Norman Lindsay
Benediction
Norman Lindsay had been a member of a Bohemian Sketch Club,
called the Prehistoric Order of Cannibals, in his youth. In
the 1920s he returned to the old Arcadian themes in which Australia
was depicted as a happy pastoral and pagan place remote from the
ugliness of the modern world. In a conventional sense
Benediction, which means 'blessing' also refers to the ceremonial
display of the Holy Sacrament. This work, with its naked
goddess, and its exotic birds and animals, is consciously the
antithesis of Christian 'Benediction'.
In donating the work, the artist noted:
"I would have to confess ingratitude to the Art Gallery of
Ballarat if I did not return something tangible from the great
stimulus it was to me as a boy. It is hardly possible to
estimate the cost of such a stimulus of such an institution to any
community. You have only to total up the best painters who
have come from around the Ballarat District to be assured that the
Gallery must have had a strong informative influence on their
development. I know it was in my case. As a small boy
of 5 or 6 my grandfather, the Rev. Thomas Williams, used to take me
there, and solemnly lecture me on the qualities of the various
works and I spent many hours there later on my own account, and
still have tender memories of the Ajax and Cassandra…".