Early summer, Gorse in bloom

Arthur Streeton painted this quiet corner of the Australian bush in 1888, when he was barely into his twenties. Yellow gorse blooms across a wide field, glowing against soft greens and the pale sandy earth. A weathered timber fence cuts through the middle of the scene, and two small figures go about their day beneath a bright, open sky. The warmth of an early summer afternoon comes through in every brushstroke, loose and unfussy, the way Streeton and his fellow Heidelberg School painters liked to work while standing right out in the landscape they were recording.

Those cheerful yellow flowers carry a quieter story, though. Gorse was not native to Australia at all. Settlers brought it over, and it spread fast, becoming a stubborn weed that farmers came to dislike. So the prettiest thing in the picture is really a sign of how the land was being reshaped under European settlement. Streeton was not making a big statement about any of this, and nothing dramatic is happening here. Just a calm summer day in the country, painted with a young artist's clear love of sunlight and space, which is exactly what gives it its gentle appeal.