Andante

Tom Roberts's Andante (1889) is named after the musical tempo marking — a moderate, walking pace — suggesting a figure moving through landscape with the measured calm that the term implies. Roberts frequently gave his paintings musical titles, reflecting the aesthetic movement's identification of painting with music as the arts sharing the most in common. The title signals his alignment with a refined, Whistlerian aesthetic alongside his naturalistic Australian subject matter — the combination that distinguished him from purely documentary landscape painters.

Roberts's Andante demonstrates the integration of his academic figure training with the plein air practice developed at Heidelberg. The figure — moving through landscape at walking pace — is rendered with careful attention to the pose of movement and the specific quality of Australian outdoor light falling on form. His palette combines the bleached ochres and blue-whites of Australian summer with the warmer flesh and fabric tones of the figure. The handling is controlled but fresh, appropriate to the musical tempo that gives the work its title.