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Arts & Communication Realist art of Kenneth Jack and rural towns

What is the purpose of these depictions? In his foreword favored images of factory workers or peasants hard at work
to a book of his Queensland art, Jack explained that he in a way that was not only realistic but also ideological. As
preferred to focus on painting “interesting old buildings we shall see, even dating back to Engels’ remarks on Balzac
not yet spoiled by ugly modern additions or replaced by and Lenin’s essays on Tolstoy, it was opposed by another
less-interesting utilitarian architecture.” Interestingly, current that suggested that socialist causes could best
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and digressing slightly, the functionalist buildings of the be advanced through work depicting real class relations
1950s and 1960s are appealing in their own way, given their and social and economic contradictions without obvious
frequent replacement by trendier postmodern unutilitarian authorial intentions to convert the reader/viewer. Here, I
structures. do not intend to claim that Jack was a socialist but only
to suggest—and this is not a criticism—that his realist
If “art is ideological,” how is this ideological? What paintings of rural scenes could be conceptually linked
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is the ideology? Why are there no vehicles or crowds to the socialist realist heading as they were simple, clear,
in the pictures? The purpose appears to be to depict and somewhat romanticized (but still within realism),
unchanging scenes, the closest we will get to timelessness; and they can be read as suggesting a united and cohesive
however, in reality, the scenes are dated between the rural community with common shared values (see my later
time of European colonization of the rural hinterland quotes of Jack).
and the high modernity of the 1970s and 1980s, Jack’s
own time, when we would expect to see at least a few If we compare Jack (1924 – 2006) to the much more
tourists, caravans, and modern buildings. Hence, the time famous Russell Drysdale (1912 – 1981), Drysdale also
is bounded and refers to only a century or century and painted rural scenes, but the general interpretation would
a half at the most. Why does the artist want a bounded be that his paintings are much darker, depicting the lives of
time to appear boundless and changeless? I am reminded people that have suffered severely. An example among his
of the minimalist, sparse sounds of Australian rock bands better-known works is The Drover’s Wife (1945). For him,
of the era, such as The Choirboys, Australian Crawl, and people often attract the viewer’s attention, rather than the
Icehouse, and their parochial lyrics that appeared to be landscape, although it could never be said that his landscapes
striving to communicate some important existential fade into more or less conventional backgrounds to events.
Allen credits Drysdale for being the first major painter
truths (“Reckless” and “Oh No Not You Again” rather to come to terms with the Australian outback beyond
than “The Boys Light Up,” although the message of the fertile farming lands closer to the coasts. Drysdale
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the lyrics is not so different in all three songs—social highlighted the dilemmas and problems in living in such a
conservatism with allusions to the decayed lifestyles of vast inhospitable area, neither desert nor fertile farmland.
bourgeois types—“that flat in Surfers Paradise with the For Allen, Drysdale also captured white Australians’
ocean view”). The rural scenes in Jack’s work represent “ambivalent” feelings about this land—“anxiety” about
a reified and partly lost (but still barely self-conscious) their legitimacy as occupiers but “admiration” of those who
white Australia, unthreatened by change within the artist’s were living in such difficult conditions. Arthur Boyd’s
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vista. The main impression is of a midday world, standing work from the same era is even more confronting; his Half-
still, unturning and unchanging. The realist approach and Caste Child (1957) shows a mixed-race child aiming to get
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sometimes bright colors do not resonate with pathos, at affection from an Aboriginal man, not her natural father,
least on the surface, and gothic overtones or undertones in bleak surroundings that could be viewed as critiquing
are largely avoided. Hence, any communicated pathos white intrusion into the Aboriginal world. The girl’s white
is much more restrained, ambiguous, and deniable. Can face and black limbs are especially unsettling. If Drysdale’s
the pictures be viewed as promoting rural life just as the and Boyd’s works are confronting and disturbing, Jack’s
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Soviet concept of socialist realism aimed at promoting are unmenacing, and the vast majority could be hung in a
socialism? Certainly, that is one way to look at it, as Jack child’s bedroom .
1,2
rarely painted city scenes. He lived on the outskirts of
Melbourne, the populous capital-city of Victoria, and 1 Of Drysdale’s more famous works, Sofala (1947) probably
rural life clearly held an appeal for him. However, any comes closest to resembling something Jack might have
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promotion of a lifestyle or set of places is not done in any created, although the stylistic differences are clear enough.
naïve way; the art is still successful in appearing somewhat 2 Jack often sold prints of his paintings, such as the series
unplanned and the outgrowth of a sincere enthusiasm. Ghost Towns of Australia; in some cases, whether there was
an original was not a key consideration. This was obviously
Before we proceed, a few words are needed here on a way for a second-tier painter to make more money out of
socialist realism. Socialist realism can be traced to a trend sales. Jack has rarely been the subject of academic writing;
or feature of precommunist and communist societies that hence, this article fills the gap.

Volume 3 Issue 1 (2025) 2 doi: 10.36922/ac.3481