Painting of the week - Boatmen Moored on the Shore of a Lake by Adam Pynacker, and Proposal for Landscaped Cosmos by Sam Leach.

Left: Adam Pynacker, Boatmen Moored on the Shore of a Lake, c. 1660
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Right: Sam Leach, Proposal for Landscaped Cosmos, 2009-10
Art Gallery of NSW, Sydney
(Image source)

This week's paintings of the week comes from a controversy that's happened recently in Australian Art. The painting by Sam Leach won the Wynne Prize - a competition for best Australian landscape. It has since come to light how closely the winning entry resembled the painting on the left, a Dutch landscape based on an Italian scene. The question arising therefore is whether Proposal should have won?

The arguments for *Yes* are that this work clearly references Dutch-style landscapes and Leach has a history of using 'appropriating' other artists' work. The arguments for *No* are that it's basically a copy of the Pynacker and therefore not an 'Australian' landscape. I'm in two minds about this. My initial gut feeling is that it IS a copy of the older painting, but on the other hand early painters of Australian landscapes did sometimes present the bush with the the dark greens and dense foliage of Europe. It's difficult because when I see the two compared in the image above, I am filled with a slight feeling of revulsion at how similar they are (god, that statement sounds like wankery) but would I feel that way if I never saw the comparison?