Golden Summer, Eaglemont

Golden Summer, Eaglemont

Artist	Arthur Streeton
Year	1889
Type	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	81.3 cm × 152.6 cm (32.01 in × 60.08 in in)
Location	National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Golden Summer, Eaglemont is an 1889 painting by the Australian artist Arthur Streeton. Painted during a summer drought, it is an idyllic depiction of undulating plains in rural Heidelberg on the outskirts of Melbourne. It is one of Streeton's most famous works and is considered a masterpiece of Australian Impressionism.

It was painted en plein air at an artists' camp established by Streeton at Mount Eagle (now Eaglemont), where he and other Australian Impressionists occupied an old weatherboard house. Streeton described the location in a letter to fellow painter Tom Roberts, which he calls "our hill of gold":

I sit here in the upper circle surrounded by copper and gold, and smile with joy under my fly net as all the light, glory and quivering brightness passes slowly and freely before my eyes. Nothing happier than this. I shout and laugh at my immense wealth, all free and without responsibility. Who could steal this from me? No one.

It was the first painting by an Australian-born artist to be exhibited at both the Royal Academy in London, in 1890, and the Paris Salon the following year, where it won an award.

Ahead of its auction in 1924, Lionel Lindsay extolled the work in the hope that it would enter a public gallery:

This tranquil landscape, so simply yet so exquisitely fashioned, possesses for Australians a sentiment no other people may equally enjoy. It is the first great Australian landscape, untrammeled by picture making formula, to come from the hand of the native born. It is, therefore, historically the most important landscape in Australia.

It was acquired by a private collector for 1,000 guineas, then a record for a painting by an Australian artist. It broke the same record in 1995 when it was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia for $3.5 million.

External links

Golden summer, Eaglemont at the National Gallery of Australia