DOI Heft:
Nr. 212 (November 1910)
DOI Artikel:Alden-Hoven, W.: An australian water-colour painter: Henry Tebbitt
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.20971#0162
Henry Tebbitt, Australian Water-Colour Painter
“THE BLUE MOUNTAINS AT KATOOMBA, NEW SOUTH WALES”
BY HENRY TEBBITT
of a monotonous grey-green, everywhere hang
perpendicularly, a habit which Nature has estab-
lished in order to counteract a too rapid
evaporation.
That intimate study of Nature which marks all
Mr. Tebbitt’s work has been well emphasised by
a critic, who writes
“ Henry Tebbitt signs about twenty transcripts
from Nature, mostly finished productions, together
with a few sketches, full of freshness and vigour,
executed with equal freedom and decision of
touch, and a nice sense of form and colour.
Standing in the presence of so many and such
various examples of his masterly pencil, you feel
that they bear the impress of genius, while they
also testify to his unwearying industry, and verify
Wordsworth’s assertion that—•
‘Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.’
Mr. Tebbitt’s affection for her, in every mood
and under every aspect, finds expression in all the
scenes he depicts. He looks at her with the eye
of an artist and the brain of a poet. Therefore
his interpretations of Nature are not superficial or
literal. By intuition and sympathy he divines her
hidden meanings and develops those beauties
which are not discernible by the common eye of
the prosaic observer. To Mr. Tebbitt the glow
of sunset, the repose of a landscape in the still
evening, when a holy calm settles down on the
universal face of things, the placid surface of a
broad stream, reflecting every leaf and twig, the
mystery of night as it envelops the margin of a
lonely forest, are so many poems which inspire
him to translate them in terms of pictorial art.
And he does so affectionately and caressingly.
Nature has spoken to him in her own eloquent
way. He has listened with reverent attention to
her voice, and he repeats her message with his
pencil.”
These remarks were made on the occasion of
Mr. Tebbitt’s first exhibition in Melbourne, where,
notwithstanding a certain amount of adverse
criticism, he succeeded in making a name and
disposing of many important works, notably
Australian Giants (purchased for the Bendigo Art
Gallery), one of the few pictures he has painted in
oils, and many fine water-colour drawings, such
as The Majesty of the Blue Mountains, a work
absolutely simple in its treatment but full of the
vastness which so characterises these mountains;
A Wet Day in the Bush, grey, solemn, dismal
almost, but familiar to all those who know this
country, with its gaunt spectral trees, denuded
of their foliage by the process of “ring barking”
familiar to all Australians who work on the land
and want grass instead of trees; The Tasman Sea
in one of her pacific moods—a deep blue sky—with
the blinding haze of heat on the horizon, a deep
blue sea, unruffled. These are the simple subjects
which have made Tebbitt famous in this land,
where art a few decades ago was entirely at a
discount. To my mind, Mr. Tebbitt has done
141
“THE BLUE MOUNTAINS AT KATOOMBA, NEW SOUTH WALES”
BY HENRY TEBBITT
of a monotonous grey-green, everywhere hang
perpendicularly, a habit which Nature has estab-
lished in order to counteract a too rapid
evaporation.
That intimate study of Nature which marks all
Mr. Tebbitt’s work has been well emphasised by
a critic, who writes
“ Henry Tebbitt signs about twenty transcripts
from Nature, mostly finished productions, together
with a few sketches, full of freshness and vigour,
executed with equal freedom and decision of
touch, and a nice sense of form and colour.
Standing in the presence of so many and such
various examples of his masterly pencil, you feel
that they bear the impress of genius, while they
also testify to his unwearying industry, and verify
Wordsworth’s assertion that—•
‘Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.’
Mr. Tebbitt’s affection for her, in every mood
and under every aspect, finds expression in all the
scenes he depicts. He looks at her with the eye
of an artist and the brain of a poet. Therefore
his interpretations of Nature are not superficial or
literal. By intuition and sympathy he divines her
hidden meanings and develops those beauties
which are not discernible by the common eye of
the prosaic observer. To Mr. Tebbitt the glow
of sunset, the repose of a landscape in the still
evening, when a holy calm settles down on the
universal face of things, the placid surface of a
broad stream, reflecting every leaf and twig, the
mystery of night as it envelops the margin of a
lonely forest, are so many poems which inspire
him to translate them in terms of pictorial art.
And he does so affectionately and caressingly.
Nature has spoken to him in her own eloquent
way. He has listened with reverent attention to
her voice, and he repeats her message with his
pencil.”
These remarks were made on the occasion of
Mr. Tebbitt’s first exhibition in Melbourne, where,
notwithstanding a certain amount of adverse
criticism, he succeeded in making a name and
disposing of many important works, notably
Australian Giants (purchased for the Bendigo Art
Gallery), one of the few pictures he has painted in
oils, and many fine water-colour drawings, such
as The Majesty of the Blue Mountains, a work
absolutely simple in its treatment but full of the
vastness which so characterises these mountains;
A Wet Day in the Bush, grey, solemn, dismal
almost, but familiar to all those who know this
country, with its gaunt spectral trees, denuded
of their foliage by the process of “ring barking”
familiar to all Australians who work on the land
and want grass instead of trees; The Tasman Sea
in one of her pacific moods—a deep blue sky—with
the blinding haze of heat on the horizon, a deep
blue sea, unruffled. These are the simple subjects
which have made Tebbitt famous in this land,
where art a few decades ago was entirely at a
discount. To my mind, Mr. Tebbitt has done
141