Fred Williams






	The middle years: landscape Williams received critical acclaim in Australia and internationally during this period. He achieved a breakthrough in his search for an aesthetic with which to describe the Australian bush: in his You Yangs series (I and II), he struck upon an iconography as idiosyncratic as handwriting and which rendered his works immediately recognisable. The You Yangs themselves are not the focus of Williams' attention in these works, but rather the expansive view of the landscape below attained from the You Yangs as vantage point.There is a spareness, yet a sense of epic scope in these works.

	You Yangs I 1963	oil on composition board 137.0 x 180.3 cm (Private Collection)

		The landscape is seen from a vast aerial perspective here, with trees dotted like animal tracks on the painting surface, forming geometric configurations despite what seems to be a randomness in their positioning. The intuitive, erratic use of drips and splodges of paint creates a landscape which is energetic and animated. A new kind of pictorial space is developed - vast, yet containing and ordering the bushlands within it. In the You Yangs second series (1965-6) Williams further structures an increasingly decorative painting surface by introducing the horizon line as a point of the focus - a motif which was to compositionally bind many of his landscapes to come.



	Upwey Landscape II 1965	oil on canvas 182.0 x 146.0 cm (Collection: Australian National Gallery)

		Here Williams returns to solidity of form in his work, perhaps to counterbalance the ariness of the You Yangs series. The inclusion of verticals in the tree trunks and the strong horizontal of the horizon line anchor the work compositionally and pictorially.Yet there is an animated touch at work here, which is reminiscent of the You Yangs paintings (and the Australian landscape series to come): the foliage appears almost to dance on the painting surface. These works were the result of an exhausting creative burst for Williams, yet their execution became progressively studio-bound as the series neared completion.



	Waterpond in a Landscape II 1966	oil on canvas 152.5 x 122.0 cm (Private Collection: Melbourne)

		While this series derives from the Upwey landscapes, these paintings mark a turning point for Williams in terms of his use of colour. All three works in the series have a two-dimensional decorative effect but are dominated by a glowing orange and red colour scheme indicative of heat as well as allowing the pictorial drama of the work to resonate.




	Waterpond in a Landscape III 1966	oil on canvas 152.5 x 122.0 cm (Private collection)

		By Waterpond III, the identical landscape is thrown flat up against the surface of the painting so that pictorial elements are alienated from their identifiable context. With the omission of the horizon line, the viewer no longer has a marker with which to orientate him/herself in space. This painting signals movement towards a greater abstraction in Williams' work.



	Hillock 1965-1966	oil on canvas 122.0 x 122.0 cm (Private collection)

		Here Williams introduces the hillside motif, which was to feature frequently in his work to come. The curved contour can be read equally as the simplified iconographic representation of a hill or as the curved hemisphere of the world.


	Hillside I 1965	oil on canvas (Private collection)

		There is also a playful humour at work in Williams' Hillside series, which is perhaps not so evident in his more monumental landscapes. Here we see a sloped hill, from which trees sprout horizontally - a distortion of the viewer's sense of logical gravity.



	Yellow Landscape 1968-1969	oil on canvas 139.5 x 193.0 cm (Collection: Geelong Art Gallery)

		This work (and the Lysterfield series which informs it) could be considered one of Williams' most authoritative, in that it consolidates a number of previously explored themes. The painting is vigorous, but spare; decorative, yet somehow austere. The expansive, aerially viewed landscape is alive with pulses of red, blue and ochre, applied in idiosyncratic touches to the canvas.



	Australian Landscape III 1969-1970	gouache 56.6 x 76.4 cm

		In the Australian landscape series, Williams' work since the You Yangs is brought to its natural conclusion. These are consummative works, in which Williams refines the themes and concerns of several years work, but they also spell the end of Williams' minimalist approach to landscape painting. The landscape here is reduced to a symbolic code depicted with minute brushstrokes and seen from an immense aerial perspective. Painted on long vertical dividing panels, a sense of the epic yet fundamentally delicate nature of the bush is achieved.




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