Arcadópolis
On the Wallaby Track
Frederick McCubbin, 1896
What you see
A woman sits on the ground, leaning against a thick trunk on the left, a baby asleep face down across her lap. She turns her head to the right, where a man in a hat and pale shirt crouches by a fire, holding a pot. Between them a sunlit clearing opens in the distance, and the eye moves from the woman to the man.
The tones are muted greens, browns and greys, with the woman’s pale green dress as the brightest area. The ground is covered in dry leaves painted with small touches. Branches form a dark, tangled roof over the scene. Notice the baby’s little hand resting on the dress and the fallen log in the clearing beyond.
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.
More by Frederick McCubbin
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