Tucker had begun painting Australian landscape themes while living in Italy (1952 ́ђأ56), relying on his memory of the topography and its distinctive forms and applying the techniques and aesthetics developed through his exposure to the technical progressions of international modernism. Tucker may have left Australia as a misunderstood artist absorbed with denunciations of a destructive culture engendered by war, but he returned with a new vision and understanding of his homeland, one developed almost entirely in his imagination.