Australian Painting 1788-1990

by Bernard Smith, Terry Smith

Established as a standard work on Australian painting, this book by the doyen of Australian art history provides the most detailed account yet published of the great changes that have radically altered the art scene during the past two decades. A new chapter by Terry Smith discusses
contemporary artists and their work within the context of "the crisis of modernity" and the changing physical, social, and artistic environment. Generously illustrated with over 400 illustrations, 80 in color, the book details the life and achievements of most of Australia's leading artists and a
great many minor ones.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, History, Australia

602 pages, Hardcover

First published August 10, 1972

About the author

Bernard Smith (1916–2011) was arguably Australia’s greatest art historian and one of the most important humanist thinkers internationally on ideas concerning cultural contact.

Reviews

[Digby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Smith, ever the colonialist at heart, narrates a fairly didactic history of Australian painting from the arrival of the first fleet until the 1960s.

The highlights of the book were the period covering Louis Buvelot and Roberts and his Heidelberg school of art which became a central focus Smith returned to throughout.

The scope felt pretty dated now that feminism and post-colonialism is so entrenched in art history and philosophy but this aside the formal analysis was very engaging.

I never knew Sidney Nolan lived such an illustrious life and went to the Venice Film Festival as a delegate for Australian cinema nominating a documentary called Back of Beyond…the title of Scott Murray’s book!

[Joel Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Conrad Mertens (1801-78) was the most prolific, if not the most important, of Australia's colonial painters.

Many artists who worked on the American, NZ and Australian frontiers began life as surveyors.

William Charles Piquonit (1836-1914) was the first Australian born landscape painter of any significance.

Louis Buvelot (1814-88) was called the Father of landscape painting in Australia.

Tom Roberts (1856-1931) established an Australian school of painting in Heidelberg between 1885-90 with McCubbin. Aim was create distinctly Australian art.

Plein-air sketching = painting outside.

It was images of the country and of country life, not of the city, which finally captured the public imagination and brought the greatest fame to the members of the Heidelberg school.

Charles Condor was the only Australian artist on record who, after beginning his career in Australia succeeded in making a genuine contribution to European art.

The young Australian society of the 1880's was neither rich enough, nor populous enough, nor educated enough to support the fine arts.

John Russell was relatively unknown in Australia but lived in Paris and was friends with Van Gogh and Monet who both admired his work. He painted a portrait of Van Gogh.

Modern movement is a term that came out of French impressionism under the influence of Van Gogh etc. Artist no longer sought to imitate nature.

Modern art - greater emphasis on the expression of the artist's personality in the work - mood and feelings.

Exhibitions by Drysdale, Sidney Nolan and Tucker in the 1950's showed Australia had its own style of art.

Abstract art offers an experience confined within very narrow frontiers. It has no content. We cannot relate it to ordinary life. The experience exists as a thing in itself, isolated in the art gallery by the movement of sensation.

Figurative painting - clearly derived from real object sources - in contrast to abstract art.

Aboriginal art is an art which has evolved in isolation from the rest of world art.