Part 3: Heading for the Hills

Visiting natural beauty spots, particularly those found in the mountains, has long been a popular pastime with Victorians. Since the late 19th century, one of the most popular destinations for Melbourne residents has been the Dandenongs. Located at the southern end of the Great Dividing Range, the Dandenongs offer a cool escape from the summer heat where lush green forests, ice cool mountain streams and mighty tree ferns abound.

But it wasn’t until the middle of the 19th century that Europeans were even aware of the natural beauty of this area. Their interest was in part stirred by the work of artists such as Eugene von Guerard, who painted scenes of the Dandenongs to wide acclaim, and photographers Nicholas Caire and JW Lindt who sold thousands of views of the sensuous foliage and romantic nooks.

Von Guerard is now considered to be one of Australia’s foremost colonial landscape painters. Lured by the gold rush, he arrived in Victoria in 1852. He had no luck as a gold prospector, but remained in Australia until 1881, establishing a formidable career as an artist travelling and sketching in Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania. His magnificent painting Fern Tree Gully in the Dandenong Ranges was exhibited at the first exhibition of the Victorian Society of Fine Arts, and subsequently in a shop window in Collins Street from 1858 to 1859. Such was the impact of von Guerard’s painting that the little-known Dobson’s Gully, named after Thomas Dobson who had established a timber camp nearby in 1854, thereafter became known as Ferntree Gully.

The size and magnificence of the ferns depicted by Eugene von Guerard particularly captured the imagination of the early colonists. It also tapped into the craze for ferns that had begun in England in the 1830s, and lasted for most of the century. Known as 'pteridomania’, or 'fern fancying', the influence of this craze could be seen in the proliferation of the fern motif in furniture, architecture, decorative and fine arts, and even clothing.

Local art critic James Smith lobbied to have the painting presented to Queen Victoria. He wrote in the Argus newspaper that von Guerard’s painting deserved:

A place in one of the royal or national galleries of Europe, both as a specimen of colonial art and as a faithful transcript of some of the most remarkable features of colonial scenery.

The painting is now in the National Gallery of Australia’s collection. The lithograph Ferntree Gully, Dandenong Ranges in the State Library of Victoria’s collection was based on this painting. The image was selected for inclusion in von Guerard’s celebrated album of lithographs Australian Landscapes. Originally published in six parts, the complete volume was published in 1868.

Artists’ views of the scenery of the Dandenong ranges promoted and encouraged Victorians to visit the area, but it was not until the railway was extended in 1888 that the Gully became really accessible to daytrippers. By the late 1880s Ferntree Gully rivalled Brighton, Sorrento and Queenscliff in popularity as a summer retreat.