Painted en plein air at the height of a summer drought, it is an idyllic depiction of sunlit, undulating plains that stretch from Streeton's Eaglemont "artists' camp" to the distant blue Dandenong Ranges, outside Melbourne.

Naturalistic yet poetic, and a conscious effort by the 21-year-old Streeton to create his grandest work yet, it is a prime example of the artist's distinctive, high-keyed blue and gold palette, what he considered "nature's scheme of colour in Australia".

Streeton occupied the homestead over the next eighteen months; fellow plein airists Charles Conder and Tom Roberts joined him for extended periods, and less frequently other artists, notably Walter Withers.

[3] John Sandes, a journalist who often visited the Eaglemont camp, wrote in 1927:[4] [Streeton] would go off by himself with his easel and canvas and would lie on the grass for hours, wearing only shirt and trousers, and staring at the sky and at the river in the valley, and at the Dandenong Ranges.

"[7] When the painting appeared at the Victorian Artists Society's 1889 winter show, leading critic James Smith, while opposed to what he called "the impressionist fad", said Golden Summer "is the best example of this class of work in the exhibition.

[5] One critic noted the popularity of Golden Summer with "the crowds that throng the Salon", saying that it was "simply impossible" to pass by the painting "as it is utterly different from any other picture in the vast collection".

"[7] In 1898, Golden Summer appeared at the Exhibition of Australian Art in London, where an English critic opined that it was "produced by a painter who sees with his own eyes", and that "its composition of light and shade ... [is] perhaps its strongest quality.