ARTHUR BOYD

Charles Nodrum Gallery, Melbourne
Private collection, Melbourne; purchased from the above in 1998

T. S. Boase and A. Boyd, Nebuchadnezzar, Thames and Hudson, London, 1972, illus. pl. 33

Nebuchadnezzar by waterfall with lion's head is one of a series of thirty-four paintings executed between 1968 and 1971 that deals with the biblical fate of the legendary Babylonian King. The paintings together with eighteen drawings were published in a book with text by the distinguished art historian and former Vice Chancellor of Oxford University, T.S.R. Boase who discussed the biblical and historical sources of the ancient Chaldean ruler.

The Book of Daniel in the Old Testament tells the story of the vainglorious King whom God banished to the wilderness for seven years for the King's sins of pride, cruelty and godly presumption.

In the wilderness Nebuchadnezzar is tormented with various punishments: living like a wild animal exposed to the elements, eating grass as oxen with his hair grown like eagles' feathers and his nails like birds' claws; wandering insane. Finally his madness ends when he is redeemed by his submission of humility to God.

Boyd taps into this rich and dark allegorical story and vests it with contemporary references in an antipodean landscape to explore his 'preoccupation ...with the fusion between man and natural forces' and 'the involvement of man and beast.'¹  At the time Boyd was painting the Nebuchadnezzar series he was living in London at the height of the Vietnam War. Ursula Hoff draws a parallel in the flames of Nebuchadnezzar and the fiery napalm bombs of the Vietnam war.²

In the Nebuchadnezzar series Boyd implants  the biblical allegory into the Australian bush and the amorphous half man half beast that is the fallen king is variously set alight, tormented by lions and excoriated in scenes of apocalyptic rage. Boase interprets Nebuchadnezzar by waterfall with lion's head, as  "The king bathes in the waterfall while behind him the lion opens its jaws, but it is the beginning of companionship."³

1. Arthur Boyd and T.S.R., Boase, Nebuchadnezzar: 34 paintings and 18 drawings by Arthur Boyd; text by T.S.R. Boase, Thames and Hudson, London, 1972 p 42.

2. Hoff, Ursula, The Art of Arthur Boyd, Andre Deutsch, London,
1986, p.59

3. Op. cit., p.32, unpaginated