Spencer's camp, via Larapinta dive, NT - Ivy Pareroultja

This style of painting emerged when Albert Namitjira, after a very sucessful exhibition, too a number of Aranda artists including his sons Enos and Oscar and the three Pareroultja brothers on his painting expeditions with him. They spawned a movement of naturalistic watercolours in the European tradition of classical landscape painting. The movement termed the Hermannsberg school, the name of the Lutheran church mission station where Albert was born, was the first significant transitional art movement to emerge from Aboriginal Australia.

Interestingly the majority of works painted most of this desert country are painted from a slightly elevated point of view, as if looking down, ever so slightly on the landscape. They capture the subtleties of colour as the desert changes from the soft tones of summer heat, to the rich colours of the early morning and late evening light. The majority of the paintings lack a central focal point yet, a visual emphasis on the edges holds the composition in balance without either a dominance of forms near the centre or a hierarchy of forms.