Australian Tonalism

Australian tonalism - known in its day as tonal realism or Meldrumism - was founded by the Melbourne painter and teacher Max Meldrum, who argued that painting is a pure science of optical analysis: the artist should record tone and tonal relationships exactly as the eye receives them, in order, without narrative or color vanity. From 1919 his students, notably Clarice Beckett, exhibited together, painting in fog and wet weather whose soft light maximized tonal effect. Their misty, unadorned scenes of beaches, parks, and suburbia scandalized a nationalist art world but are now prized for their economy, and have been read as a precursor of minimalism and the first major advance in Australian landscape painting since the 1880s.

Defining characteristics

• Tone placed before color and drawing: values recorded exactly as the eye receives them
• Soft-focus, atmospheric effects - fog, dusk, wet surfaces
• Humble, everyday subjects: suburban streets, beaches, still lifes
• Minimal detail and muted, silvery palettes
• Painted in single sittings directly from observation

Key figures

• Max Meldrum (1875-1955) — Founder whose 'Scientific Order of Impressions' defined the method
• Clarice Beckett (1887-1935) — Its finest painter, of misty beaches and suburban evenings

Example works

• Wet Evening — Clarice Beckett (1927)
• Wet Night, Brighton — Clarice Beckett (1930)
• Eltham — Albert Ernest Newbury (1919)

Sources

• Australian Tonalism - Wikipedia encyclopedia

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