Are we perhaps his fellow travellers in the unknown? He’s juxtaposing the crucifix against the In this one, he paints the complete body of the crucified Christ.Sidney Nolan, “Snake”, 1970-72, (detail), collection MONAWe’ve seen quite a few images that touch on the Religious in Nolan’s paintings.

Two days after Nolan died his friend and fellow artist Albert Tucker talked with Philip Adams on Late Night Live about Nolan’s imagery and Tucker said ”The image is the most primal form of communication.”He dedicated the painting to his father, but Sid Snr never saw it.

We had only visited once before at Mary’s invitation…I have chosen a work that I own through inheritance from my late father Elwyn (Jack) Lynn who wrote two books and several…"I didn’t include Dog and Duck Hotel in Sidney Nolan’s 70th birthday retrospective exhibition. I’m not at all sure that Nolan isn’t suggesting this: that the historical Christ, the original Christ if you like, has been replaced over the course of 2000 years with religious iconography, plaster saints and baby Jesuses.

bright wings.“And Charlie” she asks, “what do you see?”Sidney Nolan, “Riverbend”, (panel 3), 1964-65, collection ANU Drill Hall GalleryIt’s also about communication.

Let’s now look more specifically at one narrow aspect of this landscape.and this is Frank Hinder’s version which won him the Blake Prize that same year.“These are regions where it is not normal that human beings should ever be.

This symbol, he explained to me, came to him from aboriginal rock paintings. This was two weeks of living and working…This work by Sidney Nolan concentrates on the characters in the painting, rather than the architecture. – here the Divine is down where it’s dirty, in the watery graves, in the trenches … and, I reckon, on both sides of the conflict.Returning for a minute to Vasili Rozanov.

The cross doubles as a chimney.

It was a desperate period for Nolan. Our firm handled the sale of First Class Marksman, 1946 in March…I have to admit when I first turned up to The Rodd in 2017 I simply did not know what to expect. It makes me think about the afterlife and whether we might all turn to light. For me it really encapsulates…I like this painting as it is such a simple interpretation of the Karst mountain landscape in Southern China. His parents were Australian born, but very aware of their Irish cultural heritage.

That cloud looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor, and that group of clouds over there gives me the impression of the stoning of Stephen – I can see the Apostle Paul standing there to one side”Back in England from his first trip to the Continent he wrote this in a note to Bert Tucker.Who knows if this was Nolan’s intention, but here I can imagine a conflation of that take of mine on the Divine in Sidney Nolan, “Italian crucifix”, 1955, collection AGNSWIt will flame out, like shining from shook foil;Sidney Nolan, “Snake”, 1970-72, collection MONADave congratulations, what a fabulous, comprehensive thought provoking presentation.

The Israelites feeling lost and abandoned by Jehovah. And at what cost!The good news, as some of you know, is that this masterpiece is on permanent display right here in Canberra – in the Drill Hall Gallery at the ANU.In 1981 he designed the sets for the Covent Garden production of the Saint-Saëns opera I asked his daughter and she said he’d never talked about it with her.

Nails, hammers, pliers and ladders – all work tools of both carpenter and crucifier.The work of many artists embraced this theme, and none more so than the German painter Casper David FriedrichAlthough I’ll talk separately about the Religious, the Sublime and the Divine, I’m not suggesting that these categories are mutually exclusive. Imagine just the landscapes.Here we see Nolan’s St Anthony, bearded and gaunt, dancing barefoot with a female spirit while attacked by a huge goanna and dragon-fly. He’s inscribed it “Christ crucified”.Here first, is Michelangelo’s image again.And I said to him: ‘Mate – I don’t need to know your name –Sean Rainey | Wordpress Developer MelbourneOne commentator said: “With ice-rimmed eyes and beards stiff with frost, Moving on now, we also find the Divine in Nolan’s paintings of the natural world.I suspect Nolan was very familiar with the story of Abraham and Isaac, not only because of his knowledge of bible stories, but because of his fascination with the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard.First he took a series of remarkable camera images – a photographic evocation of the Sublime – a colonial Sublime – like no other. But I would say this.

These photos, even with people and animal carcasses centermost, have that Sublime backdrop best characterised by the single word ‘dread’.