McCubbin, in his great, ambitious, historical-narrative work

The Pioneer, invokes the in-vogue creed of nation-building:

with the colour green (forest/tent/dress/shirt) locking this in,

waltzing across the three big panels —
in the first and left-most of which the young wife is seen,

sitting slumped (dreamy? despondent?)

before a slackly pitched tent; with her husband crouched

setting kindling, behind.
In the second-and-middle panel, the bush is part-cleared:

the husband rests weary on a log with his axe,

while the wife stands before him, shouldering a babe-in-arms,

and a slab-hut smokes in tender contentment to the rear. 
Then climactically, in the final-and-third of the painting’s panels

(with a taint of the comic, even,

in its sudden, dramatic, faintly hammy reverse),

the sky leeches blue through the green-dun frameway of the eucalypts

to reveal a distant city-view

which brandishes real estate signs almost …
as an innominate youth (the grown child, or someone entirely else?) —

is crouched parting ferns, to disclose a simple bush grave.

Resting place of the pioneer-husband —

of his wife, their child — or who? …

left behind at the previous century’s turn,

as he kneels in the glittering scar of cleared ground,

pledged to the bright-shiny new. 


Notes:

In response to The Pioneer, 1904 by Frederick McCubbin. Oil on canvas, triptych, 225.0 × 295.7 cm, National Gallery of Victoria.