PIONEER MEMORIAL PLAQUE

The original painting that is depicted in this plaque was done in 1904 by Frederick McCubbin. Fred was a member of a group of Australian painters who, in the 1880’s changed the style of painting landscapes that artists all over Europe and England had used for centuries. The old painters used to paint pictures in their studios after taking outdoor sketches of the landscape, but McCubbin and others such as Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Walter Withers, Rupert Bunny, the Ashton family, Charles Condor and others realised that the brilliant colour the Australian open air light shed on a landscape must be captured in their paintings, so they decided to take their easels to the landscape they wanted to paint in order to include this colour in their paintings.
This novel style of painting called ‘Plein-air’ was first used in France in the 1860’s and became, and still is, the most used method of painting landscapes. Most of their first works were done in the Heidleberg area near Melbourne and their most prolific output was done around 1888. Paintings done by these men and some others during those few years is called the ‘Heidleberg School’ of painting. This painting depicts the opening up of the Australian bush by our young pioneers.

In the first segment of the Tryptich, we see the young couple arriving at their ‘patch’ in their horse drawn wagon loaded with everything they would need to survive in the Australian bush, including a cow or two (the nearest people or settlement could have been several days journey away).The second segment shows them some year or so later. The baby has been born (assisted most probably by its dad, in the hut in the background), and the husband is resting from his very physical work.
The last segment depicts, many years later, someone (who might it be?) finding a rough wooden cross in the now overgrown bush, and if you look closely you may see the city rising in the background through the trees. This plaque was commissioned by the Trust to commemorate the spirit of young Australian pioneers who explored, opened up, tamed, survived and died in this great land to provide the heritage of the Australian way of life, in a country filled with promise for those who would come after them. Many of these pioneers are buried in this cemetery.

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