Bask in purple bloom of the jacaranda all year round

The Edward Street Entrance to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, with Jacaranda in Bloom / Photograph courtesy: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane

The Edward Street Entrance to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, with Jacaranda in Bloom / Photograph courtesy: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane / View full image

Paintings of jacarandas in bloom have become a popular and appealing subject for Brisbane artists, the most famous image of the jacaranda is R. (Richard) Godfrey Rivers’s painting Under the jacaranda, which has achieved enormous popularity since it was painted and acquired by the Gallery in 1903. The image depicts Rivers and his wife Selina sitting in the shade of a large jacaranda tree, at that time a landmark in Brisbane’s Botanic Gardens.

From October, streets and gardens are awash with the magnificent purple-blue blooms of jacarandas creating a colourful carpet of fallen flowers, so while Brisbane is in glorious bloom, we’ve rounded up our Under the jacaranda merchandise from the QAGOMA Store so you can continue to bask in springtime all year round.

RELATED: UNDER THE JACARANDA

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Left to right / 1000 piece Jigsaw Puzzle / Small Postcard / Magnet / Tote Bag / Lens Cleaning Cloth / Large Postcard / Greeting Card Box Set containing 12 blank cards (6 cards of 2 images) and envelopes / Tea Towel (not illustrated) / Available in store with selected products online.

The painting

R. Godfrey Rivers, England/Australia 1858-1925 / Under the jacaranda 1903 / Oil on canvas / 143.4 x 107.2 cm / Purchased 1903 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

R. Godfrey Rivers, England/Australia 1858-1925 / Under the jacaranda 1903 / Oil on canvas / 143.4 x 107.2 cm / Purchased 1903 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / View full image

The tree

Brisbane Botanic Gardens, ca. 1895 / Photograph courtesy: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane

Brisbane Botanic Gardens, ca. 1895 / Photograph courtesy: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane / View full image

In the 1850s Queensland was sending wheat and grain to South America and on their return ships would unload at the Kangaroo Point cliffs wharfs and the first Superintendent of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Walter Hill, would row across the river and exchange seeds and plants. One of these visiting sea captains from South America gave Hill a jacaranda seed, which he planted at the rear of the Botanic Gardens in 1864, this is acknowledged as the first jacaranda tree grown in Australia.

Overlooking the Brisbane Botanic Gardens

Brisbane Botanic Gardens c.1860 / 99183509304802061 / Image courtesy: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane

Brisbane Botanic Gardens c.1860 / 99183509304802061 / Image courtesy: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane / View full image

Sailing ships moored in the Brisbane River at Petrie Bight, overlooking the buildings at the Brisbane Wharves and the Kangaroo Point cliffs in 1875 / Image courtesy: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland

Sailing ships moored in the Brisbane River at Petrie Bight, overlooking the buildings at the Brisbane Wharves and the Kangaroo Point cliffs in 1875 / Image courtesy: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland / View full image

Poul C Poulsen, Australia 1857-1925 / Brisbane River 1880 / Albumen photograph on paper mounted on card / 14.8 x 20.9cm (image) / Acc. 2009.121a / Gift of Glenn R Cooke through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2009 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art

Poul C Poulsen, Australia 1857-1925 / Brisbane River 1880 / Albumen photograph on paper mounted on card / 14.8 x 20.9cm (image) / Acc. 2009.121a / Gift of Glenn R Cooke through the Queensland Art Gallery Foundation 2009 / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / View full image

Dry Docks at South Brisbane looking back to Kangartoo Point Cliffs c.1890 / 240253 / Courtesy: State Library of Queensland, Brisbane

Dry Docks at South Brisbane looking back to Kangartoo Point Cliffs c.1890 / 240253 / Courtesy: State Library of Queensland, Brisbane / View full image

The Brisbane Botanic Gardens, just established some nine years earlier in 1855, received plants and seeds from around the world and from other parts of Australia to test what could be cultivated in Queensland and Hill provided a regular report on the success and failures of these plantings. In 1870 he reported on the plantings, including Jacaranda Mimosifolia, the sub-tropical tree native to south-central South America. Of the trees, Hill noted, ‘All these are very beautiful when in blossom, and some already wear their honours, and all give goodly promise for the future’.[23]

Little did Hill realise that the species would be established as a Brisbane icon, with jacaranda trees now growing in most suburbs, many of these older trees grown from the seed of this first jacaranda.


