Rickett's Point

Charles Conder captured this quiet stretch of coastline at Rickett's Point, near Beaumaris on Melbourne's Port Phillip Bay, back in 1890. His signature sits in the lower right corner. Conder belonged to the Heidelberg School, a group of young Australian painters who wanted to record the strong light and wide spaces of their own country instead of borrowing scenes from Europe. Their loose, spontaneous approach became Australia's version of Impressionism, and it shows here in the swift dabs of paint and the vast, sun-softened sky.

Most of the canvas is given over to that hazy expanse of air and clouds, which makes the beach below feel small and unhurried. A child in a pale dress stands near the water, a few figures rest on the sand, and others drift along the far shore. No big event is unfolding, and that is exactly what Conder was after. He wanted the feeling of a plain, warm day beside the sea. The sandy track curving off to the right, edged with dry grasses, leads the eye gently through the picture.

Conder lived in Australia for only a handful of years before heading to Europe, yet paintings like this played a part in how the young nation pictured itself. This is a modest work rather than a grand one, but it keeps hold of a simple truth: the easy contentment of a sunny afternoon by the water.