Tom Roberts

Tom Roberts was born 8th March 1856 in Dorchester, England and came to Australia as a child in 1869. He worked as a photographer and technician for twelve years in Melbourne and studied under Louis Buvelot and Thomas Clark. He returned to England to study at the Royal Academy and was influenced by Bastien-Lepage and Millet. In 1883 he went on a walking tour of Spain with John Peter Russell, they discovered plein air painting and embraced impressionism, Roberts returned to Melbourne in 1885.

Together with Louis Abrahams and FrederickMcCubbin, they camped and painted at Box Hill and later at Mentone and Beaumaris where they met Arthur Streeton and were later joined by Charles Conder. Roberts painting nickname was 'Bulldog'. The art school and style that they developed became known as 'the Heidelberg School'.

Roberts loved to travel, extensively throughout Australia and Europe. He moved to Sydney and the group painted at their camp in Little Sirius Cove. He returned to Melbourne in 1901 and accepted a commission to paint the 'Opening of the First Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia'  a monumental work which took him two and a half years to complete.

In 1903 Roberts journeyed back to England and returned to Melbourne twenty years later settling at Kallista in the Dandenong Ranges. Roberts had a son Caleb (1898) by his first wife Elizabeth (Lillie) Williamson who died in 1928 whereupon he married Jean Boyes. He died 14th September 1931.

His great legacy is the superb collection of landscapes, action paintings and portraits that can be seen in state, regional and private galleries in Australia.

He was the 'Father of the Heidelberg School' of Australian landscape painting.

  'Slumbering sea, Mentone' 1887 depicts a relaxing summer's day on Port Phillip Bay, south of Melbourne. The beach is seen at eye-level, making us feel as if we are there, walking along the coarse sandy foreshore.

The sun is at its peak, since the shadows are cast directly down and form the darkest tonal areas of the painting. The shadowed cliff, painted in deep browns, introduces a sense of solidity into an otherwise light and shimmering scene. Roberts has not concerned himself with realistic detail; the trees on top of the cliff become a single mass of various greens, the seated woman's costume lacks any specific detailing and her face remains quite featureless.

Roberts has caught the casual atmosphere in a single moment, as in a snapshot. The people and even the dog in this painting are no longer in awe of, or conquering, nature as in earlier colonial art; rather they remain at ease with the environment and use it solely for leisure. The painting celebrates the general characteristics of sea, beach and cliffs at Mentone as the seated onlooker and the boating party enjoy a warm summer's day.

'Slumbering sea, Mentone'  was painted in the summer of early 1887 and is highly likely to be a plein air work completed in one or a couple of painting sessions. Roberts painted wet into wet oil paint (alla prima), therefore dabbing effects were produced to avoid mixing the paints on the surface of the painting. The luminous quality of the work was achieved by painting on to a white ground and using colours that were light and equal in tone.