Task Description: Select three artworks that use the physical environment as their inspiration/theme. One is to be a traditional European/early Australian landscape, one a Modernist work and one a Post Modern work. Write an Analysis of each, showing your understanding of how the four frames can provide different ways of appreciating artworks.
As a result of the invention of photography the physical environment has been a source of artist inspiration. The evolution of the interpretation of the world around artists can be demonstrated by the exploration of the practice of traditional artist Eugene Von Guerard, modernist artist Rosalie Gascoigne and post-modern artist Janet Laurence. It is from this the audience is able to determine how the physical environment has influenced art and in turn provide insight to the varying perspectives on the appreciation of artworks.
Eugene Von Guerard (b. Austria 1811 – d. London 1901) is a traditional European artist who explored the western physical environment. Living in Italy, Germany, Australia and England we can observe the influence which the environs had on his art marking.
In the 1830’s Von Guerard trained in Giovanibattista Bassi’s art school in Rome and later studied landscape painting in Germany at the Dusseldorf Academy. Whilst primarily an artist, he also considered himself an explorer taking long treks in Australia and New Zealand. It was from these trips that had created finely detailed pencil drawings in sketch books. These were later used as the bases for his paintings. Von Guerard expressed nature as he remembered it both its overwhelming beauty and terror at times. It is evident in his works the observations he made on the light and colour within nature. He predominately worked in the convention at the time of oil painting. He used the medium meticulously in painstaking detail. Von Guerard’s deep examination of the land around him enabled him to gain an