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Frederick McCubbin choose to paint " The Pioneer", because he preferred melancholy or even tragic themes, and settings which emphasize the tones of the landscape. He was more interested in creating a certain kind of mood than in making a detailed analysis of a particular atmospheric effect.

The Pioneer' is considered one of our great Australian paintings and is one of the icon works of the Heidelberg School period. This narrative work is greatly loved by the public, and was painted in the bush on Mount Macedon, a little above McCubbin's cottage.

The composition of the painting is: The first panel represents the free-selector, who has ventured into the bush with his wife, and has chosen the bushland property for their future home. The wife looks despondent, and her expression is one of a person deep in thought. The second panel represents the settled landscape. He has cleared much of the bush land of his property and has built a hut for shelter, and the smoke rising from its chimney indicates that he has provided warmth. The panel shows that time has been forgotten, and his wife indicates this with their baby that she holds in her arms. The third panel represents some time in the distant future, and it is in this panel that the uncertain nature of Frederick McCubbin's work is most evident. We know that time has delivered, with a city now visible in the distant background. But Frederick McCubbin does not tell who the youth is in this last panel, and what the grave is that he has found. Does he just represent the next generation, a stranger who has stumbled upon the graves of the pioneer and possibly his wife in the bush? Or is it the young child, painted in the second panel, now grown up, and visiting the grave of his parents? McCubbin does not tell us. The fire in the painting shows us that the bush can get cold during the day because the trees are blocking the heat of the sun. The green and brown of the trees and the floor dominates the Australian bush. Perspective is evident in the painting showing the city in the background of the last panel trailing into the Australian bush in the foreground. The painting which Frederick McCubbin has painted is very realism because it looks like a picture that he has taken and it is very detailed showing the expression of the wife in the first panel and the smoke of the fire.

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14y ago

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