Queensland Art Gallery

We visited the  Queensland Art Gallery as a class on Monday last week, which has a whole range of things from glassware, Victorian furniture and sculptures to Aboriginal art and of course paintings and even a couple of photographs.

We were looking for things that inspired us and things that did not appeal to us so much. Several of us found the first difficult, especially when it came to the abstract or more modern collections. As for myself, I tend to see the world for what it is, what's already there right in front of me. I can see the beauty in a scene or the value within an item, but I don't tend to interpret such things or draw deep personal meaning from them which a lot of art is meant to do. 

No surprise then that the collections that didn't speak to me at all were indeed the abstract and conceptual pieces. (The abstract sculptures a bit less so since - being a 3D object - I could see interesting photographic potential in them.) Rather, it was the paintings that depicted reality - even everyday life - that caught my attention, perhaps more so given the era they portrayed from the 1800-1900's (one that does actually interest me on the side).

Below is one such painting in which a mother and child have been evicted from their home. What captures me most about paintings like this (apart from what it depicts) is how much detail has been added to the scene, from the leaves on the ground to the vines and texture on the houses to the toy horse being dragged behind the girl to the number of other people looking on and the different expressions on all their faces. The more I look, the more I see, and the more emotive and expressive I realise the painting is.

The ability of the artist to see such a scene so clearly and then to be able to paint it over however many days is really something amazing to me: a photographer who just has to press one button to capture every detail that lasts but a moment of what's in front of me. 

Blandford Fletcher, England 1858–1936 | Evicted 1887 | Oil on canvas

The scene is overall a fairly bright one (though the colours are muted), and so the mother stands out starkly in her full black attire - likely a deliberate choice to match her mood and the sorrow of the situation as well as an indication that she is likely a widow - in contrast with most everyone else there. Note that the man in the top hat is the only other person in full black which - along with the fact that he is looking towards her and is dressed well - draws the link that he is the one who evicted her.

Understandably, the mother looks resigned to her fate, and the feeling is that she most likely has nowhere else to go. The child looks a little frightened, though perhaps she doesn't fully comprehend the situation. She is mostly in white which reflects her innocence, and the viewer's attention is drawn straight to her in large part because she is gazing directly at them almost in a beseeching way. The fact that she is dragging a toy sadly on its side behind her also contributes to the drama and feelings this painting evokes.

I find it interesting that the girl is carrying an umbrella rather than a bag or another toy. Obviously they don't have anything much to take with them anyway, but it makes me think the umbrella is a symbol of rainy days - or rather, more tragedy and sorrow - ahead, and perhaps that the mother is trying to prepare her daughter for it (by giving her the umbrella). It also makes me consider that that one umbrella is all they have now for shelter, which just adds to the emotiveness of the scene.

The composition is quite effective, with the mother and daughter nearer to the left edge and quite deliberately walking out of the scene into the unknown "wilderness" as implied by the increased number of leaves on the ground in the direction they are heading. The other people are all in groups and really quite distant - emphasising just how alone the mother and daughter are - with some looking as though they are just continuing on with their lives and ignoring the evictees without a care, and others quite clearly having stopped to watch with some derision or judgement. By comparison, the young girls in the background and the lady beside them - perhaps neighbours - actually look sad and sympathetic, knowing that this could easily happen to any of them, as was often the case during the industrialisation of England in the 19th century.