Collins Street 5pm Context

Artists interpretations of the world tend to be tightly constrained on the basis of time and place. From a changing idea of beauty, a lack of tools or materials used to express an idea, to a passing muse that comes and goes such as a concept forgotten to the new generation. It becomes justifiable to state that artworks from the past, such as the Prehistoric Venus of Willendorf to Australian Contemporary pieces like Tom Roberts Shearing the Ram and John Brack’s Collins Street 5pm correlate in how they are constrained by cultural themes such as time and place. Art and culture are not black and white concepts; there is no way to say that one affects the other completely. Yet it is necessary to point out that time and place are intangible concepts
One artistic interpretation of social commentary can be contextualised in John Brack’s Collin Street 5pm. Which although visually, is in stark contrast to the Venus of Willendorf, can also be seen as tightly constrained. When first observing Collins Street 5pm, what first comes to mind is a scene of mundane life depicted through John Brack’s signature artstyle consisting of blockish, geometric and colour that is monochromatic and muted in tone. The constraints of time and place are expressed in Brack’s very own words, “I used to stand in the doorway every night between 4.45 and 5.30 to watch the stream as it passed…” Essentially an amalgamation of John Brack’s best sketches, the boundaries between the artwork convey rigid motion that dissolves progressively between each other. The proximity of the monochromatic figures against a sepia background creates a sense of relative melancholy. But behind it’s repetitive, dull and uniformly dressed figures lies Brack’s original intention. “It used to strike me as most eerie… sketching within three feet of people... none of whom took notice.” Expressionless and stripped of individualism as they walk in uniformly patterned rows Brack depicts a stereotypical perspective of an office nine to five day. Trudging through the street in various gradients of brown and black everything about the artwork seems
Tom Roberts artwork Shearing the Rams is similar to John Brack’s Collins Street 5pm, because they are both depictions of Australian life through completely different lenses. Shearing the Rams in particular captures a highly compressed view of time and place by drawing the viewer’s attention to the heroism of what is popularly seen today as the essence of Australian pastoral life. Robert’s himself says, “So it came that being in the bush and feeling the delight and fascination of the great pastoral life and work I have tried to express it.’ With undeniable personality, Roberts travelled into the country and spent months working on the picture in an outback shed at Brocklesby, New South Wales. Shearing the Rams is tightly constrained because Tom Rebert’s portrayed subjects he believed would distinguish Australian life from life elsewhere. Roberts was confined particularly to sheep stations in rural New South Wales, where he worked Shearing the Rams from 1888 — 1990. A thorough exploration of the artwork reveals that in the formulation of his painting Roberts followed an established photographic and illustrative convention, as opposed to originating a new subject for artistic attention. Movement, or its absence, is central to his work. The two