Product Overview
A definitive portrait and personal insight into one of Australia's most important post-war painters, Jeffrey Smart.
Like the beginning of an intimate conversation the documentary opens at Smart's enchanting villa at Urbino in Tuscany as he is embarks on a portrait of fellow painter Margaret Olley. The artist talks illuminatingly about his distinctive style and subject matter while exploring and deconstructing the meaning behind it.
During the discussion, he reveals that although many of his paintings feature lonely figures set against bleak industrial landscapes under dark brooding skies, the suggestion of early 21st century decay is'nt at the fore front of his inspiration; on the contrary, he perceives post industrial society as a thing of great beauty.
The camera travels with Smart as he visits an ancient church in Tuscany where he reveals his fascination with Piero della Francesca before visiting Cezannes studio in the south of France where he pays homage to the 'master'.
Coming full circle we return to Smart's studio where, as he completes the Olley painting, he muses "everything has already been done by great and better men in the past and 'there is only the trying".
Like the beginning of an intimate conversation the documentary opens at Smart's enchanting villa at Urbino in Tuscany as he is embarks on a portrait of fellow painter Margaret Olley. The artist talks illuminatingly about his distinctive style and subject matter while exploring and deconstructing the meaning behind it.
During the discussion, he reveals that although many of his paintings feature lonely figures set against bleak industrial landscapes under dark brooding skies, the suggestion of early 21st century decay is'nt at the fore front of his inspiration; on the contrary, he perceives post industrial society as a thing of great beauty.
The camera travels with Smart as he visits an ancient church in Tuscany where he reveals his fascination with Piero della Francesca before visiting Cezannes studio in the south of France where he pays homage to the 'master'.
Coming full circle we return to Smart's studio where, as he completes the Olley painting, he muses "everything has already been done by great and better men in the past and 'there is only the trying".
