Boy in a straw hat playing a flute while seated in the woods, beside a girl lying on the grass

Bush Idyll

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What you see

On the left, a boy in a straw hat and white shirt sits on the ground playing a small flute. In front of him, a long-haired girl lies on her stomach in the grass, chin resting on her hands, her gaze drifting. Slender trunks rise behind them, and at the upper right the woods open onto a sunlit hillside and a glimpse of water.

The greens and browns of the forest are warmed by touches of gold, especially on the distant hill. The pale clothes of the two young people gather the light on the left side. Don’t miss the blue band on the boy’s hat, the girl’s dark boots and the round leaves growing in the foreground.

About Frederick McCubbin

Frederick McCubbin was born in Melbourne, where his parents ran a bakery, and taught drawing at the National Gallery of Victoria’s art school from 1886 until his death; his friends called him “the Proff” for his love of reading and philosophising. In 1885 he founded the Box Hill artists’ camp with Tom Roberts and Louis Abrahams, the seed of the Heidelberg School, and painted large scenes of life in the Australian bush, using his own family as models. Paintings such as “The Pioneer” and “Down on His Luck” became Australian icons, and many critics consider the works he made after a trip to Europe in 1907 the finest of his career.

All 12 works by Frederick McCubbin