The Sissons Mural

The Sissons Mural is located at the Victorian College of Pharmacy, 381 Royal Parade, Parkville, Victoria, Australia.

The mural was styled the 'Sissons Mural' by the Pharmaceutical Society of Victoria to commemorate the life's work of Dean A. T. S. Sissons who was in office for forty-two years (1920-62). It measures 70 feet by 20 feet. The painting was executed by Leonard Annois. It was completed in 1962. It is the largest mural painting in Australia and it reveals great scholarship.

The mural tells a story of the peaceful development of science, medicine, and pharmacy, all of which were inextricably interwoven in ancient times.

Story

The mural tells the following story: the cavalcade of evolution in pre-historic times; the civilisations of Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and Rome; the destruction by fire of the library at Alexandria; humanity in the chains of the dark ages; the rise of Islam; the middle ages with their superstitions and ignorance; the renaissance of the printing press and the dissemination of knowledge; and finally, the dominance of atomic chemistry, which is the main point of interest.

Form

The paintings on each of the three walls have been designed in the form of ellipses, which suggest the cosmos.

Within these large 'cosmic ellipses' are ten smaller individual paintings, all elliptical in form.

In a sense there are ten discrete paintings all joined with physical ability and mental force into what seems to be an inevitable spiritual quality.

The symbols of beauty (the ovary of the flower), peace (the dove), and progress (the interlocking ellipses) indicate the beautiful peaceful progress of scientific endeavour.

All these paintings are arranged to give an approximate overall impression of a horse pulling a large chariot of progress, of which the Greek and Babylonian panels are the wheels. This chariot of progress gives the mural a quality of advancement and motion.

Annois' Respect for Women

One of the most touching and moving influences in the mural is Annois' respect, which is almost a reverence, for women. This respect for women is shown by the large painting of Eve, the female representing the symbol of encouragement to the Babylonian student, the form of the kneeling woman in the cave of the dark ages, the fine painting of Athene encouraging Odysseus, and the repeated use of the ovary of a flowering plant, as the form of perfect beauty.

Medium

The medium used is fresco secco. The special preparation of the surface is an art in itself. Carbonated lime, hand ground to a carefully controlled particle size, and sand are applied first to give a textured surface of intense whiteness. Lime-resistant powdered colour is then mixed with water and applied.

The colour does not form a plastic paint film as in the case of oil paintings, but actually penetrates and stains the surface, which is later sprayed with a fixative to prevent rubbing.

The difficulty of the medium lies in the changes of colour brought about by the lime after application. Experience is required to know the 'artistic end-point' of each of these individual chemical colour changes. In expert hands the final colours are of superb subtlety.

Personal

The mural was commissioned by the president of the Pharmaceutical Society, Sir Eric Scott, O.B.E. Another item of personal interest is that for the figure of Galen in the Roman panel, the sitter was Dean Nigel Manning, the successor to Dean Sissons, after whom the mural is named. The mural was unveiled by the Premier of Victoria, Sir Henry Bolte, in 1963.

The Artist

Leonard Lloyd Annois was born in 1906, in Malvern, Victoria, Australia. He died in 1966. He was a distinguished painter in watercolour and fresco. He was the only Australian to become a member of the Royal Society of Painters of WaterColours.

His paintings are in all Australian state galleries, universities, and Royal collections. His murals in Australia include those in the Geelong Harbor Trust building; the Pharmaceutical Guild headquarters, Melbourne; the Gas and Fuel Corporation, Melbourne; the Navy headquarters, Canberra; The Melbourne Boys High School; St. John's Church, Camberwell, Victoria; and the ANZ banks in Ballarat and Alice Springs. Melbourne. July, 1967.