The Edward Street Entrance to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, with Jacaranda in Bloom / Photograph courtesy: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane

The Edward Street Entrance to the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, with Jacaranda in Bloom / Photograph courtesy: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland, Brisbane / View full image

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Endnotes

  1. ^ Maree Stanley ‘Jacaranda’ Queensland Historical Atlas http://www.qhatlas.com.au/jacaranda

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    A tale of two blooms

    During springtime, Brisbane is awash with colour — the lavender of the jacaranda mix with an array of red and yellow flowers. Spring is also when you can see the vermilion blooms of the Butea at its peak, due to its fiery appearance, it’s given the name ‘Flame of the Forest’. R (Richard) Godfrey Rivers (1858-1925) painted the Butea blooms in An alien in Australia in 1904 (illustrated) for the Queensland Art Society’s annual exhibition. It’s easy to imagine that Rivers felt encouraged to produce a grand study of this exotic species after the enthusiastic response to his painting Under the jacaranda 1903 (illustrated) exhibited the previous year. RELATED: Under the jacaranda R. Godfrey Rivers ‘An alien in Australia’ The work An alien in Australia depicts the introduced ‘Flame of the Forest’ tree (Butea monosperma, formally known as Butea frondosa), the species native to tropical and sub-tropical parts of the Indian subcontinent and South-East Asia. The tree Rivers painted was planted in Brisbane’s Botanical Gardens (illustrated) by Gardens Superintendent Walter Hill (1819-1904) in the 1860s. Brisbane Botanical Gardens at the time As part of the classifying fervour that dominated botanical science in Europe, and to exploit the new ranges of plant material that were being discovered in the far corners of the world, in 1855 the Queensland Botanic Gardens were established at Gardens Point, and Hill became the first curator. Hill would row his boat to the wharves (illustrated) and place parcels of native Queensland plant seeds in the care of the ships’ captains, who would distribute them across the world. In reciprocation, plants from South America, including the jacaranda (Jacaranda mimosifolia); from India and South-East Asia, the ‘Flame of the Forest’ (Butea monosperma); and from Madagascar, the royal poinciana (Delonix regia), were brought to Australia on these vessels, part of the thriving exchange of botanical specimens. Brisbane Wharves at the time The painting An alien in Australia however was not as well received as Under the jacaranda when it was first shown in the Annual Exhibition of the Queensland Art Society in Brisbane. Coming to the domain of landscape painting, the most striking painting in the collection is Mr Godfrey Rivers’s Under the jacaranda (No.39), a study of one of the beautiful trees of that species in the Botanic Gardens. The artist has depicted the tree in full bloom, when its luxuriant flowers seem like a lavender-tinted haze, while the ground is littered with fallen blossoms. Under this charming shade he has placed a lady and gentleman seated at a table enjoying afternoon tea. The subject is a very pretty one, and it has been very happily treated, the general scheme of colouring being exceedingly effective. Under the jacaranda was purchased by the Trustees of the Queensland Art Gallery almost immediately for the then substantial price of £100, and its had a presence at the Gallery ever since, one of our most-loved works. Hoping to capitalise on this public approval, the following year Rivers exhibited another portrait of an individual tree — the Butea. . . . if [Rivers] had been content to take the tree and a small area of the trimly kept lawn, in the midst of which [the tree] throws its graceful shade, he would have produced a picture to which little exception could be taken, but the bandstand has also been introduced . . . The structure has a crowded look, and its presence detracts from the beauty of the picture. R. Godfrey Rivers ‘Under the jacaranda’ Rivers took this criticism to heart, sometime after the painting was exhibited he cut the painting down and reworked sections to remove all trace of the offending bandstand. The work remained in the collection of his widow, Selina Rivers, until 1941, when she presented it to the Queensland Art Gallery as An alien in Australia (the original title An alien in Queensland). This aspect of the painting’s history was not known when the Godfrey Rivers Trust gifted An alien in Australia to the Gallery. This was only verified in 2001 when Gallery Conservator’s examined the work using infrared reflectance and discovered remnants of a bandstand. Rivers had cropped the left edge of the painting (illustrated) leaving only a corner of the bandstand (illustrated), this has then been painted over and adjacent shrubbery reworked. The remaining bandstand painted over The offending bandstand at the time While the vibrant vermilion blooms of the ‘Flame of the Forest’ would have stood out against the dark greens of its home in the tropical forests of South-East Asia, in Australia, it was the showy lavender jacaranda that drew the most admiration. A writer strolling through Brisbane’s Botanic Gardens in 1886 passed by the butea, simply noting its red-orange blooms, before exclaiming that: The lovely jacaranda is perhaps the finest specimen of its kind to be seen in the colony. Not so brilliant in hue as the poinciana, nor so gorgeous as the bignonia, the delicate lavender of its profusion of blooms possesses a beauty peculiarly its own. For absolute loveliness it is unsurpassed by any of the magnificent flowering trees and shrubs which have been acclimatised here. The jacaranda, when in full bloom, is to a stranger a sight worth walking many miles to see. Seen from a distance among the green tops of sister trees, it seems as though shrouded by a beautiful blue cloud, but on closer inspection this gradually forms itself into myriads of delicate lavender blossoms, while the ground below is covered with a fairy-like carpet of the same tint, formed by the falling flowers. The jacaranda of Rivers’s painting survived until 1979, when it was blown over in a storm. A solitary specimen of the ‘Flame of the Forest’ still blooms in the Brisbane Botanic Gardens, as it has done since it was painted by Rivers. Edited extracts sourced from QAGOMA Curatorial research. Additional research and supplementary material by Elliott Murray,...
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    Clouds of purple blooms, a quintessential image of Brisbane

