Art in Australia

Art in Australia

Australian art is any art made in Australia or about Australia, from prehistoric times to the present. This includes Aboriginal, Colonial, Landscape, Atelier, early twentieth century painters, print makers, photographers, and sculptors influenced by European modernism, Contemporary art. The visual arts have a long history in Australia, with evidence of Aboriginal art dating back at least 30,000 years. Australia has produced many notable artists of both Western and Indigenous Australian schools, including the late-19th-century Heidelberg School plein air painters, the Antipodeans, the Central Australian Hermannsburg School watercolourists, the Western Desert Art Movement and coeval examples of well-known High modernism andPostmodern art.

Indigenous Period

The first ancestors of Aboriginal Australians are believed to have arrived in Australia as early as 60,000 years ago, and evidence of Aboriginal art in Australia can be traced back at least 30,000 years. Examples of ancient Aboriginal rock artworks can be found throughout the continent. The feature of art in indigenous period are clear. To put it in a simple way, aboriginal art was sacred, they told a story about dreams, and portray myth or legend

British Settlement

The first artistic representations of the Australia scene by European artists were mainly natural history illustrations, depicting the distinctive animal, plants, and landscapes of the new land. There were also some ethnographic portraiture of Aboriginal Australians. the first person to chart the eastern coastline of Australia is Sydney Parkinson. 

He was on board the First Flee and did so under the direction of naturalist Joseph Banks. Banks also suggested to take other professional natural-history artist to the great expedition as well, but this wish was not fulfilled. Their art creation is to record the unique species on this newly-found, mysterious land, and the driven motive here, is clearly the enthusiasm of scientific research. 

Australian Impressionism

Impressionism in Australia appeared during the 1880s when the Heidelberg School, an artist camp set up in Melbourne, was established by a group of artists—chiefly Tom Roberts, Arthur Streeton, Charles Conder, and Fred McCubbin. They aimed for ‘truth to nature’ and worked in the open air. 

Many of their works were distinctly Australian, depicting scenes of pastoral and outback Australia. Central themes of their art include manual labour, conquering the land, and an idealization of the rural pioneer. During the 1870s and 1880s, immigrant artists who had been trained  and worked in Europe brought first-hand experience of international art, including the plein-air movement, to Australia. Plein-air is a French term meaning ‘in the open air’. It is used to describe the practice of working outdoors, rather than in the studio. Through their work and teaching they made an important contribution to the lively artistic climate that developed Impressionism in Australia.

Federation Era

With the federation of Australia, certain nationalism arose among Australians. The idea of “being Australians” was brought up. There was increasing national consciousness which strived to establish a national culture as opposed to colonial culture, and specifically, to search for a national identity that is distinct from Britain. This idea was brought up back when Heidelberg School appeared in the late 19th century, as mentioned in the previous part. It is further developed and institutionalized as a national canon in the federation era. The political movement added to Australian artists’ passion to express this sentiment in their art works.