Golden summer, Eaglemont

Arthur Streeton’s Golden Summer, Eaglemont captures the Australian landscape at the height of heat and stillness. Dry hills roll gently into the distance, washed in warm yellows and soft ochres that seem to glow under the sun. The land feels open and expansive, with very little to interrupt the broad rhythm of slope, sky, and light. There is a sense of silence in the scene, as if the air itself is heavy with warmth.

Painted at Eaglemont, where Streeton worked with other artists who would later be known as the Heidelberg School, the work reflects a new way of seeing Australia. Rather than imitating European landscapes, it embraces the brightness, dryness, and scale of the local environment. The painting is less about detail than about feeling. It conveys the presence of summer as an experience, where light dominates everything and the land feels vast, enduring, and unmistakably itself.