https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/832/
Write a brief (illustrated) summary of what you learnt in the gallery yesterday and/or focussing on the one or two works that you found most challenging or interesting.
Visiting The Art Gallery of NSW, I was able to see many creative works done by renowned artists, amongst them was Arthur Streeton’s masterpiece ‘Fires On: Lapstone Tunnel’. His peculiar image of a heat back Australian landscape in contrast to a revolution landscape allows audiences to envision the violent animist force of destruction caused by humans towards nature.
His work is vividly drawn to express his nationalism through intense physical and visual immersion in the colour, light, texture, and temperature of Australian nature. Thus his painting is colour combined with force to amplify a deep, vigorous meaning of the societal impacts on a modernistic world. Streeton’s passion for the environment is embodied all throughout his artwork. Inspired by the quintessentially Australian landscape, his artwork denotes, particularly through a vertical composition the beauty of the landscape of the Blue Mountains however, underlies deeper imagery of the destructiveness of revolution. Not only does he effectively capture the Australian landscape, but instead he goes deeper. The painting was made during the construction of a railway line across the Blue Mountains, capturing the humans working on the railway and amongst them lies a dead body of a labour worker. He portrays the dichotomy in the two main messages of his unique artistic touch is the scale of the landscape as well as, the detrimental implications of the construction of the railway (revolution).
Ultimately Streeton’s oeuvre evidently explores his passion for the environment and the heat and light of an Australian summer, as conveyed through expressive brushwork, a daring compositional structure and intense, and luminous colour.
Abby Aaron 
Abby, that was a great blog post. You have an awesome style of writing and your use of language is very polished. You are able to put together a variety of complex and descriptive words in your sentences which works well to capture meaning but also create an enjoyable blog to read.
I also like how you dissected that painting, noting the artists love for the landscape which is then contrasted with the destructiveness of the people destroying it. I would really encourage you to write longer sentences, (truncated sentences are great) but you clearly have a capacity to convey depth and meaning in your writing, so challenge yourself, write longer and more free flowing sentences!
Awesome work, keep it up 😀
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Thank you Jess, I really appreciate such kind words. English and writing is my strength and I am very passionate about it all. Also, thank you for pointing out the need to have longer sentences I will know for next time to do that.
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Hi Abby! I found your blog post about Arthur Streeton’s piece ‘Fires On: Lapstone Tunnel’ really interesting. I thought your points about how the artist uses colour and structure to portray his views about the impending railway revolution and impact were very intriguing and accurate. I think the vast contrast in the untouched side of the mountain to the left, which is very natural and rocky, as opposed to the right side that is much more built away at, also leaves room for the viewer to see how this railway revolution so quickly made an impact on the environment and landscape of Australia.
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Hi Abby,
I can see that you love words and that is a good thing, a very good thing. But they have to be the right words in the right place. This pieces shows that often you throw great sounding words around without really knowing their accurate meaning. So be more careful. Look up meanings before using words. Also your sentences are often chaotic. Write shorter simpler sentences saying simply and humbly what you mean. You will do much better if you follow this advice. In terms of writing skills I don’t think this blog is any better than the Voss blog although you have understood the subject matter better than you did in the Voss blog. I am simply trying to give you honest feedback.
MG
Editing Needed (and some workshop follow-ups- see Purdue Owl for help: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/1/
* a heat back Australian landscape = ? [ heat back: this doesn’t make sense ]
*revolution landscape= what kind of landscape is this? It is not very clear what you mean.
*animist force of destruction= “animist” means the belief in a supernatural power that organizes and animates the material universe, you are using the word to describe human actions. You are misusing the word and you need to be much more careful about the words you choose. Don’t just choose them because they sound impressive.
*amplify a deep, vigorous meaning= choose your words for a more direct effect. This is overwritten. It is over the top. And the painting is not really dealing with a “modernistic” world. “Modernism” was not really here yet in this bush landscape.
* Overcomplicated and excessively long sentence that loses its grammatical way:
Inspired by the quintessentially Australian landscape, his artwork denotes, particularly through a vertical composition the beauty of the landscape of the Blue Mountains however, underlies deeper imagery of the destructiveness of revolution.
SUGGESTION
Inspired by the Australian landscape, his artwork expresses, particularly through a vertical composition the beauty of the landscape of the Blue Mountains. However, as well as this the painting shows the destructiveness of human impact. [There is nothing to do with revolution in this painting.]
*a dead body of a labour worker.= a dead body of a labourer
He portrays the dichotomy in the two main messages of his unique artistic touch is the scale of the landscape as well as, the detrimental implications of the construction of the railway (revolution).= ungrammatical – read this aloud…. it does not make good sense. You are mixing ideas.
TRY
His painting portrays a dichotomy. It shows two main contrasting messages: the power of raw nature and the destructiveness of man’s conquest.
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