–86. Davies Close in the Canberra suburb of Conder is named in his honour.[3]
Selected paintings
- From a Distant Land, 1889, Art Gallery of New South Wales
- Under the Burden and Heat of the Day, 1890, Art Gallery of Ballarat
- Moonrise, 1893, Art Gallery of South Australia
- The Season of Storm, Stress and Toil, 1895, private collection
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Davies_(artist). Wikipedia May2021
David Davies 1862-1939
Many artists chose Manningham as a beautiful place to paint, particularly the Yarra river, the winding country roads and gently rolling hills so typical of the area.
David Davies was a member of the famous Heidelberg School of artists which included Walter Withers, Clara Southern and Tom Roberts all of whom painted in Bulleen, Templestowe and Warrandyte.
David Davies was born in 1862 at Ballarat and studied under James Oldham at the Ballarat School of Design. He later was a fellow student of Arthur Streeton at the Melbourne National Gallery School, where the first director of the Gallery and leader of the school was George Frederick Folingsby. Like the other artists of the Heidelberg School, Davies was interested in the effects of light and colour on the Australian bush.
As a contrast to earlier artists, the Heidelberg artists used muted colours, olive greens and blue-grey shades to depict the bush eucalypts. These artists wished to interpret nature through luminous effects of light and shadows.
DaviD Dames' family possessed an old house on the 'Eaglemont' estate. This rambling old place was set on a hill overlooking the Yarra Valley. A romantic spot indeed for the artists colony which developed there. In 1888 Streeton, Llewllyn Jones and Davies took over the house and later Charles Condor and Tom Roberts joined them.
All the artists lived a bohemian life moving between Heidelberg and the city, and in and out of the old dwelling which had been intended as a country mansion but had declined amid an overgrown and tangled, romantic garden.
Streeton and David Davies made many painting trips to Templestowe, walking along the Templestowe Road with their easels and paints under their arms.
Davies lived and worked in Heidelberg longer than most of the other artists. He was interested in the depiction of light and colour and the naturalistic interpretation of the Australian landscape. To quote from 'Australian Painting' by Bernard Smith, "Through such followers of the Heidelberg School as David Davies and Walter Withers the fashion for landscapes with luminous yet muted colours became popular."
Davies went to Europe in 1890 to study in Paris for three years and while there married. He returned to Australia where he lived in York Avenue, Ivanhoe in 1893 and moved to Templestowe the next year. In the next three years Templestowe became the scene of his best known works where he developed his style and reputation for the lyrical quality of the Australian landscape.
He was a specialist in tonal impressions and his evening effects and moon rise images are unsurpassed.
Davies explained, "I am given credit for being a strong colourist in a quiet way ....... Everyone does not
see colour alike. The aim is to see colour intensely and render it without being unduly vehement. The aim is not to emphasise the local colour, the actual colour of the object itself, but to get the vibrating quality of colour one sees in nature." (from The British Australian London1 29th November 1906)
The two paintings on the Artists Trail in Templestowe are 'Moon Rise' painted in 1894 and 'Evening Templestowe' painted in 1897. The originals of these are in the collection of the National Gallery in Melbourne.
Moonrise 1894 David DAVIES oil on canvas 119.8×150.4cm Templestowe, Melbourne inscribed in grey paint l.r.: D. DAVIES https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/5474/
'Moon Rise' is a lyrical nocturne with the soft glow of the moon lighting up the landscape. Davies had a remarkable ability to capture the fleeting transition from. day to night and his twilight paintings were unsurpassed. His reputation was based on the uncanny dreamlike quality of the afterglow in his muted romantic landscapes.
Sir Lionel Lindsay describes 'Moon Rise' as a masterpiece that differs from all the twilights in that without the aid of chiaroscuro, the weight of the earth deserted by the sun is suggested by some wizardry of paint.
'Moon Rise' has been placed in the forecourt of the shops in the Templestowe Village. Shoppers and passers-by have a wonderful opportunity to enjoy this lovely painting.
Evening, Templestowe 1897. David DAVIES oil on canvas 45.4×56cm inscribed in pen and ink D. DAVIES. https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/explore/collection/work/5468/
'Evening Templestowe' is in Finn's Reserve perhaps somewhere near the spot where this tranquil farming scene was painted. In the 1890's there were many dairy farms on the Yarra Flats and this painting shows cows returning to the paddocks from the dairy after milking. The soft glow of twilight lights up the scene and the muted blue-green of the gumtree gleams translucent.
In the late 1890's many of the Impressionistic Australian artist became disillusioned and perhaps the hard times of the period induced most of the Heidelberg School of artists to head for Europe. David Davies was one of those who set sail for Europe, settling in Wales and Cornwall.
Davies also had a studio in Pimlico and lived for a time in Dieppe where he was able to arrange exhibitions of his work in Europe and America.
During the 1914-18 War, movement was restricted but after the War Davies intended to return to Australia but in the event did not, settling permanently in Cornwall where many lovely paintings of landscapes in his gentle style were created. He died in Looe Cornwall in 1939.
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