Year 10 Historical and Critical Studies Assessment

How has Impressionist Claude Monet and the Australian Indigenous artist
Albert Namatjira reflected on the world around them.
Claude Monet and Albert Namatjira are both impressionist artists, but had very different
lives. Monet was born in 1840 and raised in Le Havre, where he first developed a reputation
as a caricature artist by the time he was 15. In 1858, Monet met a landscape painter Eugene
Boudin, who became his mentor and introduced him to outdoor painting. Plein Air painting
became the basis of his life works such as Terrace at Sainte Adresse (1867) and his famous
series of water lily painting at Giverny in 1899. Albert Namatjira on the other hand was an
Australian Aborigine raised on a mission in Alice Springs born in 1902. He was one of the
pioneers of contemporary indigenous Australian art and is considered as one of Australias
most influential artists. He mainly painted watercolour paintings such as ghost gum (1950)
and Haasts Bluff (1956).
Impressionism is a style of painting that began in Paris, France in the mid-1800s. Unlike
artists before them, the impressionists painted most of their paintings outdoors and liked to
portray natural subjects like trees, fields, and oceans. Impressionists would often take their
materials outdoors and paint what they saw. This is called painting en plein air. When
impressionists painted pictures of people, they made them look like people you would see
every day. Rather than painting religious figures or royalty, impressionists painted people
like the local tavern owner, a girl eagerly awaiting the beginning of a play, or workers resting
in bales of hay. They often used their own family and friends as subjects in their paintings.
It was the invention of tubed paints that really kicked of the impressionist painting style.
This meant that now artists did not take days to make their paint and they could have as
much of any kind of paint as they liked. This also meant they could paint outside in the
weather, as they could not do this before because the paint would dry out and ruin.
Monets artworks always have a distinct foreground middle ground and background. In
terrace at Sainte Adresse it is very obvious that the foreground is the man and women
sitting on the chairs, the middle ground is the man and woman standing near the water and
the background is the ocean. This painting is done with oil on canvas. He has shown the
array of bright natural colours shining through the clouds. Monet tried to show that even on
cloudy days there are still a whole range of colours in a landscape and not just dull greys.
This was a very impressionistic thing to do.
One of Monets most famous artworks was his series of Water Lilys paintings. After decades
of poverty, by 1899 he was financially secure and had moved to Giverny. It was here in his
backyard that he found a pond of lilies and decided to paint them. Each of the 12 large
canvases look completely different but all of them are the same subject. He came back at
different times of the day and in different weathers to capture the different lighting and
reflection on the pond. For these artworks he had to learn a whole new kind of painting,
long broad sweeping brush strokes. These artworks were done as a study of light and
colour, which is the essence of impressionism not trying to just show a portrait or people.
As an Australian aborigine, Albert Namatjira had always had a love of the earth and the
environment. When he was 32 years old he was exposed to western style painting because
there was an exhibition by two Melbourne artists at his reserve. He became good friends
with one of the artists, Rex Battarbee, and in exchange for a tour of the best locals and most
scenic spots, he was taught how to use watercolours. He very quickly picked up the skill and
became popular for his artworks. His style was unique and unrecognisable. His landscapes
highlighted both the rugged natural features of the land in the backgrounds and the
distinctive Australian plant life in the foreground. His love and respect of the land was
greatly reflected in his artworks and he tried to show of the different lighting, angles and
perspectives of the land.
Namatjira used the natural colours of ochre which is traditional for aboriginal paintings, but
he had adapted them to a European style painting, which was accepted and appreciated by
both cultures. The artwork Ghost Gum was painted in 1950 in the MacDonald ranges in
the northern territory which is his home. As with all of his artworks he started off with a
sketch of the scene which highlighted easily the fore, middle and background. He then
started painting it starting with a light was and adding in deeper darker tones to highlight
the different lighting and shadows.
Haasts Bluff is another painting of the Australian landscape done by Namatjira in 1956. It
uses a more pastel and blue colour pallet to show the light of a different time of day.
Namatjiras artworks were done in a unique way to try to represent the Australian
landscape in a natural way and to show exactly how it looks.
In 1958 his first exhibition was held in Melbourne. Following this exhibitions in Sydney and
Adelaide also sold out. For a solid decade Namatjira continued to produce many artworks of
the Australian landscape, and by the time he died in 1957, he had created more than 2000
paintings.
Both Claude Monet and Albert Namatjira are very influential and well known impressionistic
artists. There artworks are sold throughout the world today and are appreciated by many
different people. Namatjiras endeavours of representing the Australian outback and
Monets Plein Air paintings greatly show the world they live in and their everyday
environments. Both the artists have been very successful in interpreting their surroundings
and creating a new style of art.