107-028 A Survey of Australian Art to 1950

Usually 12.5 points of first year art history, see Prerequisites.

This subject engages with key aspects in Australian art from European settlement to 1950. It aims to extend ways of interpreting Australian art through a focus upon subject matter and the relationship of art to historical events. Topics considered may include the perceptual values known as the sublime and the picturesque in topographical and landscape painting; how the indigenous inhabitants were imaged; the development of colonial culture through public and private patronage; the types and legends developed by artists, such as the bushranger as anti-hero, the swaggie, the battler, or the bush wife; the Heidelberg School, Australian artists abroad; the development of new types of imagery in the inter-war period; modernism and the growing awareness of new European movements such as expressionism, cubism, and surrealism; and the art polemics of the 1940s. Students who complete the subject should have an understanding and visual knowledge of the development of Australian art from colonisation to the mid-20th century. Through the filter of this survey student should also gain an understanding of contemporary art history's numerous methodologies to interpret images of various media and subject matter.

Written work totalling 4000 words which may comprise class papers, essays, visual tests or seen examinations

A subject reader will be available.