546 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION I. 



prepared for the production of those wonderful creations of the 

 pencil, which form the despair of modern art. There must be a 

 beginning to everything ; and to this rule there can be no exception. 

 Especially is this true of popular art education. But much 

 depends on the nature of that beginning. The progress of the 

 English school of painting was much retarded by the slavish 

 fashion in which its earlier members sought inspiration from the 

 works of other schools, rather than from the world of beauty by 

 which they were surrounded in their own land. The English 

 landscape was represented with an Italian sky and classical acces- 

 sories, which gave it a most unreal appearance. But as English 

 artists, while studying the best works of continental schools, learned 

 to rely more and more on their own skill, to create, instead of 

 copying, they gradually acquired a distinctive style, and, in course 

 of time formed the English School of Landscape Painting, which 

 is unreservedly admitted to be without a rival, so far as the 

 artistic delineation of the natural features of natural scenery is 

 concerned. 



If we are to have real national art progress in Australia, 

 we must learn to profit by the example thus afforded. Our art 

 students must learn to create, as well as copy ; and they must 

 seek inspiration from the wealth of scenic beauty by which they 

 are surroundeif, rather than from that of other lands. There is 

 more of real artistic distinctiveness in Chevalier's " Race to 

 Market " than in all the multitude of English paintings, prepared 

 to order, by the same artist. In the one he stands the representa- 

 tive of a new school ; in the other he becomes lost in the artistic 

 crowd. Although the scenery of Australia is frequently described 

 as being dull and monotonous, it is so only to the superficial 

 observer. Under the influence of the gorgeous autumn sunsets, 

 the landscape becomes invested with an indescribable glory of 

 crimson, gold, and purple, which impresses even the dullest 

 imagination, and would awaken the wildest enthusiasm of a 

 Ruskin or a Turner. But we rarely behold these scenic marvels 

 reproduced on paper or canvas, in imperishable colours. Claude 

 never painted rocky gorges more romantic or more awe-inspiring 

 than those which are to be found in many parts of Australia, and 

 there are portions of the Nepean which, in their stately grandeur, 

 rival, if not surpass the picturesque castellated heights that bound 

 the lordly Rhine. We have, in fact, here in Australia all the 

 essentials for the creation of a purely Australian school ; but, at 

 present, they remain virtually unheeded, and will continue so 

 until the present system of popular art-education is placed on a 

 sounder basis. 



In all countries in which art has made substantial progress, 

 it has been aided during the earlier stages by the State in 

 various ways, principally in the shape of money grants or special 



