The old wreck is a depiction of a rotting boat abandoned on the grass, with water and blue hills behind, translated into a more poetic image through Long’s treatment of the subject: his capturing of the light and air. As Ron Radford observed in Our country: Australian Federation landscapes, ‘Long’s sinuous style of gum tree, popular and true to life though it is, has never achieved iconic status’ (p 77). Here, his spindly gums and their fine leaves are silhouetted against the blue sky. This depiction of the trees with the stylised grasses and the yellow daisies in the foreground gives the work a decorative quality.

This watercolour relates to Long’s drypoint etching Reminiscences — a derelict c 1928. In the print, the image has been reversed and the vertical composition of the watercolour is translated to a horizontal one, bringing the derelict boat further forward in the composition. Long would appear to have been dissatisfied with the drypoint as he only printed one or two copies of it.

The old wreck is a depiction of a rotting boat abandoned on the grass, with water and blue hills behind, translated into a more poetic image through Long’s treatment of the subject: his capturing of the light and air. As Ron Radford observed in Our country: Australian Federation landscapes, ‘Long’s sinuous style of gum tree, popular and true to life though it is, has never achieved iconic status’ (p 77). Here, his spindly gums and their fine leaves are silhouetted against the blue sky. This depiction of the trees with the stylised grasses and the yellow daisies in the foreground gives the work a decorative quality.

This watercolour relates to Long’s drypoint etching Reminiscences — a derelict c 1928. In the print, the image has been reversed and the vertical composition of the watercolour is translated to a horizontal one, bringing the derelict boat further forward in the composition. Long would appear to have been dissatisfied with the drypoint as he only printed one or two copies of it.