Brushes with Infidelity: Truth to Nature in Three Composite Landscapes by Eugene von Guerard

As German landscape painting increasingly focused on 'truth to nature' in the first half of the nineteenth-century, an earlier tradition of idealizing landscapes by combining scenes from different locations for compositional, poetic or symbolic purposes gave way to the science of landscape painting. Intense observation and accurate recording were required to portray creatively the essential nature of an environment. Although most of Eugene von Guerard's Antipodean landscapes are non-idealized, he may have painted a handful of idealized scenes in which topographical, geographical, geological and ecological elements from disparate landscapes are combined. This essay addresses the compositional development of three such 'problematic' paintings. Sketches and sites are investigated using a multidisciplinary, science-informed, empirical approach. Issues of fidelity to nature are examined by comparing painted and physical landscapes, taking into account recent human modifications. Finally, identified infidelities and their possible justifications are discussed.