The Heidelberg School was an Australian art movement of the 19th century.
The name was created in July, 1891 when Sydney based art critic Sidney Dickenson wrote a review of an exhibition by painter Walter Withers and Arthur Streeton noting that their works had shared elements and were mostly painted in the Heidelberg area east of Melbourne, and should therefore be known as the "Heidelberg School".
The art movement became the first well known Australian art movement to accurately depict the Australian landscape. Many earlier Australian landscapes looked European without showing the harsh sunlight and earth tones of the Australian land.
The core painters of the movement are considered to be Walter Withers, Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts, Frederick McCubbin and Charles Conder. The core group painted in the area of Heidelberg during "artist's camps" during the 1880s and 1890s.
Today there is a Heidelberg Artists' Trail that includes 57 explanatory boards at sites frequented by the artists. The boards display reproductions and descriptions of the most famous paintings near where the artists painted and lived. The trail goes for 40 kilometers through the areas of Banyule, Nillummbik, Manningham and the Yarra Valley and Dandenong Range.
Since then the term has taken on a wider meaning to include other Australian artists of the period who painted in the "plein air", or open air, impressionistic style. Today many of the paintings belonging to the movement hang in the National Gallery of Victoria, the National Gallery of Australia and the Ballarat Fine Art Gallery.
