Artistic point of view
Overlooking Geelong, the You Yangs are both imposing and intriguing.
The name You Yang originates from the Aboriginal words Wurdi Youang or Ude Youang, meaning big mountains in the middle of a plain.
Explorer Matthew Flinders was the first European to visit the You Yangs. On May 1, 1802, in order to survey the landscape, he and three of his men climbed to the summit and named it Station Peak. The name was changed in 1912 to Flinders Peak in his honour.
The You Yangs are a series of granite ridges that rise from the flat plain. The granite that forms them was originally a mass of magma that had worked its way up into the surrounding rocks when the land surface in Victoria was several kilometres higher than today.
The Wurdi Youang site near the You Yangs is a protected Aboriginal Heritage site. The tradition owners are the Wathaurong Aboriginal Cooperative Limited. The Wurdi Youang stone arrangement is a ring of stones, about 50m in diameter.
The arrangement of about 100 basalt stones ranging in size and shape takes the form of an irregular egg-shape or ovoid. The purpose, use, and age of the arrangement are not known. It may have been a ceremonial site or an example of early indigenous astronomy.
Investigations found that, viewed from three prominent stones, some smaller outlying stones seemed to indicate the position of the setting sun during equinoxes and solstices.
The You Yangs are also home to 200 species of birds and diverse native fauna. In combination with the big, rounded rocks and granite outcrops, and the views across to distant Melbourne and Port Phillip and Corio Bays, the You Yangs presents much of visual interest.
The You Yangs have been a focus for many painters, including Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton. Eugene von Guerard’s View of Geelong, an oil on canvas, painted in 1856 depicts rolling hills, with Corio Bay and the You Yangs in the background.
Two very different types of landscape painting are presently on exhibition at the Geelong Galley. While being different styles, Fred Williams and Mark Dober’s works both focus on the same well-known local feature — the You Yangs.
One of Australia’s most important painters, Fred Williams, irreversibly changed the way we consider the Australian landscape.
He was born and trained in Melbourne, at the National Gallery School during the 1940s.
Like Matthew Flinders, Williams first spotted the You Yang range in 1957 from the deck of the ship on which he was sailing home to Melbourne from London.
He started working in the You Yangs in 1962.
He had an enduring fascination with the rocky outcrop and surrounds as a recurring subject for his painting throughout the 1960s to the late 1970s. He offered a very different view of the landscape without using the horizon. The abstract markings of spots, dabs and dashes paint work represent the landscape’s scattering of trees, rocks and fencing