His mother was said to be particularly zealous in her beliefs in scientific progress, having “inverted Calvinism into an equally fierce agnosticism…[her] eyes would gleam with holy fire while she would orate upon her favorite scheme of filling the churches with scientific instruments and the cathedrals with mighty telescopes.”[1] Edward, who was friends with many of the city’s painters, introduced Max to art from an early age - he and his father spent many a day touring the city’s well-regarded art galleries when Max was a young boy.

Bernand Hall took a classical approach to teaching; before a student could even pick up a brush they had to first master charcoal drawing to a level that their work could be included in the school's annual exhibition.

He believed painting should “proceed from breadth to detail, from general to particular truths, but always to see them in their order of importance; that is, to draw.” In addition to classes at the National Gallery, Meldrum also studied under George Coates.

[3] Upon winning, Meldrum is said to have slashed his entry to pieces, exclaiming he “would never again put an insincere brush to canvas.” Max chose Paris as his destination for the travelling scholarship.

The terms of his scholarship required him to produce three paintings over the three-year period: a nude study, a copy of an old master, and an original work.

[1] His apartment was a short walk from the Académie Colarossi, where he began studying under L. J. R. Collin and Gustave Courtois, late proponents of the French Academic style.

By March 1901, Meldrum was also taking additional classes at Académie Julian under Jean-Paul Laurens, an anti-clerical republican who also taught the Academic style.

In a letter to a friend dated June 1900, he compares the painting instruction he received in Melbourne favorably to that in Paris and hints at pursuing a more self-directed approach to his study.

[7] Despite his leadership of a group, the Australian tonalists, which has lately come to be regarded as a precursor to minimalism,[8][9] Meldrum's attitude to modern art was reactionary; in 1937 he described it as 'savagery', 'crude and vile' and 'likely to debase the taste of our children',[10] condemning one example as 'an explosion in a sawmill'[11] Though women were amongst his followers, with one, Clarice Beckett, whom he held in high regard,[12] Meldrum in criticizing Nora Heysen's winning the 1938 Archibald Prize, proclaimed: "Men and women are differently constituted.