CHAPTER XLI 



THE STATION AND ART 



In no country save in Australia or New Zealand has 

 the pastoral age bequeathed much of a legacy to plastic 

 art. It has lent something to music, and the shepherd- 

 god who blew his reed-made flute in ancient Hellas 

 was perhaps the first of instrumental musicians, while 

 Pan cannot be said to be dead as long as goatherds 

 beguile the sunny hours by playing their " oaten stops " 

 on Sicilian hillsides. Even in modern Australasia the 

 plastic harvest would have been small were the country 

 only pastoral. The hands that are habitually employed 

 in drafting cattle or branding sheep or engaged in others 

 of the many manual occupations belonging to the 

 station have not yet developed the fine sensibilities of 

 the artist-finger. As a higher type of civiMsation gathers 

 around the simpler life, the elect individual is born, 

 perhaps on or near a station, who shall render on 

 canvas, in appropriate colouring, the more attractive 

 of station scenes, the more characteristic of station 

 events, and the typical aspects of station life. At least 

 a dozen of prominent Australian artists are eminently 

 painters of the station and the bush. 



Their painting has a distinctive character. Not only 

 do two-thirds of the oils and nine-tenths of the water- 

 colours in the various annual exhibitions consist of 

 landscapes. Even in those where the organic elements 

 — trees, shrubs, grasses, and wild flowers — form the 

 most conspicuous part of the picture, it is stiU the action 

 on these of inoiganic agents that is the real theme. 



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