In the Sassafras Valley, Victoria

Isaac Whitehead is celebrated for his late romanticist landscapes, these showing a heightened interest in the glory of nature and the expression of the viewer’s emotional responses to it. The artist was particularly known for his depictions of dense, temperate forests and these particular subjects reveal an awareness of the prevailing taste for ‘pteridomania’ or  ‘fern madness’.

In this gully scene, huge old-growth evergreen trees create a towering protective canopy, through which a small amount of dappled sunlight filters onto the biologically diverse understorey of fronds of tree ferns and the creek beneath. The artist achieves a sense of awe and wonder by setting the six diminutive human figures against the giant scale of the standing and fallen trees. The individuals appear immersed in the splendour of the new growth and the decaying forms of nature.

Isaac Whitehead was born in Ireland, and in 1848 was working as a frame maker in Dublin. Arriving in Victoria in the late 1850s, Whitehead regularly exhibited paintings and also continued his frame-making practice, creating some of the most beautiful ornamental designs for Melbourne’s most significant painters.  This painting is presented in one of the finest examples of his work.

Tracey Lock, Curator of Australian Paintings and Sculpture