A dawn view from an artist better known for his golden sunsets, Among the kauri was criticised for its ‘cold’ colouring. Sharpe characteristically leapt to his own defence, explaining that ‘[t]he scene is taken at sunrise … [and] consequently there is no direct light anywhere except on the castle peak, distant 2 miles, which catches the rosy hue of the rising sun.’ According to Sharpe, the apparent monotony of green tints related to lack of direct light and ‘to all being drenched with the dew’. The painting was entered anonymously in the competition of the New Zealand Art Students’ Association, a recently formed group that, in the words of president Kennett Watkins, aimed for an art ‘of our soil, an indigenous product’. This programme fitted perfectly with Sharpe’s desire to faithfully depict the particularities of local scenery, in order to inform posterity of the marvels of the New Zealand bush before the intrusion of the settlers’ axes, fires, and imported vegetation. It is Sharpe’s clear awareness of the ecological impacts of colonisation—the realisation that New Zealand nature was in the process of an irreversible transformation—that distinguishes his work from those contemporaries who produced similarly ambitious exhibition watercolours. Works by J. C. Hoyte, C. D. Barraud and John Gully generally celebrated the signs of colonial ‘progress’, whereas Sharpe focused instead on the threat represented by industries such as forestry—then a source of pride for most New Zealanders. It was because his paintings often flouted picturesque convention that they were perceived to be ugly, by commentators who failed to appreciate Sharpe’s intention to create elegiac ‘mementoes of the glories of our grand forests’ Hence the crucial importance of the tiny marginal figures, axes slung over their shoulders as they approach their day’s work, who provoke the viewer to ponder the consequences of their work within this spectacular stretch of native bush. Among the kauris displays a more subtle approach to the environmental issues than many earlier works, where he revelled in the damage itself, and Sharpe was awarded the Art Students’ silver medal—his first major recognition. In his presidential address, Kennett Watkins declared the subject ‘imaginative and beautiful to a degree, and … exceptionally treated by an artist who has learnt the forms of every forest tree, and can depict them from long association. I should say this is a very valuable picture, and one to be retained in the colony.’ ROGER BLACKLEY