Reviewed by Wendy Lipke
Kiera Lindsey has taken the little primary material available to produce a book about Adelaide Eliza Scott Ironside (1831-1867), Australia’s first locally born professional female painter, who owes some of her notoriety to an English poet’s description of her as having enthusiasm and wild ways. Is the title of this book about the behaviour of this young woman, which at times had her uncles questioning her sanity? Adelaide, herself often spoke of ‘my wild self’ (170) and when speaking of her art suggested that she ‘must let (her) wild love illuminate not only the dullness below but also the darkness within’ (173). The word ‘wild’ is often used in the book in reference to her, however it is also obvious that she had a love of Australian wildflowers which had her ‘traipsing about the bush all day’ (160), much to her mother’s disgust, for samples which she used in her paintings.
To create this book, the author has had to use information from that time in history and her imagination when reconstructing the life of a young woman who astonished the poet Robert Browning, was mentored by John Ruskin, sold her work to the Prince of Wales, and won accolades in Rome and London as well as Paris and Sydney. Yet today she is largely forgotten. The author refers to this work as a speculative biography.
Kiera Lindsey has chosen to present the information in a story of the life of the painter and her mother, narrated by them both, in the language of the time. During this process, the reader learns about the early history of Sydney and the sentiment of the time as certain members of the community fight for an Australia obtaining its rightful inheritance as a free and dignified people (179).
The storyline is presented in three parts with at least nine chapters in each. The introductory page of the chapters includes a square black and white sketch of Australian flora. These, no doubt, represent the work the painter set out to accomplish for the Paris Exhibition 1855, in which her goal was to provide a folio of fifty wildflowers to prove that she was a true original (16). Each specimen was to link with the family story and Australia (25).
The first two sections of the book reveal the early life of this mother and daughter after the husband and father had left them for another. It shows that Elizabeth, who chose to be called Aesi, was very well educated for a girl at that time, and loved to join like-minded groups and listen to lectures of people with more liberal views. The third section shares their adventures as they set out on their unchaperoned travels to Europe, so Adelaide could advance her skills in the art world. The reader learns that after her return from studying in Europe a prominent connoisseur referred to Adelaide as ‘the acknowledged mistress of art in the Southern Hemisphere’.
Celebrated overseas for her personality as well as her art works, when she returned to Australia, her major works were stored in a three-walled shed where unfortunately one of her prized pieces deteriorated beyond repair. This was not to be the only piece of hers to be lost to the art world.
As well as producing works in rough sketches, subtle watercolours and ambitious oils, Adelaide Ironside published more than 20 original poems in local papers. She died of consumption at 36 years of age. During her short life she believed that if she was to advance her art, she ‘would not only have to work exceedingly hard, but also court awkward alliances and withstand constant condescension and criticism’ (155). She also believed that, at the time, no one would ever take a lady painter seriously. She was to be part of changing this attitude. Three of her paintings were donated to Australian national collections. They were then in Sydney University and “The Marriage at Cana” is at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
There is a lot of information packed into the over-four-hundred pages of very small font, on off-white paper, with little space between paragraphs. I found the reading a challenge with this density of words, especially the times where the reader becomes privy to the strange ideas and activities of Adelaide and her family and close friends.
However, Adelaide Eliza Scott Ironside, is part of Australia’s history and as such her story needs to be told. As the back cover of this book states ‘Wild Love reconstructs with breathtaking vividness the passionate life of Adelaide Ironside and the rapidly changing world of which she was a part’.
Wild Love
(2023)
by Kiera Lindsey
Allen & Unwin
ISBN:978-1-76029-675-9
$36.99; 464pp