Mr Robinson's house on the Derwent, Van Diemen's Land 1838

John Glover painted this landscape, "Mr. Robinson's house on the Derwent, Van Diemen's Land" using traditional oil paints and brushes. The painting's smooth surface results from layering thin glazes of pigment. Look closely, and you'll see the careful depiction of the land, trees and cattle, using conventional landscape techniques. But consider the social context: Glover was an English painter who emigrated to Tasmania, then called Van Diemen's Land. The scene he depicts is one of pastoral tranquility, but it obscures the violent displacement of the indigenous population by European settlers. The house represents colonial occupation. The grazing cattle signify agriculture and ownership of land taken from Aboriginal people. By focusing on material and technique, we can consider how the tradition of landscape painting could be used to justify colonial expansion, masking the labor and dispossession that made it possible.