It should be the ambition of our artists to present on canvas the earnestness, rigour, pathos and heroism of the life that is about them. These qualities exist if we will but open our eyes to them, and to assist this awakening is one of the highest missions for our painters.

Sidney Dickinson, 'What should Australian artists paint?' Australian Critic, 1 October 1890, p.22.

Historical Context
In 1866 Australia was in the grip of a major drought then in its sixth year. In Victoria, Gippsland and the north of the state were the worst affected.

Melbourne comprised 42% of Victoria's entire population which was once a meagre 25,000 in 1851. As a result of the gold rush the population further boomed towards the half million mark. The Dookie Agricultural College enrolled its first students and hotels could open from 6:00 am to 11:30 pm, with the gold town of Ballarat offering its citizens a choice of 477 hotels, one for every hundred people.

After an eighteen day strike, Melbourne wharf labourers were granted an eight hour working day. While the Aboriginal Protection Act amendment excluded all part Aborigines under the age of thirty-four from reserves in Victoria and allowed the removal of children from their mothers.

The West Australian government passed legislation restricting Chinese immigration following the discovery of gold in the Kimberley and a census showed that unqualified practitioners such as faith healers, herbalists and clairvoyants out-numbered legally qualified doctors three-to-one.

BHP opened its silver and lead smelting works at Broken Hill and the convict establishments in Perth were disbanded. In Sydney, David Angus and George Robertson formed a bookselling partnership while nine men were sentenced to death for the rape of Mary Jane Hicks at Mount Rennie.

The popular novel of convict life, For the Term of His Natural Life by Marcus Clarke, was turned into a play by the actor Alfred Dampier. This fascination with bush themes continued into 1890 with Dampier writing plays of Miners Rights and Robbery Under Arms.

Background
McCubbin became the first Australian born white artist of significance. He mainly trained as an artist at the Gallery School, Melbourne. During his fifteen years at the school, from 1871, he mostly studied part-time, for he had commitments to his family's bakery and also completed an apprenticeship as a coach painter. In 1885-86 McCubbin joined Tom Roberts and other artists at the first major artists' camp at Housten's farm, Box Hill, on the outskirts of Melbourne. This initial gathering of artists was eventually to form the nucleus of what has become known as the Heidelberg School.

Influence
McCubbin's art began to have focus from 1882 with the appointment of George Folingsby as the new painting instructor at the Gallery School. Folingsby's art concentrated on using figures in an interior or outdoor location to form a narrative subject. The direct influence of Folingsby's teaching can been seen in McCubbin's Home again. The work of the local artists Julian Ashton and Louis Buvelot inspired him to paint scenery around Melbourne, but in a less academic manner. The return of Tom Roberts from Europe in 1885 with his theories on 'tonal values' and 'naturalism' directly changed McCubbin's art.

Technique and Materials
Through experimentation and the influence of Tom Roberts at Box Hill, McCubbin developed the format for his major paintings - that of uniting local figures within a small segment of the bush. In the past (e.g. Home again) his studio-completed works had used a variety of colours, most of them dark in tone. At Box Hill, under the guidance of Roberts' tonal value theory, he painted outdoors in the open air (en plein air) using a limited range of colours with lighter, related tonal values. By using this new technique his paintings became united, with each object integrated into the whole.

The Painting
The story of children lost in the bush has had a long tradition in written and illustrated form in novels, magazines and newspapers; there has even been a pantomine on the subject.

McCubbin's painting Lost may well have been inspired by an almost contemporary incident which received extensive publicity in May 1885, when twelve year old Clara Crosbie was found alive after three weeks lost in the bush near Lilydale.

The painting shows a radical departure in theme, layout and painting technique from earlier Australian landscape art with its wide heroic panoramas. McCubbn has telescoped in on a small segment of the bush at Box Hill, creating a mood that is intimate and still. The generalized light enveloping the scene adds unity to the painting, for there are no dark shadows creating dramatic contrasts between light and shade. The enclosed background of Lost, with its lack of specific detail, forms a soft veil which appears to block any means of escape for the young girl. The foreground is painted in sharp focus, with grass, twigs and thin gum trees forming a barrier, confirming the girl in an almost natural prison.

The child in the middle distance of the painting begins to cry as she realizes she has become lost, perhaps after wandering away from a picnic. In this early stage of her predicament her clothes are still in good condition. The wildflowers contained in the fold of her pinafore have been gathered in her wanderings through the bush and are possibly the reason for her having become lost.