Snake
Sidney Nolan, 1970
Image not available: work still under copyright
Snake is a work by the Australian artist Sidney Nolan, created between 1970 and 1972 from a long series of small compositions. Its 1,620 panels each carry an image, and they are arranged so that together they form a larger image of a snake. Nolan worked out a gestural language of his own: he first composed a small scene, then repeated similar scenes with a quicker hand and fewer gestures, over and over, until the marks were made almost automatically, guided by muscle memory. Influences often noted include Aboriginal Australian art and the snake dances of New Guinea. The idea is believed to have started with a mural in a Beijing palace, which Nolan wanted to translate into an Australian version inspired by the desert in spring. Before it was installed at the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart, the work was shown in England and Ireland. David Walsh bought it in 2005 and altered his museum's design to make room for it. Its interest lies in repetition as method: one figure, multiplied many times, turns an everyday brushstroke into an image of great scale.
- Painter
- Sidney Nolan
- Date
- 1970
- Medium
- wax crayon, ink, dye, cardboard
- Dimensions
- 9 × 46 cm
- Museum
- Museum of Old and New Art