Today we ventured out in spite of the drizzle; sitting about for more than a day is not good for the soul, although I do accept there will come a time when we will have to reconcile ourselves to doing so.
We were buoyed by news received late last night via email that my parents had not only survived their days bobbing down the Clarence River in the South Island of New Zealand, but had one of the most amazing adventures of their life, gale force winds smashing their tent, sleeping out under the stars, paddling the wild water, all taken in their stride as only intrepid travellers in their eighties can do. This certainly puts our own adventures in perspective!
Our first stop in the city was the Information Centre where we replaced our excellent transport map which was disintegrating from overuse. The volunteer in the Centre was very helpful, friendly and most informative in response to several questions posed. We had narrowed our to-so list down to one page before deciding to book and pay for another week here at the Sundowner Rockbank Caravan Park this morning, but now there are another half dozen attractions to be added to it. As I have said before, Melbourne is an amazing city, just full of tourist attractions and enough to keep one occupied for months!
With the weather as it was we next headed for the Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia (the other part of the National Art Gallery) housed in the buildings about Federation Square. We started with the ground floor where the Indigenous Galleries are. Here is the largest collection of Aboriginal art we have seen anywhere, hung on expansive walls in large spaces, so appropriate for this particular form of artwork. In my uneducated opinion, there is no great technical skill here, but it is the impression of colour and pattern that makes Aboriginal art stand out over and above any European abstract work. Note that I am referring here to the dot style painting not to that which emanates from the Hermansberg School.
We came upon the free afternoon tour soon after it had begun. Naturally we joined and tagged along, trailing along behind a charming Indian woman who was very interesting and gave us an excellent overview of the entire gallery.
After this energetic tour around three levels of the gallery, we retired for lunch in the shelter of the atrium of the square, before returning to explore the gallery for ourselves. This is of course just the over spill of the gallery in St Kilda Road, and it is here that most of the works attributed to Australian artists or those with Australian connections, are hung. There are wonderful works of art by many artists we have come upon elsewhere, colonial artists such as Eugene von Guerard and Louis Buvelot, those belonging to the Heidelberg School such as Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton and Rupert Bunny, then others like Hans Heysen, Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan, John Brack, and on and on. I continue to be astounded by the wealth of art that has been generated in this country. Some of the work by these artists is incorporated into the Joseph Brown Collection. He was yet another benefactor of the Art Gallery and gifted his substantial collection to the gallery on his death, some of his own work being amongst it.
There are currently a couple of special exhibitions on at this gallery; the first, Linda Jackson Bush Culture, which is a collection of wearable art designed and assembled from scratch by this woman over the decades from the 1970s through to the 1990s. She was a good friend of Jenny Kee whose knitting patterns of bold and bright colours I cherished back in those old days. The clothing on display is impractical and only suitable for the catwalk but very beautiful. The second was of photographs taken through the late 1870s and early 1880s titled Fred Kruger: Intimate Landscapes. Many of these photos were taken at the Coranderrk Aboriginal Station at the bidding of the Board of the Protection of Aborigines to document the life of those there.
It was late in the afternoon when we finally emerged to find no rain and crowds of people heading home as we were. But within sight of the railway station we remembered something the woman in the Information Centre had told us about that morning: "Go see Chloe in the Young & Jackson Pub on the corner." And so we did.
In 1875, a French artist by the name of Jules Lefebvre painted a nude, who has been immortalised as Chloe despite the model actually being Marie. The painting was purchased by a Melbourne citizen in 1883 and enjoyed fame and infamy for three whole weeks hung in the National Gallery of Victoria. Finally after an absolute uproar led by Presbyterian prudes, she was tucked away and forgotten until Messrs Young and Jackson purchased the painting in 1908 and gave her pride of place in their hotel. Given that women were not allowed into hotels, there was no matter of propriety to be considered. The drinkers could enjoy her state of undress as they swilled their beer with no fear of their wives or sisters complaining. The painting has, over the intervening years, become legendary. It is said that men about to head off to war would go into the bar to have a last drink with Chloe and then when and if they returned, catch up with her again. Today she hangs in an upstairs bar where one is obliged to buy a drink or order a meal in order to catch a glimpse of this lovely painting. We did neither, simply popped upstairs, checked her existence and left without real scrutiny of the true artistic merit of the painting. But we did go there.
We packed into the train, emerged at Sunshine and were swept along the station, through the tunnelled walkway and up to the street. The clouds were dark all about and the news suggests that there could well be flash flooding about but as night has fallen, no further rain has eventuated.
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