107-028 A Survey of Australian Art to 1950

Formerly available as 111-223/323. Students who have completed 111-223/323 are not eligible to enrol in this subject.

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

This subject engages with key aspects in Australian art from European settlement to around 1950. It aims to show ways of interpreting Australian art through a focus upon subject matter and the relationship of art to historical events. Topics considered will include the perceptual values known as the picturesque and the sublime in topographical and landscape painting respectively; the concept of Terra Nullius and how the indigenous inhabitants were imaged; the colonial portrait; women artists of the 19th century; nationalism that infused the Australian Plein Air movement (Heidelberg School art), Australian artists abroad; neo-classicism and the 'stampede of the lower gods'; the gaze, homo-eroticism and the Anzac legend; modernism in Sydney and Melbourne and the growing awareness of new European movements such as expressionism, cubism, and surrealism; and the art polemics of the 1940s.

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

A subject reader will be available.