Place, Taste And Tradition: A Study Of Australian Art Since 1788
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
From the sun-bleached landscapes of colonial settlement to the bold experimentations of the modern era, Place, Taste and Tradition: A Study of Australian Art since 1788 presents a sweeping and authoritative chronicle of Australian visual art, tracing its development from the earliest days of European colonisation through to the twentieth century. Bernard Smith argues with precision and clarity that Australian art cannot be understood in isolation — it is a product of the tension between imported European sensibilities and the raw, inescapable reality of a vast and unfamiliar continent, shaping a visual culture that is both derivative and defiantly original. Smith's scholarship is rigorous yet accessible, grounding aesthetic analysis in broader social, political, and economic forces that shaped the nation's cultural identity. His prose carries the authority of a historian and the sensitivity of a critic, illuminating how successive generations of Australian artists negotiated questions of place, belonging, and cultural legitimacy. First published in 1945 and widely regarded as a landmark text in Australian art history, this work remains an indispensable reference for anyone seeking to understand why Australian art looks the way it does — and what it truly means to paint a land still finding its own voice.
Author: Bernard Smith
Format: Paperback
Genre: History of arts
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
From the sun-bleached landscapes of colonial settlement to the bold experimentations of the modern era, Place, Taste and Tradition: A Study of Australian Art since 1788 presents a sweeping and authoritative chronicle of Australian visual art, tracing its development from the earliest days of European colonisation through to the twentieth century. Bernard Smith argues with precision and clarity that Australian art cannot be understood in isolation — it is a product of the tension between imported European sensibilities and the raw, inescapable reality of a vast and unfamiliar continent, shaping a visual culture that is both derivative and defiantly original. Smith's scholarship is rigorous yet accessible, grounding aesthetic analysis in broader social, political, and economic forces that shaped the nation's cultural identity. His prose carries the authority of a historian and the sensitivity of a critic, illuminating how successive generations of Australian artists negotiated questions of place, belonging, and cultural legitimacy. First published in 1945 and widely regarded as a landmark text in Australian art history, this work remains an indispensable reference for anyone seeking to understand why Australian art looks the way it does — and what it truly means to paint a land still finding its own voice.