Tom Roberts wrote a letter to the Melbourne newspaper the Argus on 3 September 1889, signed by Roberts, Conder and Streeton. In part it said:

On examining our impressions of nature it is surprising how much in single mass objects 'come' at any distance, and how little we really see of detail.

Historical Context
In 1887 most Melburnians thought the summers too hot. Many wealthy men sent their wives and children either to Hobart or Dunedin. Others sent their families to the cool slopes of Mount Macedon to escape the heat and disease. Typhoid was common in Melbourne during the 1880s with four hundred cases admitted to Prince Henry's Hospital in 1889-90.

Tasmania successfully shipped its first cargo of cool store apples to England, while on the mainland shearers using the new Wolseley machine shears won convincingly in a competition against an opposing team using the conventional blade shears.

1887 was also a year of tragedy. A cyclone struck the pearling fleet on the north-west coast of Australia, causing the deaths of one hundred and forty men. In Victoria thirty-five lives were lost when the SS Cheviot was wrecked on the rocks at Point Nepean at the head of Port Phillip Bay.

Elsewhere, gold was discovered at Yilgairn and Southern Cross in West Australia, starting a rush which opened the way for discoveries at Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie. In Sydney a huge meeting was held at Sydney's Town Hall to protest against a further influx of Chinese. Two days later ships carrying large numbers of Chinese arrived in Sydney but were refused landing rights.

A young coach painter Henry Lawson had a poem A Song of the Republic published in the Sydney Bulletin. The first National Gallery of Victoria travelling scholarship was awarded to John Longstaff for his painting Breaking the News. Nellie Melba made her operatic debut as Gilda in Rigoletto at the Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels to rapturous acclaim.

Background
Roberts' early training took place mainly at the Gallery School, Melbourne. Between 1881 and 1884 he travelled to Europe to continue his art education. In London he enrolled in the Royal Academy School and in 1883 he toured Spain. During 1884 he visited Italy and France and briefly attended the Académie Julian, Paris.

Roberts returned to Melbourne in 1884. He established two plein air artists' camps, the first at Box Hill and the second, in the summer of 1886-87, near the bayside suburb of Mentone. Through his leadership and enthusiasm he instigated a public awareness of Australian art in Melbourne and, in the 1890s, in Sydney.

Influence
Roberts was influenced by his academic training both in Melbourne and in London and by his wide range of experiences overseas. He arrived back in Melbourne with an enthusiasm for his concepts of 'naturalism' and 'tonal values'. His theory of naturalism was based on the 'academic naturalism' found in the art of the plein air artists' colonies such as Newlyn or St. Ives in Cornwall and Glasgow in Scotland. These colonies of artists were inspired by the French artist Jules Bastien-Lepage, who frequently set peasant figures in localized, high-horizoned landscapes and usually painted en plein air. Bastien-Lepage exhibited works in London in 1882 during Roberts' stay there. His concept of tonal values was influenced by the even-toned paintings and sketches of the British-based American artist James McNeill Whistler. Whistler's paintings depicted impressions of atmospheric effects and caused great controversy during Roberts' time in London. Roberts' own knowledge of photography and literature was also to play a role in his art. Within each of Roberts' paintings various combinations of the above influences and experiences come to the fore.

Technique and Materials
Mentone was painted in the summer of early 1887 and is highly likely to be a plein air work completed in one or a couple of painting sessions. Roberts painted wet into wet oil paint (alla prima), therefore dabbing effects were produced to avoid mixing the paints on the surface of the painting. The luminous quality of the work was achieved by painting on to a white ground and by choosing colours that were light and equal in tone.

The Painting
Mentone depicts a relaxing summer's day by the bay south of Melbourne. The whole layout of the painting is inviting. The beach is seen at eye-level, making us feel as if we are there, walking along the coarse sandy foreshore.

The sun is at its peak, since the shadows are cast directly down and form the darkest tonal areas of the painting. The shadowed cliff, painted in deep browns, introduces a sense of solidity into an otherwise light and shimmering scene. Roberts has not concerned himself with realistic detail; the trees on top of the cliff become a single mass of various greens, the seated woman's costume lacks any specific detailing and her face remains quite featureless.

Roberts has caught the casual atmosphere in a single moment, as in a snapshot. The people and even the dog in this painting are no longer in awe of, or conquering, nature as in earlier colonial art; rather they remain at ease with the environment and use it solely for leisure.

The painting celebrates the general characteristics of sea, beach and cliffs at Mentone as the seated onlooker and the boating party partake in the lyricism of this warm summer's day.