William Robinson

ISBN: 9768097663

Author: Fern, Lynn

Condition: Used

This is the first major publication on the work of the noted Queensland artist William Robinson, and documents his emergence as a significant force in the Australian landscape tradition.Lynn Fern traces the development of Robinson's work through three major changes of style and content. The artist began as an academically trained painter who used his love of colour and the work of Bonnard to find his way forward through the painting of interiors. The discovery of the full range of his painterly vocabulary, however, required two dramatic changes of location. At the first of these - a small farm in Birkdale - Robinson's work developed through representation of the chaotic life of the farm: these paintings were powerfully structured despite the apparently random placement of objects. The second move provided him with rainforest wilderness as a setting for his painting. This phase of Robinson's work - inspired by the Darlington Mountains in southern Queensland - is vitally concerned with the atmosphere and the spirit of the landscape and with the diurnal and circadian rhythms inherent in the natural world.Robinson often portrays simultaneous sensations of 'time-scale and multi-viewpoints' in his paintings, and his works extend well beyond representational imagery, combining elements of the surreal and of the fantastic. His unique interpretations of the Australian landscape have been widely acclaimed and he is represented in major gallery collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.