High: Down Under

Better-known for its seemingly endless plains, Australia isn’t particularly mountainous, and has few peaks higher than 2,000 metres (6,500 feet), all of which are in the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales. These weren’t explored by Europeans until the 1840s, and those pioneers were followed two decades later by the first European landscape artists, notably Eugene von Guérard and Nicholas Chevalier.

Eugene von Guérard (1811-1901), View of the Gippsland Alps, from Bushy Park on the River Avon (1861), oil on canvas, 36.1 x 94.1 cm, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia. Wikimedia Commons.

Eugene von Guérard travelled east to reach the Victorian Alps, the southern end of the Australian Alps, where he painted this View of the Gippsland Alps, from Bushy Park on the River Avon in 1861. This ultra-panoramic view spans two panoramic canvases. These mountains rise to the peak of Mount Bogong at 1,986 metres (6,516 feet).

Eugene von Guérard (1811-1901), North-east View from the Northern Top of Mount Kosciusko (1863), oil on canvas, 66.5 x 116.8 cm, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia. Wikimedia Commons.

Von Guérard travelled to Mount Kosciuszko in late 1862 in company with the German polar explorer and meteorologist Georg von Neumayer (1826-1909), where he made sketches and studies before returning to his studio just before Christmas. The following year he painted North-east View from the Northern Top of Mount Kosciusko, one of his first views of the Snowy Mountains. Mount Kosciuszko, as it’s now spelled, is mainland Australia’s highest mountain, at 2,228 metres (7,310 feet). It’s now in its own national park, inland of the south-east coast. It was first ascended by Europeans in 1840, but for some years was mapped in the wrong location, an error that wasn’t resolved until 1940.

Eugene von Guérard (1811-1901), Mount Kosciusko, Seen from the Victorian Border (Mount Hope Ranges) (1866), oil on canvas, 108.2 x 153.3 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. Wikimedia Commons.

Around 1866, von Guérard seems to have returned to paint a distant view of Mount Kosciusko, Seen from the Victorian Border (Mount Hope Ranges).

Eugene von Guérard (1811-1901), Yalla-y-Poora (1864), oil on canvas, 71.6 x 122 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. Wikimedia Commons.

Von Guérard’s Yalla-y-Poora from 1864 shows a palatial pastoral station in Victoria’s Western District then owned by John Ware, who had its well-watered valley planted with a mixture of native and British tree species. The peak in the far distance is Mount Challicum. This was one of von Guérard’s last commissioned paintings of a homestead, as the fashion for these waned. He made his studies for this painting during a visit in May 1864.

Nicholas Chevalier (1828–1902), The Buffalo Ranges (1864), oil on canvas, 132.4 x 183.7 cm, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. Wikimedia Commons.

Nicholas Chevalier travelled to this area in the same year, when he painted The Buffalo Ranges (1864). Now a National Park, its rugged plateau is about 1700 metres (5,600 feet) above sea level. This view appears to have been made during the winter, when snow settles on the plateau. The small cottage in the foreground has an overshot waterwheel to the right.

Eugene von Guérard (1811-1901), Govett’s Leap and Grose River Valley, Blue Mountains, New South Wales (1873), oil on canvas, 68.5 cm x 106.4 cm, location not known. Wikimedia Commons.

Von Guérard’s view of Govett’s Leap and Grose River Valley, Blue Mountains, New South Wales (1873) shows this spectacular bridal veil waterfall, sometimes known as the Bridal Veil Falls, near Blackheath in the Blue Mountains. This is close to the outskirts of modern Sydney. Govett was the surveyor who discovered these falls in about 1831. With a drop of about 180 metres (just under 600 feet), this is now a popular spot for visitors.

Nicholas Chevalier (1828–1902), Mount Arapiles and the Mitre Rock (1863), oil on canvas, 77.5 x 120.6 cm, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, Australia. Wikimedia Commons.

In 1863, Chevalier travelled to western Victoria, to Mount Arapiles and the Mitre Rock (1863). This had been discovered and climbed in 1836, and has the original name of Djurid. This rock formation rises to 140 metres (450 feet) above the Wimmera plains, and is now a popular destination for rock climbers.

In the late 1870s von Guérard travelled to New Zealand, where he again headed for the mountains. South Island is the more mountainous, with more than twenty-five named peaks over 3,000 metres (9,800 feet), the highest of which is Aoraki or Mount Cook, at 3,724 metres (12,218 feet). It was the lower Mount Earnslaw, though, which became painted the most in those early days of exploration.

Eugène von Guérard (1811-1901), Lake Wakatipu with Mount Earnslaw, Middle Island, New Zealand (1877-79), oil on canvas, 99.1 x 176.5 cm, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland, New Zealand. Wikimedia Commons.

Eugène von Guérard’s timeless masterwork of Lake Wakatipu with Mount Earnslaw, Middle Island, New Zealand was painted in the studio between 1877-79.

As the paint was still drying on that view, John Turnbull Thomson retired from his appointment as the first Surveyor General of New Zealand to spend more time painting its landscape.

John Turnbull Thomson (1821–1884), Mount Earnslaw (New Zealand) (1883), oil on canvas, 67 x 96.5 cm, Hocken Collections, University of Otago, Dunedin City, New Zealand. Wikimedia Commons.

Thomson must have travelled to paint Mount Earnslaw in 1883, just a year before his death. This mountain, also known by its original name of Pikirakatahi, is 2,830 metres (9,285 feet) high, and had been discovered by Thomson, who named it in honour of his father’s home town in Berwickshire. The previous year, the mountaineer the Reverend WS Green, who had intended to climb Mount Cook, attempted to climb Earnslaw, but he was forced to abandon the climb at the halfway point, and it wasn’t climbed until 1890, when Harry Birley was the first to reach its summit.

Marianne North (1830–1890), View of Lake Wakatipe, New Zealand (1880-82), oil on board, dimensions not known, Marianne North Gallery, Kew, England. Wikimedia Commons.

When the great botanical artist Marianne North visited New Zealand just a few years before Thomson painted his view, she captured it in her View of Lake Wakatipu, New Zealand (1880-82).

Being on the Pacific’s Rim of Fire, New Zealand has many active volcanoes, most of which are on North Island. Among the highest there is Mount Ruapehu, at 2,797 metres (9,177 feet). Sometimes those volcanoes erupt violently, as Mount Tarawera did on 10 June 1886.

Charles Blomfield (1848–1926), White Terraces, Rotomahana (1897), oil on canvas, 86.8 x 148.3 cm, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland, New Zealand. Wikimedia Commons.

Charles Blomfield had on several occasions visited the world-famous pink and white silica sinter terraces near Lake Rotomahana before the eruption of nearby Mount Tarawera. During that eruption, the terraces vanished under sixty metres of water, and were only rediscovered in 2011. Blomfield didn’t paint the White Terraces, Rotomahana until 1897, by which time they were presumed to have been lost for ever.