Glenrowan 1957

Sidney Nolan made this painting, Glenrowan, with oil on canvas, and it feels like a raw, immediate response to a historical event. The palette is dark, almost brooding, but there are these pops of intense color that jolt you. See how the paint is applied, so directly, you can feel the artist’s hand moving, smearing, building up the image. It’s like he's trying to get the story out as quickly as possible. Look at the figure’s face, trapped inside that square helmet. It’s both a mask and a prison. The red and green squares read almost like a code, or maybe just a crude attempt at camouflage. The whole image feels unresolved, like a memory that keeps shifting. Nolan’s paintings of Ned Kelly always strike me as more than just historical depictions; they're about how we make sense of our history, and how history makes us. This piece reminds me a bit of Philip Guston’s later work, that same sense of grappling with something heavy through simple, almost cartoonish forms. Art doesn't need to be tidy; it's often in the mess that we find something real.