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Artist
Eugene von Guerard
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Born
1811
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Died
1901
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Title
Bushfire (also known as 'Bush fire between Mount Elephant and Timboon 1857'
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Date of Production
1859
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Medium
oil on canvas mounted on board
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Dimensions
34.8 x 56.3 cm
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Credit Details
Gift of Lady Currie in memory of her husband, the late Sir Alan Currie, 1948
Eugene von Guerard
Bushfire (also known as 'Bush fire between Mount Elephant and Timboon 1857'
One of the most important
Australian landscape painters of the 1850's and 60's, Eugene von
Guerard travelled extensively throughout Victoria, Tasmania and
South Australia after resuming his career as a artist in
1854. One of these trips was to Western Victoria with its mix
of pastoral and ancient volcanic landscapes where Eugene von
Guerard witnessed a bushfire. Painted in 1859 from
sketches made at Meningoort, Bushfire is one of the few
oils by Eugene von Guerard that depicts the destructive force of
nature.
Struck by the size and the devastation of the fire as it swept
at an amazing speed across the landscape, von Guerard has captured
the wall of flame accompanied by large plumes of smoke as it
stretched along 30 kms of the horizon between Mt Elephant and
'Timboon' now known as Camperdown.
Bushfire has also been known as 'Bush fire between
Mount Elephant and Timboon 1857'. As per the conventions used
within art museums the title used is the one which the work was
first exhibited. Recent research conducted by the National Gallery
of Victoria revealed that Bushfire was the original
title.
It is this painting that the artist Imants Tillers was to use as
the basis for his Model of Reality some 150 years later.