J. H. CARSE

Scottish (c. 1818)–1900
worked in Australia (c. 1867)–1900

The crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813 by explorers Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson and William Charles Wentworth opened up the lands beyond to settlement. In the process the mountains themselves became a destination for excursionists and artists from Sydney. It was soon agreed that the most sublime view was that from a rocky ledge opposite the point where the Weatherboard Creek plunged dramatically into the chasm below. Augustus Earle, who visited in 1826, painted this aspect in c. 1830 (Rex Nan Kivell Collection, National Library of Australia, and National Gallery of Australia), and Eugène von Guérard chose the same vantage point for his great picture Weatherboard Creek Falls, Jamieson’s Valley, New South Wales in 1862 (in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria). J. H. Carse, who went to the falls shortly after moving to Sydney in 1871, painted the view in 1873 (Warrnambool Art Gallery), and the present example in 1876.

Von Guérard’s picture had been criticised for the straight horizontal line across the top of his picture. Carse took a lower viewpoint, which raised the escarpment well above the line of the horizon, making a more dynamic composition. The three Indigenous people in the foreground (they replace white excursionists in the 1873 view) give scale to the landscape and emphasise its primeval nature. The figure precariously balanced on the end of the rocky ledge adds frisson to the scene.

J. H. Carse was the son of a popular genre painter, Alexander Carse, and studied with his father and at the Royal Scottish Academy before moving to London by 1860. He is thought to have arrived in Australia in 1867 as a member of the Duke of Edinburgh’s entourage. His surviving works suggest wide travel in New South Wales and Victoria.

Terence Lane