Cook's Strait, New Zealand.

This essay originally appeared in New Zealand Art at Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2018).

Nicholas Chevalier is a rather glamorous figure in nineteenth-century New Zealand painting, having travelled widely in Europe and studied at the Academy of Munich and the Royal Academy, London. From Melbourne, he made his second visit to New Zealand, travelling around the lower North Island in November 1868 as part of the Duke of Edinburgh’s entourage on HMS Galatea. The two watercolours made on this journey, Near Paekakariki, Cook Strait and Kapiti, are directly associated with the larger watercolour Cook’s Strait, New Zealand and the oil painting Cook Strait, New Zealand.

It was typical practice of nineteenth-century landscape artists to use the sketches and watercolours made on site as the basis for larger, studio-based watercolours or oil paintings. Both Cook’s Strait, New Zealand and Cook Strait, New Zealand were created in this way. The original watercolours are factual and topographical records of a first impression, from which the larger watercolour and the oil painting take their cues. The three Māori waka in Near Paekakariki, Cook Strait are reproduced in both later images. In the oil painting they have been transferred to a beach further up the coast to align them geographically with the view of Kapiti Island. Similarly, the pattern of waves in Kapiti has been repeated in the oil painting. In Near Paekakariki, Cook Strait, the figures engaged in a typical food-gathering activity add a picturesque element to the scene, which Chevalier has enhanced with a more detailed, colourful group of figures adjacent to the waka in the larger watercolour. The figure with the horse in Kapiti emphasises the breadth and depth of the seascape in the oil painting. In each of the watercolours the size of the figures in relation to their surroundings underlines the grandeur of nature and introduces an element of the sublime — the aesthetic quality inspiring awe and even fear. The larger formats and turbulent atmosphere depicted in both later works reinforce this aspect of the romantic landscape tradition.

Though used as visual notes towards the oil painting, both Near Paekakariki, Cook Strait and Kapiti are finished works in their own right.

Tony Mackle