James Gleeson
(Australia 21 Nov 1915–20 Oct 2008)
Italy
- Location
- Not on display
- Further information
Gleeson spent three months living in Italy in 1948.
"It was my first encounter with the classical world, in situ, as it were ... and it set up a very real conflict for me. I had always been drawn towards the darker, less logical, more mysterious ethos of Northern European artists ... Theirs was a world in which man was by no means the measure of all things, but only a part of the turbulent, violent, and usually inexplicable forces of nature.
In Italy I encountered a very different view. Man was centre stage - the measure of all things ... In this Classical or neo-Platonic view, man was created in the image of God, or the gods were conceived in the image of man and the notion of human perfectibility, in the sense that a human being can become god-like, is implicit.
Michelangelo and other sculptors and painters pushed me towards this conception and it was to play a dominant role in determining my aesthetic route for the next twenty years or more."
- James Gleeson 1993Australian Art Department, AGNSW, 2000
- Year
- 1951
- Media
- Painting
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 127.5 x 96.8cm stretcher; 148.3 x 117.5 x 4.2cm frame
- Signature & date
- Signed l.r. corner, red oil "Gleeson". Signed and dated u.l. [on tablet above entablature on building in background], brown and white oil "JA GLEESON/ .../ MCMLI".
- Credit
- Purchased 1952
- Accession number
- 8595
- Copyright
- © Gleeson/O'Keefe Foundation
