Sidney Nolan's Influence On Australian Life

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Sidney Nolan Well known for his depictions of Australian life, Sidney Nolan became one of Australia’s most recognisable artists. 2017 marks the hundredth year of his birth (22nd April 1917). This provides a rare opportunity to reintroduce some of Nolan’s work and artistic visions. The event contains a collection of artworks throughout Nolan’s life and includes part of the Ned Kelly that Nolan is most well known for. Renowned for his depictions of the Kelly Gang bushrangers, his interest in the negative aspects of life also led to depictions of shipwreck victim Eliza Fraser and the explorers Burke and Wills. It is Nolan’s iconic paintings of the Kelly Gang that led to the development of Ned Kelly as a symbol for Australian history and identity. …show more content…

In 1938 he joined a group known as the Angry Penguins, named after the radical cultural journal, which sought to influence Australian art by adopting the unique and modern ideas associated with surrealism. (Art Gallery NSW 2017) He was conscripted into the army in 1942, where he spent two years in north-western Victoria. However in 1944 he deserted the army, and Nolan lived under the fake name of Robert Murray, where he began the series he was most known for – his depiction of Ned Kelly. (Art Gallery NSW …show more content…

Having studied art in Australia, Nolan’s works featured a lot of Australian landscapes and icons. Even though in his later life he had left Australia, Nolan continued to paint the Australian outback and bushlands, and Ned Kelly (Kelly 1956). More negative emotions seemed to capture Nolan’s interests – his empathy towards the bushranger Ned Kelly, shipwreck victims and the death of explorers became his main topics and those emotions are transferred through the paintings. These themes of loss and tragedy can be seen throughout his oeuvre. Cultural movements also played a role in developing Nolan’s unique style – self-taught in surrealism and seeking to use modernism to advance Australian art and poetry, these movements can also be seen throughout his works. Modernism represents those who felt that old forms were becoming outdated in the new age of the industrialised world – characteristic of modernism is the experimentation with form, and the idea of rejecting realism. (Wikipedia

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