CAPÍTULO 3: LAS REFORMAS NORMATIVAS EN MATERIA DE
3.1.2. Conciliación de la vida personal, laboral y familiar
In the first series, Nolan engaged with the legend of Kelly and presented an almighty figure with a bold presence. These paintings, now permanently displayed in a specially designed oval room at Canberra’s National Gallery of
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Australia, are often deemed the most important of Nolan’s oeuvre.61
The first series has a sense of narrative and unity like a large storyboard of dramatic moments in the Kelly saga. Nolan captioned the paintings in this series with anecdotes from the Royal Commissioners Report of 1881, newspapers of the day and J.J. Keneally’s The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang and their Pursuers (Nolan 1948, p. 20). These captions signalled Nolan’s research and interest in history but also marked his imaginative departure from historical fact.
The series begins with a pure landscape painting which depicts a large murky river and a burning fringe of trees or a setting sun on the horizon (Figure 10). Nolan stated he wanted this ambiguity of sun and fire “because this was a tranquil scene for the subsequent violence” (National Gallery of Australia 2010b). The suspense in this painting, a scene awaiting action, is an exciting opening to the series. I agree with Sayers (1994, p. 16) that the use of this painting to open the narrative highlights the importance of land to Nolan and his engagement with Kelly.62
However, in this series I feel the land primarily acts as a stage for the figures.63
61 The National Gallery of Australia (NGA) houses 26 of the 27 paintings: the NGA
bought one painting, The Death of Sergeant Kennedy at Stringybark Creek when it was first exhibited, and 25 were donated by Sunday Reed in 1977. In 2010, First Class Marksman, the missing painting from the NGA’s collection, was sold to a private
collector (Boland & Madden 2010). Interestingly, the first series gained little attention in Australia when it was exhibited at Valesquez Gallery in Melbourne in 1948. John Reed describes that the paintings “passed almost unnoticed” (Reed 1967, p. 443). Convinced that Nolan had talent, the Reeds took the Kelly paintings to be exhibited in Paris and Rome the following year where they were received well. Jean Cassou, head of the Musee national d’art modern in Paris, said the works made “a striking contribution to modern art” (quoted in Clark 1987, p. 73).
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The significance of land and the connection between Nolan, Kelly and the land will be further analysed in the next two sections.
63 To me, the importance of the land is most evident in other individual paintings of Kelly as I
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Figure 1 0 : Sidney Nolan, Landscape, 1947
The next twenty-six paintings portray episodes in Kelly’s short life in loose chronological order: from lesser known moments, such as setting fire to a tree to keep warm in Wombat Ranges,64 to the crucial moment when Constable
Fitzpatrick allegedly made advances towards Ned’s sister, Kate Kelly65 which
led to conflict between the police and the Kellys, to the incident at Stringybark Creek,66 the siege at Glenrowan,67 finally culminating in Ned Kelly’s trial in
which he was sentenced to death.68 However, the series is not intended to be a
literal sequential narrative. Nolan’s faux-naïf style69
lightens the solemnity of the historical quotes.
64The Burning Tree (1947) 65
Constable Fitzpatrick and Kate Kelly (1946)
66Stringybark Creek (1947)
67Burning at Glenrowan (1946), Siege at Glenrowan (1946) and Glenrowan (1946) 68The Trial (1947)
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Faux-naïf is French for ‘falsely naive’. The self-taught French painter Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) inspired Nolan’s faux-naïf style. Nolan had access to a catalogue of Rousseau’s 1942 retrospective exhibition when he was staying with the Reeds at Heide (Sayers 1994, p. 22).
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Nolan sought a distinctive way to portray Kelly. The most dominating feature of the first series is the black rectangular helmet which is visually striking in its simplicity.70 Initially, the silhouetted helmet was a way for Nolan
to make Kelly stand out against the flat and formless land of inland Australia. As Nolan commented, “You had a strange coloured monotonous bush and nothing stood out against it … when Kelly turned up with a black or rusty kind of armour, a man riding about on a horse, it stood out” (Nolan in Underhill 2007, p. 266). In the first Kelly series, the helmet dominates and disguises any trace of individuality through distinctive facial features, but paradoxically the helmet is how Kelly is identified. The helmet both represents and hides Kelly. It is a kind of mask. Phillipe Roberts-Jones asserts “masks are a way of escaping from reality and hiding, but they are also a way of asserting an inner reality” (1978, p. 96). The Kelly helmet could represent inner illumination (Gaston 2001, p. 101) as it blurs the line between historical fact and imagination. It is both historical and of the present, living on in an imaginative realm created by Nolan.
Nolan’s helmet apotheosises Kelly, giving him significance and standing beyond a moment in the past. Nolan’s patron John Reed encapsulated the importance of the helmet in immortalising Kelly:
For such a heroic concept it is, of course, necessary that we are not confronted with the image of the man as we know him; instead Nolan has created for us the beautiful, evocative and even majestic symbol of the famous Kelly armour, against which the other figures appear in all their human insignificance (Reed 1967, p. 446).
The helmet relates back to the real, historical Kelly and his physical iron mask which inspired it, but it is also more universal as it gives Kelly symbolic
70 There are several artworks that foreshadow Nolan’s use of the Kelly mask (for a discussion
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resonance. A naturalistic portrait would make Kelly appear human and mortal. In contrast, the helmet portrays Kelly as an irrepressible figure. Even when it is reduced in stature, the recognisable black helmet has a striking presence. Its simplicity creates a powerful and memorable impression and thus achieves the unforgettable quality Nolan strived for.71
In the first series, Nolan seems to be celebrating Kelly, the legendary figure. This is indicated by his use of bold colours and the bright enamel paint, Ripolin. Nolan was aware of Pablo Picasso’s use of Ripolin72 and was eager to
try it even though it was expensive and had to be imported from overseas.73
Ripolin dried with a molten, glossy finish that still preserved the integrity of each brushstroke. It also had an alluring aroma which seduced Nolan (Underhill 2007, p. 254). Combined with his faux-naïf style, the vividly coloured first series has the impression of a child’s storybook retelling a popular narrative. While the first series involved a degree of subjective interpretation on Nolan’s part, other works reveal a deepening personal connection with Kelly, the man, rather than Kelly, the legend.