    Few works in our Collection have enjoyed as much popularity as Under the jacaranda by R (Richard) Godfrey Rivers. Painted in 1903, some twelve years after the British-born artist arrived in Queensland, the image depicts Rivers and his wife Selina sitting in the shade of a large jacaranda tree, at that time a landmark in Brisbane’s Botanic Gardens, the first jacaranda tree grown in Australia, planted in Brisbane in 1864. R Godfrey Rivers ‘Under the jacaranda’ The jacaranda in Rivers’ painting The jacaranda tree in ‘Under the Jacaranda’ This was the first jacaranda tree grown in Australia, planted in 1864 by the Botanic Gardens Superintendent Walter Hill from an assortment of seeds and plants brought back from Brazil by the Australian wheat ships that plied the trade route to South America, the Gardens having just been established nine years earlier in 1855 on a point known as Gardens Point on the Brisbane River. Today the species is established as a Brisbane icon, and with jacaranda trees growing in most suburbs (many of the older trees were grown from the seed of this first jacaranda), Under the jacaranda may be considered a quintessential image of Brisbane. Certainly, Rivers’s sensitive rendering of the clouds of purple blossoms captures the attention of Gallery visitors and has ensured the painting’s enduring appeal. Superintendent of the Brisbane Botanic Gardens Rivers’s portrayal of an urbane couple, indulging in that most civilised of practices, the taking of tea, countered the popular conception of Brisbane society at the turn of the century, which was frequently satirised in the southern press as uncouth and unsophisticated. Many of the perceptions of Queensland as a wild and rugged place were also shaped by the highly nationalistic and strongly parochial Bulletin magazine, which idealised the colony as the natural home of the bronzed Aussie bushman. Despite the Bulletin‘s promotion of Queensland as the epitome of its tough, rural ideal, the colony was no different from the rest of Australia in the trend towards urbanisation. Still relatively new as a political and administrative entity (Queensland separated from New South Wales in 1859), Brisbane might have trailed the southern cities in the development of an urban infrastructure for much of the nineteenth century, but it made a concerted effort to catch up, and the final decades of the century saw phenomenal change as the city experienced unprecedented levels of growth. By 1891, the year in which Godfrey Rivers arrived in town, Brisbane was the fastest growing city in Australia. By the time Rivers painted Under the jacaranda in 1903, Brisbane’s cultural scene had matured, thanks in large part to his own efforts. The city now boasted a training ground for young artists at the Brisbane Technical College, of which he was art master, an Art Society, of which he had been, and would soon be again, president, and a National Art Gallery (later renamed Queensland Art Gallery), of which he was honorary curator. But while Rivers’s romantic depiction of the jacaranda’s foliage may reference the modern movement of Australian Impressionism, and surely constitutes the work’s main attraction, Under the jacaranda can only be described as a highly conventional composition. In Under the jacaranda, Rivers provided visitors to the Queensland Art Society’s 1903 Annual Exhibition with a timely view of life and class in their own city. By painting a landscape that was both urban-based and recreational, Rivers was engaging with subject matter that had gained much popularity in European art during the latter half of the nineteenth century — the depiction of the leisure pursuits of the newly affluent and powerful middle classes. Botanic Gardens, Gardens Point Botanic Gardens Bandstand Band Sunday If visitors who saw the work at the exhibition did not immediately recognise the jacaranda tree as the one growing in Brisbane’s Botanic Gardens, the maid provided them with a further clue: she wears the uniform of the waitresses who worked at the Gardens’ Kiosk. The Gardens were the favoured location for recreational and sporting activities in the city, and there were facilities for tennis, cricket, football and croquet. The less energetic could stroll along the shaded paths and planted borders, listening to the bands playing in the bandstand, or dining al fresco as part of the many picnic parties that gathered on the lawns, or at the Kiosk, which was a popular spot for afternoon teas.The Gardens were alive with activity, as one late nineteenth-century visitor discovered, noting that on entering the grounds he ‘found labels and Latin names, nursemaids, perambulators, grassy slopes, and children to my heart’s content’. Rivers often turned to the Gardens for subject matter or for a vantage point from which to paint other aspects of the city. Botanic Gardens Kiosk Botanic Gardens, Gardens Point Queensland club tennis court in the botanic gardens Queensland Club Under the jacaranda is a carefully staged image which communicates ease, respectability and self-assuredness. In this painting Rivers is neither bohemian flâneur nor rugged bushman, but a pillar of urban society, dining in gardens that boasted some of the city’s most important or exclusive buildings, including Government House, Parliament House, and the prestigious Queensland Club . The Brisbane of Godfrey and Selina Rivers in Under the jacaranda is not a frontier town with a ‘make-do’ ethos, but one in which residents, at least those enjoying the Rivers’s vantage point, could experience all the comforts of life. Edited extract from ‘Looking for the ‘Beau Mode’ in Brisbane: Godfrey Rivers Under the jacaranda‘ by Sara Tiffin from Brought to Light: Australian Art 1850-1965, Queensland Art Gallery, 1998. Additional research and supplementary material by Elliott Murray, Senior Digital Marketing Officer, QAGOMA