Page 43 - Studio International - October 1965

The Burnt Country
Oil on Canvas
30 X 40 in,

To one accustomed to the corporate personality of situation vis-a-vis the landscape? J.-F. Millet was the
young Australian painters in London-to a combination. last person to do it to honourable effect. and even he
that is to say, of diffidence. calculated outrageousness. had to generalise. In English painting it was achieved
and wary attention to their surroundings-there was an in an ironical way by Sickert. in an idealising way of
immediate contrast in Drysdale's way of sitting at a Augustus John in some of his Welsh panels. and in an
table as if he had grown to be part of it. I have never. obsessional way by L. S. Lowry. But none of these
in fact. seen anyone more palpably at home with his fulfilled. as Drysdale did. the responsibility of an
environment. Had he not already been identified for me immensely intelligent man towards people who. but
I should have taken him for the headmaster of a great for him. would have had no interpreter.
school somewhere in the country who was in Sydney That last phrase has overtones of 'importance· which
on long leave; for Drysdale has a countryman's colour. Drysdale himself would certainly repudiate. And there
a countryman's bulk. a countryman's stance, and a were. of course. earlier interpreters of the Australian
countryman's way of looking as if it was really rather scene. So what is so particular about Drysdale? To
unmanly to wear a tie. These things are not unusual in begin with. his situation in time. He is old enough to
Australia. but one at once notices other traits: a touch have known the hinterland of Australia before the air­
of the philosopher about his way of considering any strip, before the vitamin pill. before the transistored
proposition that is put to him. an unfeigned concern radio. And he knew it not as a visitor. however percep­
with the predicaments of others, and a blessedly non­ tive and enlightened, but as someone who could turn
competitive attitude where his work is concerned. his hand to anything. Td been brought up' (this
Drysdale does not. of course, have a lot to feel com­ quotation. and those that follow. are from the interview
petitive about; but it is pleasant. even so, to contrast with Geoffrey Dutton which is quoted in Mr. Dutton's
his attitude to his juniors with that of certain senior 'Russell Drysdale'. Thames & Hudson. 1964) 'in a
European artists. condition in which when you're learning things as a
What most strikes an English visitor. in such circum­ jackaroo. for instance. you've damn well got to know
stances. is the extent to which a painter like Drysdale. what sort of materials you're going to use ... You can't
who is after all still in his fifties. can look back on the just can't handle stud sheep without knowing some­
pre-history not of 'modern Australian painting' but of thing about stud breeding. and you can't carry out the
Australian self-awareness. Drysdale identifies with the numbered and varied and sometimes highly skilled
genuine continental Australia in a way that simply jobs that have to be done on a property without first of
cannot be paralleled in Europe. Painters in Europe can all acquiring the technique of those particular tasks'.
still identify themselves. though only just. with a par­ Drysdale tackled painting in the same way, and in an
ticular landscape; but with the people in that landscape, age when so many young painters rely on al/a prima
and the quirks of those people. and their emotional techniques it is an education to go to Drysdale's studio.
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