Above : Conrad Martens : Scene in the Blue Mountains, 1836 (courtesy State Library of NSW) Below left to right :

Jose De Koster: Porter's Pass, mixed media

Conrad Clark : Narrow Neck, Blue Mountains, oil on canvas, 1995 Reinis Zusters: Weathered Mountains, oil on canvas , I 38x I 38cms, 1995

Venita Salnajs: Towards Oberon, acrylic on paper , I 68x 168 ems, 1994

David Hill: The Three Sisters, oil on canvas, 90x70cm, 1993

C harles Darwin's description of Wentworth Falls (then called Weatherboard Falls)

from his Journal in 1836 is to be found on a plaque in Wentworth Falls village today, not far from the site of the original Weatherboard Inn. Mrs. Meredith's and Charles Darwin's descriptions of what is now called Darwin's Walk, Wentworth Falls, are shared by those who today visit this place for the first time. In his painting, Darwin's Walk, Blue Mountains artist Reinis Zusters, whose studio overlooks the walk, makes a contemporary comment with his inclusion of the visitors who make their pilgrimmage to this historic place.

It is largely due to the diaries and journals commonly kept by

nineteenth-century travellers, with their sketches and drawings which were the only records they could take away of these extraordinary scenes, that we are able to understand the response of the early visitors to this landscape and appreciate the hardships suffered by our hardy forebears in pursuit of the novel and the educative. Often, their pictorial impressions of arcadian scenes referred more directly to their European origins than to the dramatic Blue Mountains landscape which we now know to be the oldest land on earth.

Sydney 's most popular artist in the mid-nineteenth century, Conrad Martens, depicted a scene (shown here) with an Aborigine in a Blue Mountains gully in one of these early records. His later painting of the Zig Zag Railway is one of the most famous historical paintings of Blue Mountains subjects.

The Aborigines' own record left on the ancient sandstone, which precedes these European records by more years than we as yet know, is accessible at such sites as Red Hand

Cave near Eureka Clearing, Glen brook, and King's Tableland in Wentworth Falls. Recently artefacts found at the foot of the mountains have been dated at 45 ,000 years (Blue Mountains Dreaming, The Aboriginal Heritage, ed. Eugene Stockton).

When the Grand Canyon was still just a few centimetres deep , the ancient dissected sandstone plateau of the Blue Mountains was much as it is today. Little wonder then that the impact of this landscape has been so great and continues to enthrall and inspire contemporary artists. In Landscape Art and the Blue Mountains, artist Hugh Speirs describes the artistic, historical and environmental influences on the landscape art of the Blue Mountains and the ways in which nature and art may be linked in painting . His book has a brief Foreword by Professor Manning Clark and Preface by John Olsen. Olsen writes: 'In Australia we are apt to forget the uniqueness of our fauna and flora, as examples in the case of the Blue Mountains-exquisite banksias, grevilleas, superb eucalypts, a rock warbler that is only to be found in the sandstone country

LANDSCAPE An Inspiration to Artists

around Sydney; not to mention numerous parrots and honey-eaters . .. In Australia we are a comparatively new people in a very old continent­we have so much looking to do before we can find forms to explain it in poetic terms.' Olsen goes on to suggest an additional title to the book: 'A Guide to Sensitive Living in the Blue Mountains', 'for Hugh Speirs gives us splendid guidelines on how to live in these beautiful mountains and enjoy it!' Speirs' book is no longer in print but copies can frequently be found in antiquarian and secondhand bookshops and in libraries.

Some of the bestknown landscape painters in Australia live and work in the Blue Mountains. John Olsen has lived in Wentworth Falls and now lives further inland at Hampton.

