Arthur Streeton Frederick McCubbin

Clarice Beckett born in Melbourne 1887

Kristel thornell attempted to look at beckett the same way as clarice looked at
landscapes
Squinting to see the soft edges
Kristel thornell:
Considered her work realistic
Accurate illusion of reality
Minimal, simple flavour
Little detail, atmosphere of psychological space
Evocative, haunting, space to imagine into the frame
Painting:
A man of a certain age standing at the end of a shadowy pathway close to the
sea
-see very little of the man, but he is there a dark, mysterious presence, you feel
his presence without discerning his face
Compelling, captivating figure with no precision
Insubstantial features of the painting- like a dream
Subtle shifts and slides- subtlely makes them so enigmatic and attractive.
Not being quite sure where you are going in the painting, but going somewhere
Beckett took teachings of meldrum and incorporates it into her own paintings
Individual and expressive
Sense of psychological energy and atmosphere- very emotional in a mysterious
way
Clarice- Inner life was very vivid and rich
Solitude is key, enormously internal, great intensity beneath the surface,
beneath the peaceful, tranquil faade
No marriage- chose not to marry- helped inform and shape her life for art
Gives Clarice space for her art
[Section reflecting on her suitors]

As can happened, he had flattened out in the process of growing older and trying
to make himself into a man
There was no perspective to him anymore, nothing to look back into, no vista.
Finding him quite insipid, she turned him down.
Using the language of art to get into the world of Beckett
Thornell mirrors Becketts style of painting in her writing
Gives a sense of psychological space for imagination
Minimal feeling, sense of empty space for the reader to imagine into as the view
imagines into painting
Similarity between solitary painter and solitary writers
Writers and visual artists have a lot in common, have the sense that they see
things quite similarly
They are observers, have the quality of watching the world, an internal
way of being.
Simple, intimate views, little, modest and unassuming visions of the city of
Melbourne and surburbia, have this universal quality
Imagination- the ability to form new images and sensations in the mind that are
not perceived through senses such as sight, hearing, or other senses. It is a
whole cycle of image formation or any sensation which may be described as
hidden as it takes place without anyone elses knowledge.