WILLIAM ROBINSON

Dawn, daylight and dusk are common in landscape painting; not so much nocturnes, for in night scenes forms meld and colours reduce in a monotone of enveloping darkness. They are, however, great for sparkling starlight and the landscape bathed in the other-worldly light of the moon. So it is with William Robinson's captivatingly luminous Purling Brook Gorge, Moonlight. Moonlight becomes the scene in a wonderland of elongated tree trunks, anthropomorphic forms in a rhythmic flow and dance of bewitching beauty. It is a different world from the day, with room for the imagination to come into play. A palette of blues, purples and allied greens, touched with warmer hues, decks the ancient forms of land and rainforest, giving added grandeur to the magnificence of the Gorge - invitingly different and wondrous and untouched by man.

Purling Brook Gorge and its falls are in the Springbrook National Park, in the Gold Coast hinterland of southern Queensland. Moving to Canungra and the bush of Beechmont and the Darlington Range opened up the heavens for Robinson with unimpeded views of the wondrous sky by night and day. It inspired mountainous landscapes of virgin splendour, an Edenic paradise embraced by the celestial music of the stars played by an orchestra of the heavens. For Robinson, 'the skyscape in painting is just as important as the landscape.' ¹ Nothing quite equals the star-spangled splendour of Beechmont with Starry Night 1986 (private collection, Sydney), whereas Purling Brook Gorge, Moonlight  plays a softer nocturne. Contemplation of the heavens reminds us how small we are, yet part of a wondrous creation. Adoration has a lot to do with looking up at things, which Robinson employs to great effect by the very  'up-side-downness' of Purling Brook Gorge, Moonlight, another unrivalled image of the Antipodes. His play with perspective is unique, with inventive imagery, humour and perception to match.

1. Quoted in Klepac, L., William Robinson: Paintings 1987-2000, The Beagle Press, Sydney, 2001, p. 25