“Ned Kelly” by Sidney Nolan Tom Conrick

Sidney Nolan’s “Ned Kelly” is a modernist Australian painting.  The work shows Kelly in his armour astride a horse.  Kelly is painted simply as two black shapes, against the stark Australian bush and bright blue sky.

The artwork is an enamel painting on composition board. The painting uses simplistic rectangles and squares to depict Ned Kelly in his armour and uses simple curved shapes for his horse. Nolan uses more complex swirling and curved shapes in the sky and bush land.  The work has well-proportioned positive and negative space.  Kelly is the dominant image placed in the center of the work.

The painting has both a horizontal and a vertical axis. Nolan uses a combination of straight, curving and swirling line in the artwork.  The tone of the painting is dominated by the cold black figure of Kelly. It also has bright light tone in the sky and bush land. Nolan uses rough textures in the sky and bush, whilst Kelly has a smooth metallic texture. The artwork is symmetrical and has a good sense of balance and colour.

In the painting the sky is made up of two different vivid blues, the top half of the sky uses a deep, dark blue whilst the lower half is a lighter, more delicate shade of blue. Bright white and grey clouds fill the sky. The bush land is painted a dappled mixture of yellows and browns. In the painting Kelly is a stark black colour and his horse is muddy brown.

Nolan painted  “Ned Kelly” as part of a 27 part series of portraits on the bushranger and his story.  Nolan used a minimal, modernist style portraying Kelly reduced to his black box like armour. He places Kelly alone in the arid, bright bushland.  The “wishfully naïve” minimal style, the Australian bush painted in bright colours, and the use of solid black shapes make this portrait unique. 

Nolan was interested in the way an individual could attempt to rebel violently against political and social structures, as Kelly did.  Kelly’s story was like an ancient myth:  reflecting the “violence, injustice, love, and betrayal of humanity’”.   Kelly is painted as a black figure, defiant and large in the landscape. The black box like image of Kelly is a symbol of the dark, violent part of human nature.

Nolan also examined the way the Australian bush was central to the Kelly story.  He paints the vast, empty, wild Australian bush with in bright colours and places Kelly in the center of the work.  He sought to express the notion that the Australian bush was a backdrop to the Kelly story and a central part of Australian Culture.

I think this is a great artwork; it is an Australian modernist masterpiece.  Nolan uses abstract shapes to explore universal human themes. It is an important artwork as Nolan created an iconic image of Ned Kelly.  He tells the story of Kelly and of humanity.  Nolan brilliantly captures the harshness and the light of the Australian landscape. This work should be in a museum it is a brilliant modernist painting.  It captures the story of Kelly, humanity and the Australian landscape in simple stark forms.