‘When the sun his jewelled splendour/ On the rippled water flings,/ And the bird his love-tale tender/ In the honey-suckle sings;/ And the joy of early Summer/ Soothes the soul of every comer/ With the dreaminess it brings,/ Through the bush I love to wander,/ Nature’s garden, free and fair’, wrote the Australian poet, John Le Gay Brereton, in ‘Early summer’, first published in the Illustrated Sydney News (11 April 1891).

In Summer, Long captured a similar feeling to that expressed in Brereton’s poem. He painted an image of a warm summer’s day beside a river, with the sky reflected in the water, and sheep grazing in the pasture on the far side. The green grass and pink flowers may soothe the soul, and birds may sing in these trees.

Long depicted the water, hills and sky using a square brush, and used a contrasting, thick impasto to portray the grasses in an almost abstract fashion. On the right, the patterning of the grasses against the water has a decorative effect. There is a breadth and sense of space in the image. The use of a square brush reflects Long’s training with Julian Ashton.

Long later told A.G. Stephens: ‘Take the greens round about Sydney, there’s no end to them! … When I was in Sydney all the men used to go out painting in the Summer’ (AA, December 1921).

The scene is probably at Cooks River, near Tempe, also the location of By tranquil waters (cat 3). At that time, a tram service operated from Circular Quay along the Cooks River to Tempe.

In 1895 Long painted images of other seasons: In the Spring (cat 4) and Autumn (private collection). Summer, formerly known as River landscape, was first exhibited in 1894 at the ‘Art Society of NSW exhibition’ (320), and reproduced with a drawing by George W. Lambert after Long's painting.

‘When the sun his jewelled splendour/ On the rippled water flings,/ And the bird his love-tale tender/ In the honey-suckle sings;/ And the joy of early Summer/ Soothes the soul of every comer/ With the dreaminess it brings,/ Through the bush I love to wander,/ Nature’s garden, free and fair’, wrote the Australian poet, John Le Gay Brereton, in ‘Early summer’, first published in the Illustrated Sydney News (11 April 1891).

In Summer, Long captured a similar feeling to that expressed in Brereton’s poem. He painted an image of a warm summer’s day beside a river, with the sky reflected in the water, and sheep grazing in the pasture on the far side. The green grass and pink flowers may soothe the soul, and birds may sing in these trees.

Long depicted the water, hills and sky using a square brush, and used a contrasting, thick impasto to portray the grasses in an almost abstract fashion. On the right, the patterning of the grasses against the water has a decorative effect. There is a breadth and sense of space in the image. The use of a square brush reflects Long’s training with Julian Ashton.

Long later told A.G. Stephens: ‘Take the greens round about Sydney, there’s no end to them! … When I was in Sydney all the men used to go out painting in the Summer’ (AA, December 1921).

The scene is probably at Cooks River, near Tempe, also the location of By tranquil waters (cat 3). At that time, a tram service operated from Circular Quay along the Cooks River to Tempe.

In 1895 Long painted images of other seasons: In the Spring (cat 4) and Autumn (private collection). Summer, formerly known as River landscape, was first exhibited in 1894 at the ‘Art Society of NSW exhibition’ (320), and reproduced with a drawing by George W. Lambert after Long's painting.