The Heidelberg School was an Australian art movement of the late 19th century. For a topic outline on this subject see List of basic Australia topics.
The name refers to the then rural area of Heidelberg near Melbourne where practitioners of the style found their subjects, though usage expanded to cover other Australian artists working in similar areas. Heidelberg is a suburb (and former local government area of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Melbourne ( is the second most populous city in Australia, with a Metropolitan area population of approximately 3 The core group painted there on several occasions at "artist's camps" in the late 1880s and early 1890s.
The term was coined in 1891 by local art critic Sidney Dickenson, reviewing the works of Arthur Streeton and Walter Withers. Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton (8 April 1867 &ndash 1 September 1943 was an Australian landscape painter Walter Herbert Withers ( October 22 1854 - October 13 1914) was an Australian landscape artist and a member of the Heidelberg School Other major artists in the movement included Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin and Charles Conder. Thomas William Roberts ( 9 March 1856 &ndash 14 September 1931) usually known simply as Tom was a famous Australian artist and a key Frederick McCubbin ( 25 February, 1855 – 20 December, 1917) was an Australian painter who was prominent in the famous Charles Edward Conder ( 24 October, 1868 – 9 February, 1909) was an English -born painter, who emigrated to Australia
The School's artists were clearly influenced by the international Impressionist movement, and took up many of the concepts of the group. Impressionism was a 19th-century Art movement that began as a loose association of Paris -based Artists exhibiting their art publicly in the 1860s They regularly painted plein air landscapes, as well as using art to depict daily life. En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air" and is particularly used to describe the act of Painting outdoors They showed a keen interest in the instantaneous effects of lighting, and experimented with a variety of brushstroke techniques; McCubbin in particular used the small, contrasting blocks of strong colour that were a trademark of some Impressionist work. However, these artists should not be viewed as merely copying an international trend. Works of the Heidelberg school are generally viewed as some of the first Western art to realistically and sensitively depict the Australian landscape as it actually is. Many earlier works look like European scenes and do not reflect the harsh sunlight, earthier colours, and distinctive vegetation of the land they painted.
The works of these artists are notable, not only for their merits as compositions, but as part of Australia's historical record. The period immediately before Federation is the setting for many classic Australian historical stories of the "bush", both fact and fiction. A federation ( Latin: foedus, covenant is a union comprising a number of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central ("federal" The School's work provides a visual complement to these tales and their images have embedded themselves into Australia's historical subconscious.
Whilst Heidelberg has long since been absorbed into greater Melbourne, some of the scenes depicted in the most famous works of the school were of scenes on the floodplain of the Yarra River and are thus still recognizable. The Yarra River is a River in southern Victoria, Australia. The lower stretches of the river is where the city of Melbourne was established Along the Yarra River Trail selected works are shown in the places where they were painted. The Yarra River Trail is a shared use path for cyclists and Pedestrians which follows the Yarra River through the north eastern suburbs of Melbourne
Many of the actual artworks can be seen in Australian galleries, notably the National Gallery of Victoria, the National Gallery of Australia and the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery. The National Gallery of Victoria is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne Australia. The National Gallery of Australia is the premier art gallery and museum in Australia, holding over 120000 works of Art. Ballarat Fine Art Gallery is the oldest and largest regional art gallery in Australia.