Exhibition Text assignment for a W.C. Piguenit painting in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

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SEM 1 2017 ARHT5902: Art Writing
Lecturer & Tutor: Dr Keith Broadfoot
Exhibition Text
The relationship of W.C. Piguenit’s, The Upper Nepean, N.S.W.,
to the category of the sublime in landscape painting.
Fig. 1 The Upper Nepean, N.S.W., by W.C. Piguenit. AGNSW, #5934
(https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/5934/)
By Antony Skinner SID 19846648
Words: 700

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The Upper Nepean, N.S.W. by WC Piguenit
What is your reaction to nature when you look at this painting? What do you feel
when you look at this type of landscape? What words can you think of to describe it?
Do any of the following come to mind: rugged, harsh, rough, rocky, stark, untouched,
natural, pristine, or wilderness? All of these suggest and describe the scene accurately.
The intention of the painter to evoke these feelings from the viewer was deliberate.
The painter, WC Piguenit, was the first Australian born painter that was
professionally trained. He was born in Hobart in 1836 and died in Sydney in 1914.1
(You can find more information on his life via our online collection.) He was one of a
number of prominent artists that focused on capturing the colonial experience and
reaction to Australia – its strange fauna, flora, vegetation, and climatic zones that
were very different to England and Europe.
There were conventions for painting the European landscape during the nineteenth
century and colonial painters attempted to import and sometimes adapt these
conventions to the Australian landscape. The three most common were: the
picturesque, the beautiful, and the sublime. What category do you think Piguenit’s
painting belongs? If you thought the sublime, then you’re correct. But what did they
mean by the sublime, you’re probably wondering. These three categories of aesthetics
were used to classify and differentiate different types of landscapes. In 1757, Edmund
Burke, an Irish statesman, political theorist and philosopher of the eighteenth century
defined the category of the sublime as one to invoke an emotional reaction of awe by
experiencing either the majesty, or vastness of nature.2
Often then, sublime
landscapes featured: waterfalls, canyons or gorges, mountains, rivers, rapids and lakes.
The eighteenth century German philosopher Immanuel Kant, examined this as well in
terms of ‘the viewer’s emotional response to the infinite, dynamic and fearsome
qualities of nature.’3
The rendering of the sublime in the landscape became a
prominent feature of Romanticism in the nineteenth century to show how humankind
is small and powerless in comparison to the forces of nature.
1
WC Piguenit, Collection, AGNSW, <https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/piguenit-
wc/>, viewed 11 April 2017
2
Kathryn Kalley Galitz, Romanticism, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The Metropolitan Museum,
< http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/roma/hd_roma.htm>, viewed 11 April 2017.
3
The Sublime The Picturesque The Beautiful Guide, The Blanton Museum of Art, <
https://blantonmuseum.org/AmericanScenery.pdf>, viewed 11 April 2017.

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Although by the time Piguenit painted The Upper Nepean in 1889 Romanticism had
been superseded by successive art movements the idea of the sublime still captured
the imagination of artists late in the nineteenth century. The gallery has in its
Collection eight works of the artist, and seven capture the sublime: lakes, rivers,
mountains, a flood, and a valley. These features of the Australian landscape were
depicted either in a topographic or panoramic manner using the imported European
aesthetic to make the unfamiliar familiar, and therefore mastered by the colonists in
their expansion across the Australian frontier, according to Leonard Bell.4
The painter has dramatically used lighting to contrast the overcast sky with cloud and
rolling mist coming down the side of the rugged gorge with bright sunlight in the
centre shining through the clouds and falling on a small area of the cliff face. The
river looks calm but it disappears into the distance as the wall of the valley leads off
into the distance and curves to the left – creating an aura of mystery and the unknown
to the place. In the foreground there is a small group of cormorants on rocks above the
river resting – fitting in with the landscape. However, in the centre is the small
solitary figure of a man standing with his back to the viewer – perhaps he is looking
to see where the river leads. What do you think he is doing there? Is he an explorer, a
colonist, is he alone or is he lost, perhaps? Bell further talks about the sublime, in
creating a vicariously dangerous experience of living on the edge for the viewer.5
Do
you think the painter has successfully captured the idea of the sublime in this
painting? Have you ever been in a similar situation? Did you feel in awe of nature?
4
p. 44, Leonard Bell, Colonial eyes transformed: looking at/in paintings: an exploratory essay,
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, 2000, 1:1, 42-64, DOI: 10.1080/14434318.2000.11432653
5
p. 47, Ibid.

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Bibliography
Bell, Leonard, Colonial eyes transformed: looking at/in paintings: an exploratory
essay, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, 2000, 1:1, 42-64, DOI:
10.1080/14434318.2000.11432653
The Sublime The Picturesque The Beautiful Guide, The Blanton Museum of Art, <
https://blantonmuseum.org/AmericanScenery.pdf>, viewed 11 April 2017.
WC Piguenit, Collection, AGNSW,
<https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/artists/piguenit-wc/>, viewed 11 April
2017.
Galitz, Kathryn Kalley, Romanticism, Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History, The
Metropolitan Museum, < http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/roma/hd_roma.htm>,
viewed 11 April 2017.