Australia Felix, Arthur Streeton, oil on canvas, 35 x 59 in. (90 x 151 cm), link is to Google Art Project, downloadable file on Wikimedia Commons, original is in the Art Gallery of South Australia.
Australia Felix is Latin for “dortunate Australia”, referring to fertils plains in Western Australia.
Brilliant Australian painter Author Streeton, who was activein th elate 19th and early 20th centuries, gives us a grand sweeping view of the Australian landscape, but touched with nuances of suggested detail, like the houses to the left in the middle ground (images above, second down).
The logs and trees in the foreground connect usto the scene and give us a sense of scale. The landscape is dotted with briefly noted trunks of tiny trees, and his command of atmospheric perspective carries us into the far distance.
I’m fascinated by the way he just lets the crest of the mountain just slightly above the far horizon.
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