Art review: Capital and Country: the Federation years 1900-1914 at Canberra Museum and Gallery

Capital and Country: the Federation years 1900-1914. Various artists. Canberra Museum and Gallery. Until February 21.

Capital and Country is the National Gallery of Australia's "first major exhibition to focus on Australian painting from the Federation era". A travelling exhibition (it opened in May 2013 at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory in Darwin), it was "developed as the NGA's gift to the nation in celebration of Federation and the centenary of the Federal Capital in 2013". There is some inconsistency with the material accompanying the exhibition in its final iteration at the Canberra Museum and Gallery. The catalogue's title is Capital & Country. The Federation Years 1900–1913 and the texts therein continue that. The NGA media material and CMAG invitation however cite the title as Capital and Country. The Federation Years 1900–1914. A quibble, but I would like to know which is correct?

Titular questions aside the exhibition is divided into two broad sections, "Australians at Home" and "Australians Abroad". The opportunity to compare what artists were doing in Australia with what their fellows (and in some instances themselves) were doing (mostly) in Europe and Great Britain is particularly informative and produces some exciting aesthetic and art historical moments. CMAG senior curator Deborah Clark, who was responsible for the hang, has provided an intelligent display that speaks to the exhibition's general theme while allowing for visual surprise and delectation in the conjunctions and synergies between individual and groups of works.

There are plenty of Australian art "big guns" present here – Phillips Fox, Roberts, Heysen, Streeton, Lambert, Ramsay, Gruner, Piguenit, Rix Nicholas and Bunny to name a few. Also present are a number of lesser-known artists including Hayley-Lever, Linton and Fuller. Within the "big guns" there are some major works but also included are a number of less familiar pieces that I found particularly attractive. Hans Heysen's On the Marne at Charenton (1901) and From the studio window, Paris (c.1902) are unexpected treasures. These are small – 15.3 x 24 centimetres and 14.3 x 20.2 centimetres respectively – and in their intimate scale and tonally reductive almost monochromatic palettes far removed from the heroics of his later gum trees. It is interesting to note though that the effects of light (here in a French winter) would remain a major painterly concern of the artist when he returned to the brilliance of the light of the South Australian landscape. Displayed next to the Heysens is Hugh Ramsay's equally beguiling Paris rooftops (1901). Tonal consanguinities with Heysen's works make a strong trio and the inclusion of these together is visually compelling. Other works by Ramsay also stand out for me. The c.1902 Self-portrait and A mountain shepherd (An Italian dwarf) of 1901 underscore an early talent so tragically cut short. I look forward to an extended survey exhibition of this major artist's work. Another figural treat is Violet Teague's striking The boy with the palette of 1911. Less successful is Percy Leason's The woodcutter (1914) where the singularly uncomfortable protagonist exhibits an almost humorous unfamiliarity with his awkwardly held axe.

Among the landscapes, Phillips Fox's Harvesting (c.1900), an exercise in harmonious atmospheric and tonal modulations painted before he left for Europe, offers luminous balance to Max Meldrum's sombre French scenes, Four o'clock (c.1910) and La Flume (c.1910). Beaches, Australian and French, are singularly represented by Gruner's Figures at Coogee (1913) and Phillip Fox's Promenade (c.1909). The former captures the artist's interest in the Australian light and the attraction of the immediacy of the scene presented. The latter is testament to Phillips Fox's continuing use of the effects of light during his time in Europe. The inclusion of the fashionable (French) at leisure becomes signature. I also like Harry Garlick's The Drover (1906). This work (also seen at CMAG in 2009 in the NGA's Ocean to Outback) through limited palette and simplified composition powerfully encapsulates the shimmering heat of high summer and the infinite flatness of the outback landscape.

The exhibition with its Canberra Centenary theme very fittingly includes four entries from the 1912 competition to paint the site for the new federal capital. Two of these – the William Lister Lister and the Penleigh Boyd – are borrowed from the Parliament House Collection. The other two – AE McDonald and Theodore Brooke Hansen – form part of the permanent collection of CMAG. Their inclusion is, of course, apt not only for their historical significance but also in their role as exemplars of the more conservative, even pedestrian, approaches to the Australian landscape, albeit a fairly proscribed one according to the competition rules. They stand in contrast to many of the more adventurous approaches seen by other of the artists represented in the exhibition.

Capital and Country provides an important if highly selective opportunity to digest an adventurous and exploratory period in Australian art. The selection of works includes some major pieces as alluded to above. There are also some seriously flawed examples (not everything by Rupert Bunny, for example, stands the test of time or more importantly aesthetic resolution). Personally I applaud the honesty of the mixture and remain more than gratified by the opportunity to view these not often seen works.