David Davies: The Evanescence of Form

"Moonrise, Templestowe" by David Davies

"After his sojourn in Europe, David Davies painted a kindlier earth and season, where brown ploughed fields and green or matured crops welcomed the rain or awaited the harvester. Late afternoon or evening effects at this time gave incentive to the painter's powers... Low toned and fused edged motifs were chosen by him in spite of the difficulties that required a sincere thrashing out of their dim and wavering contours and uncertain depths. 

Sincerity such as his required rather that the daily miracle of the evanescence of forms must be intently studied to ensure the representation it deserved. The fugitive effects last but a few minutes, and the varying days, each with a mind of its own, do their best to frustrate the painter in his desire to catch the appearance and mood of the fleeting hour. He must lie in wait, at the same time every day, in the hope that at that hour the scene will approximate to the one he has begun. It never does more than that, but from the study of a number of such effects the painter learns the anatomy of twilight; and to memorable after-glows and dusks he applies the principles of treatment common to the transient hour whose volatility he tries to fix. To attain anything like satisfactory results in it calls for great gifts and great knowledge.

David Davies had both, and from 1893 to 1896, he turned out a number of pictures in which were admirably caught the tremulous sense of gloaming and all that that magical hour holds. With one exception, these pictures were bought by private individuals, and only one was acquired by the national Gallery of the capital city of his native State. This is a 'Moonrise,' unique in the beauty of its presentation of all those difficult, elusive components that make up the theme. Why other other works of a man who, in this picture, so plainly showed his great ability to paint and interpret the rare moods of nature were not purchased by the official guardians and fosterers of Australian art is a genuine puzzle to painters. They know what his difficulties were, how he tackled them and how he surmounted them, but bigotry or stupidity stood in the way of acquiring more works of like quality from the same source."  

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art and Life of David Davies" by James MacDonald.)  

David Davies: Beginnings

"Under the Burden and Heat of the Day" by David Davies

"David Davies was born in Ballarat, central Victoria, Australia, on the Yarrowee River, about 1862, of Welsh parents. Perhaps his Welsh parentage may be taken to account for his persistent endeavour to get at the inner meaning of nature, and so to present it, that in his work, apparent, matter of fact statements of reality always have, inherent in them, the mystery that pervades life.

In character he was dreamy and retiring, but industrious, and while a youth, went to Melbourne to study under the late G.F. Folingsby, who at that time also had under him Langstaff, Abbey Altson, E.P. Fox, and others who subsequently did good work. Davies settled down to hard work and learned to draw. He became so good a draughtsman that, many years later, after long abstinence from figure work, he was able, without straining his artistic powers, very creditably to execute portrait commissions.

He won no travelling scholarship, but about 1890 he went to Paris, where he studied at Julian's and, incidentally, married a fellow student. In 1893, two years after his marriage, he returned to Australia, and took up his residence at Templestowe, and there he produced a large number of pictures which, for their portrayal of an unfamiliar aspect of Australia, were altogether original.

No one before had shown on canvas that he saw the country just as this man saw it. Before he first left Australia he had painted a picture called 'The Burden and Heat of the Day,' showing two men, under a tree, behind whose shadow, in the blinding pallid glare of noon, the sun beats down on a parched and bleaching landscape, aquiver with grilling heat. Though tight of drawing, and hard as to textures and modelling, paramount in it is the feeling of relentless, steely, midsummer and its effect on the two prostrated men." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "The Art and Life of David Davies" by James MacDonald, 1930.)