A waterhole on the Hawkesbury River

Julian Ashton deliberately fostered an identifiable Australian Art and he was to prove enormously influential in the capacity of administrator and teacher in Sydney in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Ashton's most consistent advice was to paint the landscape, in front of the motif and although his own canvases rarely bear witness to this advice, many significant painters in the early twentieth century heeded it. In 1884 Ashton and A.J. Daplyn camped on the banks of the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney, and this work is a result of that trip. Sketching for the 'Picturesque Atlas of Australasia' made Ashton more aware of particular traits of specific locales and painting with Buvelot in 1880 may also have heightened a receptivity to different atmospheric effects. Under Ashton's influence Richmond and the Hawkesbury were to become much frequented by artists in subsequent decades.