Influences and Style
The School's artists were clearly influenced by the international Impressionist movement, and took up many of the concepts of the group. They regularly painted plein air landscapes, as well as using art to depict daily life. They showed a keen interest in the instantaneous effects of lighting, and experimented with a variety of brushstroke techniques; McCubbin in particular used the small, contrasting blocks of strong colour that were a trademark of some Impressionist work. However, these artists should not be viewed as merely copying an international trend. Works of the Heidelberg school are generally viewed as some of the first Western art to realistically and sensitively depict the Australian landscape as it actually exists. Many earlier works look like European scenes and do not reflect the harsh sunlight, earthier colours, and distinctive vegetation of the land they painted.
Read more about this topic: Heidelberg School
Famous quotes containing the words influences and/or style:
“Do not seek anxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to many influences to be played on; it is all dissipation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The difference between style and taste is never easy to define, but style tends to be centered on the social, and taste upon the individual. Style then works along axes of similarity to identify group membership, to relate to the social order; taste works within style to differentiate and construct the individual. Style speaks about social factors such as class, age, and other more flexible, less definable social formations; taste talks of the individual inflection of the social.”
—John Fiske (b. 1939)