The Perpetual Wheel of Nationalism. Tom Roberts at the National Gallery of Victoria

“It seemed that [in the woolshed] I had the best expression of my subject, a subject noble enough, if I could express the meaning and the spirit of strong masculine labour... and the great human interest of the whole scene ... I believe ... that by making it the perfect expression of one time and one place, it becomes art for all time and of all places”. Tom Roberts, quoted from Ursula Hoff on Shearing the Rams, 1889-90. The National Gallery of Victoria, Thames and Hudson, 1973.

In terms of the Legend, the period of the nineties was distinguished by its fervent celebration of a robust nationalism, particularly manifested through its belief in its value of the Australian personality; but “periods” have an untidy habit of contradicting themselves, and there is also discernible in the writing of the nineties an undercurrent of revolt against the barbarous fate of being an Australian.” A. A. Phillips on Barbara Baynton Bush Studies (p.31) First published in 1902.

My earliest recollection of a Tom Roberts image would be similar to many other white, middle-class Australians. Ensuing from mass (re)production, many suburban homes were, and are still, decorated by poster prints of Heidelberg School artists. The period became one of the most publicised eras in Australian art history, producing national ‘heroes’ such as, Tom Roberts.
Bailed Up. painted in 1898 was probably my very first encounter with Tom Roberts. I guess it was the 1970s when I truly looked at this picture, or at least a framed poster print of the painting. It was centrally positioned above a built-in oil heater, in the lounge room.
Long before I had any historical context or narrative information, I recall studying the picture in detail, particularly in the winter months when the heater was on, careful not to burn my pyjama pants. The most enticing and interesting passage of the painting, for me at that stage, was the root system, the feature focus of the foreground. I had walked over, or probably tripped over such a root. It was a small defined area, that might have reminded me of bull ants or spiders. From a distance these root systems often looked like snakes and a fear of snakes was implanted in me at an early age. At this point I was drawn into the painting through a sense of familiararity and without knowing the related history, I was already experiencing a form of nostalgia. At this early stage of my life an image of Australia was starting to form.
Once the painting’s story is explained, when I was old enough to understand it, the landscape suddenly becomes a stage or movie set (movie reels were just beginning in 1898), and the scene is set for adventure and danger. In her catalogue essay to the exhibition, Virginia Spate declares that “Bailed up” reminds her of the coloured illustrations in the ‘boy’s own’ books of masculine imperial adventure across the Empire. For a young boy, cowboys and Indians might be replaced by bushrangers holding up horse drawn carriages, a Ned Kelly mask made from a bucket, a stick for a gun and off you go, the mythology lives - the picture has reinforced a culturally specific form of nationalism. However it is a selective piece of history crowned for popular consumption. We never played cowboys and Aboriginals.
Pictures on show at the NGV such as Bailed up 1898, A break away! 1891, and Shearing the Rams 1888-90, are recognised icons of Australian art, deliberately heroic, masculine, nationalistically loaded for the advent of Federation in 1902. According to Bernard Smith in Place ,Taste and Tradition a national tradition arises from a people as they struggle with their social and geographical environment. This struggle, it would seem, was like a war and good propaganda helped raise morale. The frontier painters, recording and preserving important aspects of the time, the breaking and taming of the land .
Once "tamed", the landscape's purpose was for recreation and rejuvenation from the urban areas where most of the population lived, The artist’s camp, 1886 and A Sunday afternoon picnic at Box Hill, 1887 both portray the bush as a gentle place, a native garden, where you can escape the hustle and bustle of the 1880’s city life.
Acknowleging historical bias, it is difficult to maintain an objective viewpoint. Although the exhibition presents the artist’s work in retrospect, I still feel compelled to peel away each layer of nationalistic grime from particular paintings, before I can even begin a dialogue. I could easily say the works are beautifully crafted or dynamically composed, that the sense of light attributed to the aesthetic values of Impressionism (imported by Roberts) are well suited to the depiction of Australia’s ‘sunburnt country’ but I cannot distance myself from the historical and political context that gave artists like Roberts a platform from which they could wave the flag without acknowledging the contradictions that make white settlement far more complex then the “average” Australian is supposed to think.
Today, one hundred years later, Australia boasts cultural diversity and a shift toward republicanism and historical revision has made us question our sense of national pride. Research has unveiled many hidden truths, less glamorous histories, conveniently omitted from what is taught in Australian history education. For Tom Roberts, Aboriginal people were a dying race, Portrait of an Aboriginal women(Maria Yulgilbar) appears to be yet another anthropological record for the mother country (Ironically, Aboriginal art would achieve the international success he had strived for).
It seems a pertinent time to discuss the relevance of Tom Roberts in the 1990s, whether we can distinguish the myth from the actual art. Is the frontier heritage a valuable resource to artists today? With the green light recently given to ‘freedom of speech’ and the non-apologetic attitude toward Australia’s history, it would seem that, “one nation” attitudes (such as those heard from Ipswich) without the acknowlegement of cultural difference, might set Australia back to the time Roberts was painting.