Reinis Zusters, who arrived in

Australia from Latvia in 195 I, believes

that 'frequently the beauty of a

country is more apparent in the

poignant impressions of a stranger.' In

the Blue Mountains 'one can soar not

only in the heights of this dramatic

and breathtaking landscape but, with

'In the middle of the day we baited our horses at a little inn, called the Weatherboard. The country here is

elevated 2,800 ft above the sea. About a mile and a half from this place there is a view exceedingly well

worth visiting. Following down a little valley and its tiny rill of water , an immense gulf unexpectedly opens

through the trees which border the pathway, at the depth of perhaps I ,500 ft. Walking on a few yards, one

stands on the brink of a vast precipice, and below one sees a grand bay or gulf, for I know not what other

name to give it, thickly covered with forest. The point of view is situated as if at the head of a bay, the line of

cliff diverging on each side, and showing headland behind headland, as on a bold sea-coast ... About five miles

distant in front, another line of cliff extends , which thus appears completely to encircle the valley; and hence

the name of bay is justified, as applied to this grand amphitheatrical depression .... This kind of view was to

me quite novel, and extremely magnificent.' (Charles Darwin in his Journal, January 17, 1836)

'After an early breakfast the following morning, we set forth on foot to visit a waterfall. Entering a little

valley with low hills on either side, we soon reached the borders of a bright brook , that, as it gurgled and

glittered over its rocky bed, spoke to me of many a lovely valley and verdant meadow at home ... After our

dry and parching journey, it was delightful to walk close beside it ....

'A group of slender young gum-trees attracted my attention by their very graceful forms and polished

verdure; and when opposite to them, we saw as through a purposed entrance, that they formed a nearly

circular bower, beneath whose leafy canopy dwelt a sisterhood of queens-a group of eight or ten splendid

waratahs, straight as arrows ... and we pursued our way still along the green little valley, and close beside the

streamlet, which as we advanced , flowed much more swiftly, and a sound of pouring water reached us, the

cause of which was soon explained by one of the most stupendous scenes I ever beheld, bursting

unexpectedly upon us.

'Suddenly we found ourselves standing on the brink of a tremendous precipice; for though I have spoken of

traversing a valley, be it remembered that this was on one of the highest parts of the Blue Mountains and the

valley itself merely a watercourse.' (Mrs. Charles Meredith describing Darwin's Walk and Wentworth Falls

in her Notes and Sketches of NSW. .. I 839 to I 844)

Wh<t d idnt 'too ~alee.. tne.., mountains more blue ... ?

eye close to earth, can be equally impressed and intrigued ... .

'The Blue Mountains lure me . The close-focus and long-range aspects of the landscape present a magical ambiguity and this, coupled with its fogs, lichen and moss and its perpetual. blue, totally absorb me.'

Warwick Fuller describes the grandeur, majesty, dramatic forms and unique light of the Blue Mountains as 'an artist's smorgasbord' . 'From the Hawkesbury-Nepean River on one side and the Hartley district on the other, I find a diversity of subjects that stretches the philosophical basis for my painting: my constant search to find a means of expressing the way I feel about or the way I respond emotionally to the landscape .. .

' I let the piece of country I'm in wash over me, absorbing the smells , the sounds, the subtle fleeting images, with all my senses activated ... I work intuitively and retain the initial emotional response.

'From the eastern escarpment looking towards the plains, on most days the smog of Sydney gives a wonderful colour and low key atmosphere in the afternoon's direct light.

'The abrupt edge to the eastern side of the mountains, accentuated by the Nepean River, is the source of much inspiration-the river creates a sky­reflected slash through the deep, transparent morning shadows of the gorge, or languid shallows of sienna in the fretwork of stripped weeping willows during the winter months.

'The Hartley-Lithgow side has a totally different feel: the light is usually brighter, but it is the structure of the undulating country running away from the Western escarpment that contrasts most noticeably-the land has a more sensuous line.'

For Michael White, too, landscape is the dominant theme. 'It is always changing but remains eternal. My relationship with the landscape is essentially spiritual, an unconditional love for something that is always there, waiting to accept me as I am ...

