Fire's On Arthur Streeton Analysis

In this response, I intend to discuss Arthur Streeton’s Fire’s On, a 183.8 x 122.5cm oil on canvas painting, produced in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, Australia in 1891, after “nationalistic sentiment” had taken its toll with the centennial of the European settlement. Fire’s On depicts the steep “walls of rock” “crowned” with “bronze green” “gums” and the “crest mouth” that he encountered on his journey through the Blue Mountains. Streeton created this painting to justly portray the rough, “glor[ious]”, unsung landscape of Australia, namely its “great, gold plains” and “hot, trying winds”. Thus, Streeton defied the inaccurate depictions of Australian landscape produced in the early nineteenth century by early immigrants, showing “green
hills” and “bubbling streams”. The most interesting features of this painting under the Cultural framework include the positioning of the horizon above, rather than below, the centre of the picture plane, contrary to the conventions of traditional landscape painting. Furthermore, the use of harmonious, naturalistic colour and the Impressionistic application of paint allow Streeton to authentically capture the “fleeting” or “momentary effects” of nature and the rugged beauty of Australian terrain, contrary to the works of his contemporaries.

Fire’s On is a landscape painting that authentically portrays the vastness and divinity of Australia’s harsh, rugged terrain.
The individual elements that can be seen in the picture plane include the “deep blue”, cloudless sky, the foreground for which is the steep “walls of rock”, “run[ning] high up” and “crown[ed]” with “gums bronze green”. The “deep blue azure heaven”, flat and unvarying across the backdrop, as well as the steepness of the crest and the tonal sharpness and irregular form of the rocks, are together an expression of “nationalistic sentiment”, distinguishing Australian from European landscape and “celebrat[ing] the [latter’s] unique qualities”. Incidentally, the scarcely perceptible miners depicted in Fire’s On, render the Australian terrain heroic, as it undoubtedly overshadows the “human drama” shown within the picture plane. Furthermore, the smoke that radiates from the “great dragon’s mouth”, the focal point of the painting, evokes in the viewer Streeton’s fascination with the transience of fire. This is characteristic of an Impressionist, as such a painter seeks to capture the shifting effects of light and colour with the greatest
authenticity.

For decades on end, a greater deal of people had false preconceived notions about Australian landscape, understanding it “in terms of what it wasn’t”. With the rising consensus of patriotic attitude, brought about by the centennial of European settlement, there grew a desire to stray away from the “park-like green hills” and “bubbling streams” that were characteristic of “European landscapes”, rather portraying the “great, gold plains” and “hot, trying winds” of Australia. The rise of patriotism saw the birth of an Australian Impressionistic art movement, known as “[t]he Heidelberg School”, of which Arthur Streeton was an instigator. “The Heidelberg School” sought to capture the “fleeting” effects of nature and the unique aesthetic of the rough, “glor[ious]”, uncultivated, untamed Australian landscape, in turn eliminating false preconceptions of it across the board. Thus, the “deep blue azure heaven”, “walls of rock” and “gums bronze green” in Fire’s On authentically portray the harsh, sunburnt Australian terrain as well as the transience of natural subject matter.

Streeton’s use of the Formal elements and principles and the fact that he was innovative in the context of his prime both possess particular cultural significance to the creation of Fire’s On. Streeton was considered very radical when he began to partake in exhibitions and his work was seen as Impressionistic “rebellion”. Victorian painting was the “prevailing academic tradition” during Streeton’s prominence, and was characterized by photorealistic, miniaturist technique and the use of humans as the main subject matter. Thus, Streeton’s depiction of “human[s]” and “human drama” being more trivial and insignificant in comparison to the landscape, and his rejection of miniaturist, photorealist technique in order to capture the shifting effects of light, “provoked critical scorn” as well as “popular success” from the public. Streeton utilises the rule of thirds in his placement of the horizon in Fire’s On; He positions it above the centre of the picture plane, rather than below, which was the accepted convention across all landscape painting. The severity of the horizon’s position portrays the “walls of rock” by the Lapstone Tunnel as “run[ning] high up”, contrary to the flat plains that were substantially more common in landscape painting. Thus, Streeton allows the “crest” to take up the majority of the picture plane so as to genuinely portray the “unique qualities” of Australian terrain. Additionally, the use of warm, naturalistic colour justly conveys the “great, gold plains” and “deep blue azure heaven” of Australian landscape, distinguishing it from the work of early immigrants who “painted what they knew”.

Streeton’s Fire’s On, among many other Impressionistic works that “celebrate[d]” Australia’s “unique qualities”, would have “provoked critical scorn” due to its deviation from the artistic conventions of Victorian painting, including photorealistic, miniaturist technique and the prevalent use of humans as the main subject matter.
Having said that, Streeton’s body of work was both celebrated and scrutinized, as within every audience there will be some who are for the status quo and some against it. On the contrary, contemporary viewers of Streeton’s Fire’s On, would presumably understand the painting to be a traditional landscape, due to the multitude of contemporary landscape paintings that we see today, which embody non-naturalistic colour and composition and steer clear of illusory depth of field and realistic representation of subject matter. Streeton’s objective of communicating, in its fullest, the ruggedness and the heroism of the Australian landscape, although potentially seen as irrelevant to contemporary viewers, reminds them of the nature of the terrain on which they currently stand, before it was domesticated in accordance with the rise of civilization. So, despite that much of the Australian terrain is now cultivated, Streeton’s Fire’s On is one of many works that immortalises the “great, gold plains” and “hot, trying winds” that are characteristic of Australian
landscape.

Ultimately, Streeton’s innovative use of composition, namely in his positioning of the horizon, as well as the use of warm, naturalistic colour and the defiance of miniaturist technique, allows him not only to glorify and make known the rugged, majestic, unsung Australian landscape, but to immortalise it for contemporary viewers. Streeton also defied the conventions of the “prevailing academic tradition” of “Victorian painting”, rather capturing the “fleeting” “effects” of light and colour in the landscape, as his “intuitive affinity” demanded.