A bush scene

Frederick McCubbin
born Australia, 1855

A bush scene 1903
Oil on canvas
Collection: Art Gallery of Ballarat
Gift of JT Tweddle, 1937

A bush scene and the adjacent Hillside, Macedon 1904 reflects McCubbin’s interest in depicting the Australian bush at both a ‘micro’ and more expansive ‘macro’ level. Here, McCubbin focusses in on a pocket of dense, scrubby bush in Mount Macedon: the grasses, leaf litter, and fallen branches of the forest floor are depicted in close proximity.  

In providing this micro view of the landscape, A bush scene recalls the approach adopted by McCubbin many years earlier when painting in the Box Hill area, seen in works such as At the falling of the year 1886.