The National 2021: New Australian Art

Mitch Cairns by Daniel Mudie Cunningham Long associated with melancholia in literature and art history, autumn is the season when temperatures decrease, daylight shortens, and nature’s palette shifts as tree leaves change colour and plants stop making food. Animals prepare for the winter months ahead while humans often respond to the pallor of the season in a depressive and withdrawn way. The last poem by Romantic English poet John Keats, To Autumn (1819) – written only months before his death of tuberculosis at the age of 25 – describes all the trademarks of autumn. Interpreted as an allegory of artistic...