Kids' Audio Guide: Bushfire [a view at night], by Naylor Gill

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Bushfire [a view at night], by Naylor Gill

A thicket of trees in the dark night, illuminated by a dangerous orange glow.

Bushfire [a view at night], by Naylor Gill

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DANIEL_190923.mp3

Transcript

This is a painting of a bushfire at night. I chose this artwork because it looked unusually detailed, almost like a blurry photograph. I could imagine myself in that scene. The reddish glow in the distance resembles the smoky, dim glow of a fire. It looks a bit like lava. There appear to be no horizontal lines. The trees stand out because they are clearly outlined, and they contrast strongly with the orange glow of the fire.

Alfred Naylor Gill painted this in the 20th century. Its exact date is unknown. Alfred Naylor Gill was born in Melbourne, a place in Victoria, in 1872. He became an artist in 1890 and continued to paint until he died in South Yarra, in Melbourne, on the 16th of September 1945. Alfred’s body was buried in the Saint Kilda cemetery in Melbourne. Alfred was a well-known painter of bush life because he liked painting bushfires and he was good at it.

There are strange marks and patches on the border of this painting. The marks could’ve been paint rubbed off of an older frame that was used to hold this painting. It could even have been that the artwork was painted on top of another artwork.

Imagine that you are inside the painting. You can see hundreds of trees around you, dimly lit by a dim red glow. Thick cloudy smoke blankets everything. You can hear the fire crackling and the squawking of the birds as they fly away from their burning tree homes. You can smell the burning eucalyptus leaves. You can feel your eyes stinging from the smoke and feel the forest floor beneath your feet. If I was inside the painting I would run as fast as I could away from that fire.

If I could add one thing to this painting, I would add a kangaroo in the distance, bounding away from the fire.

Curators/Speakers

Daniel