Hillside 1927

Tom Roberts painted 'Hillside' with what looks like oil paint, and a direct approach to the landscape. It’s all about process, I think, building up the forms and textures with short strokes and dabs. The surface has got this lively, broken quality, especially in the foreground where the ochre paint is layered like a dry, grassy field. You can almost feel the sun beating down. But then, your eye travels up the hillside, where the colors get cooler, the strokes more dense, and the trees become like dark, watchful figures. Look at the clouds, the way the brushstrokes mimic their billowy shapes. There's a kind of mirroring of forms happening throughout the whole painting, a real conversation between the sky and the earth. Roberts reminds me of other landscape painters like Pissarro, who were also invested in capturing the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere. For me, this painting embodies a sense of openness, a recognition that there’s always more to see, more to feel, more to understand.