'I am conscious of the colours of the landscape choosing me and inspiring paintings that fit the mood. I see infinite possibilities . Nature is always presenting me with something I hadn't

previously considered-something fresh. I realise now that my chosen path is indeed a timeless journey-a journey without need of destination.'

John Caldwell lives in Blackheath and his work is represented in the Kedumba Gallery at the Blue Mountains Grammar School. 'More frequently the Blue Mountains landscape is seen from the top of the plateau when the viewer looks down into the valleys .' However, in the ravine in shadow shown here , 'the experience of vertical space is as significant as the horizontal. In this work I have tried to give the sense of space by looking up from below the escarpment.'

Adolph Sepetauc, a lifetime resident of the Blue Mountains, has recently produced a series of works featuring Mt. Hay and the road leading to this landmark outcrop. David Hill's well­recognised style is one which he describes as inclining towards synchromism (when painting and music are combined) . Jose De Koster's work is regularly, successfully, shown in Holland where he says it is instantly recognisable as that of an Australian artist. Sculptor and furniture maker Conrad Clark has also come to the Mountains from England via Greece , and yet his landscapes are also very distinctively Australian in character.

Venita Salnajs' view towards Oberon is a beautiful example of one of this artist's rarer landscapes. Kerry Johns'

striking view of the mountains from her studio at Everglades in Leura is the cover painting of Issue 13 of OZ Arts, the potted cyclamen and ballustrade in the foreground humanising the aloof grandeur of the landscape. Anne Smith's intimate etchings show scenes from her own Blue Mountains environment-her home and gallery in Falls Road, Wentworth Falls, while Robyn Caughlan's Aboriginal heritage is reflected in her beautifully worked mythical landscapes.

From the marks of the indigenous Mountains dwellers to the notebooks and drawings of the first European visitors and settlers, the early paintings and photographs, to the film of today ... From experiencing the sights, sounds, smells , colours, romance and danger at first hand, we have now arrived at a very twenty­first century experience: Today's visitors to the Blue Mountains are able to sit in a cinema in front of a screen six storeys high and watch The Edge, an extraordinary film shot by internationally famous film maker John Weiley in the Blue Mountains' most spectacu lar and inaccessible places, and be liter ally enveloped in sights which they would never otherwise be able to see. The surprise is that after almost 200 years so much of the mountains still remains secret and intact-the same formidable, impenetrable, extraordinary wilderness that our forebears saw. We must all be thankful for that.

Carolynne Skinner

References and further reading:

Hugh Speirs: Landscape Art and the Blue Mountains, Foreword by C. Manning Clark,

Preface by John Olsen, published by Alternative

Publishing Co-operative, 1981, ISBN

0909188513

John Low: Pictorial Memories-Blue Mountains, published by Atrand Pty. Ltd., 1991, ISBN

0908272251

Eugene Stockton, edito r, Blue Mountains Dreaming-The Aboriginal Heritage, A Three

Sisters Publication for the Aboriginal Resource

Collective 1993, ISBN 0646148834

George Mackaness, collected and edited :

Fourteen Journeys over the Blue Mountains of NSW, published by Horwitz Grahame, 1965,

Sydney (beginning with Gregory Blaxland's A

Journal of a Tour of Discovery Across the Blue Mountains, 1813)

Paintings by Richard Smolicz, Historic text by

John Low, Historic Blue Mountains, published by

the Blue Mountains City Council, 1987, ISBN

0959304525

Clockwise from top right:

Robyn Caughlan : Mythical Landscape on Fire Anne Smith : Waratahs, etching, 22c30cms, edition 30

Adolph Sepetauc: Road to Mt. Hay, oil and acrylic on

canvas , 1995

Warwick Fuller: So~ Light, Blue Mountains, I 8"x24",

1992

John Caldwell : Ravine in Shadow, mixed media on

paper, 73x96

Michael White : Windswept C/ifftops, 60x45 ems,

oil/canvas, 1995