Living the Dream: The Contemporary Australian Artist Abroad

Abstract

In September 1898, A.J. Daplyn exhibited a peculiar yet poignant painting at the annual exhibition of the Art Society of New South Wales.1 The Australian Artist's Dream of Europe (1898) depicts a painter dozing in a chair before a canvas in his studio, brushes gripped in his drooping hand. Hovering above him are sundry Madonnas and cherubs, chastely executed (as the critics of the day were wont to say) and yet not without a hint of ecstatic sensuality. It's a dream that might culminate in a nocturnal emission (again, as the critics of the day were wont to say).