“Shearing the Rams” is a genre painting by the artist Tom Roberts, created in 1890 in Corowa, New South Wales, and Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The artwork, rendered in oil on board and canvas, falls under the Impressionism art movement and measures 122.4 x 183.3 cm. It is currently housed in the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne, Australia.
The artwork vividly depicts a bustling scene within a shearing shed, capturing the dynamic activity of shearers at work. The composition is structured along a diagonal that draws the viewer’s eye from the foreground to the background, highlighting individual shearers meticulously engaged in their labor. The workers are depicted in various stages of shearing, surrounded by sheep and fleeces, illustrating the physicality and rhythm of the shearing process. The use of light and shadow, along with the detailed portrayal of textures, emphasizes the rough-hewn wooden beams of the shed and the woolly coats of the sheep, all rendered with Roberts’ characteristic impressionistic brushwork. The setting and the figures are imbued with a sense of authenticity and communal industriousness, capturing a significant aspect of rural Australian life during the late 19th century.
