Eugene von GUÉRARD

Austrian 1811–1901
worked in Australia 1852–82, Germany 1882–91, England 1891–1901

Spring in the valley of the Mitta Mitta with the Bogong Ranges in the distance, 1863, is typical of the grand panoramas by Eugène von Guérard that were so admired in the 1860s. At first glance the landscape appears to be a primeval one, but a closer inspection reveals a bridle path in the foreground and stock on the floodplain. The picture is, in fact, a celebration of settlement and an endorsement of the settlers’ claim to the land. Spring in the valley of the Mitta Mitta was bought by Western District grazier John Ware and hung in his new homestead, Yalla-y-Poora, near Streatham, together with von Guérard’s magnificent ‘portrait’ of that property, commissioned in 1864.

The Melbourne Public Library’s acquisition of a second, larger version of Spring in the valley of the Mitta Mitta, 1866, (in the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria, Gift of the Hon. Sir Archibald Michie) represented a very public endorsement of von Guérard by the city’s art establishment, after he had spent twelve years in Melbourne. This honour was followed in 1870 by the purchase of his Mount Kosciusko, seen from the Victorian border (Mount Hope Ranges), 1866, for the newly-named National Gallery of Victoria, and by his appointment as curator of the Gallery and master of the School of Painting. The Gallery’s Spring in the valley of the Mitta Mitta was much praised at the time:

M. Von Guerard’s strength lies in his airy distances, and in his masterly treatment of mountain scenery. It may sound like a paradox to say so, but he is at once the most literal and most poetic translator of mountain beauty. He studies it with the eye of a poet, and he depicts it with the hand of a conscientious artist.1

1 Argus, Melbourne, 24 April 1866, p. 5.

Terence Lane

When John Ware came to Yalla-y-poora the place was practically a wilderness, but owing to his great pioneering work, notable for the untiring energy and enterprise shown by him, it became one of the finest pastoral properties in the State. The splendid homestead and outbuildings of bluestone erected by John Ware show that his judgement and taste were of a very high order; he also laid the foundations of the now flourishing plantations of native and English trees, such a marked feature of the estate. As a breeder of merino sheep his ability was undoubted, and he brought the Yalla-y-poora flock to a high state of efficiency.1

John Ware was a member of the pioneering generation of pastoralists who settled the Western District of Victoria in the 1830s and early 1840s. The Yalla-y-Poora run, on Fiery Creek, near Streatham, was first taken up by Stevens & Thomson in 1841.2 The Ware family acquired it in the mid 1850s, and it passed to John after his eldest brother’s untimely death in 1859. When Eugène von Guérard visited in 1864 seeking commissions for homestead portraits, John Ware ordered the larger size of canvas. The new homestead nestles in its pleasure grounds on a bend of the Fiery Creek. Members of the family linger on the portico, having farewelled the guests whose carriage has just left the formal gardens and now approaches the bridge. But this leisured lifestyle is the reward of industry, and von Guérard also shows us the mechanics of a working property. A drover and his dog drive a flock of sheep across the foreground, and the eye rises to Mount Challicum and the woolshed, which presides over the scene. We see the haystack, the windmills, the orchards and the fenced paddocks for grazing and crops. Von Guérard’s scientific mind is also interested in the curious volcanic rocks in the foreground, and how the creek has been dammed to make the ornamental lake which also serves as a sheepdip. A rigorous geometry underpins the picture, which is one of von Guérard’s grandest.

1 A. Henderson, Early Pioneer Families of Victoria and Riverina: A Genealogical and Biographical Record, Melbourne, 1936, p. 542.

2 Alfred Taddy Thomson returned to England and was the London buyer for the National Gallery of Victoria, 1867–90.

Terence Lane