School of Culture and Communication - Theses
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ItemThe formation of an abstract language in the early painting of Roger Kemp( 1985)The development of an abstract language in Roger Kemp's early painting reflects the manner in which Kemp assimilated elements of the two main currents of European abstraction. The more intellectual, structural current stemming from Cézanne was strongly developed through his initial training in design. It was strengthened through his experience of George Bell's teaching of Significant Form, and his contact with designers from the Melbourne Technical College. His knowledge of Mondrian's theory of dynamic equilibrium and of Russian Rayonism reinforced his structural edge. Parallel to this line of development ran a more expressive awareness of colour and form. Academic training under Bernard Hall in the Aesthetic tonal tradition, and experience of Symbolist theories of synaesthesia through the art of Rupert Bunny disciplined Kemp's intuitive approach. Ambrose Hallen's Fauvist style and the decorative folk element in Vassilieff’s art also influenced Kemp's expressive power. These two currents, by no means distinct in themselves, intermingled in Kemp's own development. His early work shows the complex interaction of temperament and training through which he expressed his personal vision of dynamic equilibrium.
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ItemArt collectors in colonial Victoria 1854-1892: an analysis of taste and patronage( 1976)My examination of the holdings of private art collections in Victoria before 1892 is confined to British and European art. It was to Britain that taste was oriented, and the emerging group of Australian painters made little impact upon those patrons and collectors recognized as being the cultural leaders of the community. It would have been difficult to incorporate my research on collectors of Australian art in an essay of this length. I have therefore confined myself to a number of general observations set out in Appendix E. These may be useful in better understanding a part of the background against which British and European art was collected. I have limited my discussion to the dates 1854 to 1892. The former date was chosen because it was in that year that private collectors first publicly exhibited pictures in their possession. I have chosen the latter date because by 1892 the recession had taken a firm hold, and it can be confidently said that the first period of wealth had passed. By 1892 art and its market had all but ceased to be a topic of discussion in the Melbourne journals. I will concentrate on the 1880's; my Chapter on the period before 1880 is meant to be no more than a preface. The topic has been approached from two points of view. Chapters I to III concentrate on individual collectors, and attempt to establish, and then clarify, the various currents of taste which prevailed. My first concern was to identify the principal collectors, and then establish the extent of their holdings. The three broad groups that I have defined are discussed in Chapter III, and I have devoted Appendix A to summarizing this essential background information, while at the same time extending the number of collectors discussed. I will be searching both for evidence of motives for collecting, and for the way in which qualitative standards were established, though the results are generally disappointing. I have then approached the topic from an entirely different angle. I felt it important to take a broad approach and examine in more general terms the various influences which worked upon collectors. This has extended to the role of Melbourne's International Exhibitions, to the receptiveness of the community at large to foreign art and, perhaps most importantly, to the state and role of the art market in Melbourne in the 1880's. In doing this I was compelled to leave out detailed discussion of a number of collectors whose pictures might seem to merit a more considered treatment. It would have been possible to devote the entire essay to the first process of identification, and of compilation of holdings. Considering the exploratory nature of the essay, I decided it would be more useful to sketch in a wider background which could then be used as a basis for further research. I will argue that in general Melbourne collectors in the 1880's, while becoming increasingly receptive to foreign art, clung tightly to a wellentrenched, traditional taste for landscape. I will be exploring the background to a fairly wide resistance to modern figurative art, especially "Olympian". Although the 1880's represented the period of Melbourne's greatest wealth collectors did not, in fact, reassess their attitudes to the notion of "high" art. I will argue that from the market's point of view particularly the period was one of unfulfilled expectations. There have been limitations upon my ability to accurately assess the state and holdings of private Melbourne collections. Very few have remained intact - the crash of the 90's saw to that. For this reason I have had to rely almost exclusively on contemporary documents, and as my work progressed it became increasingly clear that the various catalogues and press reports were fraught with inaccuracies and inconsistencies. Thus, great care should be taken in accepting attributions. Contemporary scholarship in the field of Victorian art seems to be in a state of flux, and no clearly defined, commonly accepted critical terminology has yet emerged. In describing the various genres and types I have not imposed a strictly uniform system, but have preferred to use a variety of terms which might better help to describe the pictures, many of which I have been unable to illustrate. Because of the limits imposed on an essay like this I have decided not to include a discussion of the development of British aesthetic theory through the nineteenth century, of changing attitudes to landscape and such. I have used the word "taste" in its broadest sense. Ruskin, for example, early recognized the inherent "freedom" of the concept, and argued in Modern Painters "that taste was an instinctive preferring, not a reasoned act of choice". In fact, the publication of Richard Payne Knight's treatise on taste in 1805 marked the final demise of the eighteenth century concept of taste as an intellectual perception governed by reason When the term was used by authors and journalists in Melbourne in the 1880's it was invariably conceived in this broad Ruskinian sense. The problems that I will be identifying and discussing relate principally to questions of motive, and not the establishment of qualitative criteria.
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ItemSpirit possession and healing rites in a Balinese village( 1978)This thesis seeks to describe and analyse a ritual known as the sanghyang dadara-dadari. It is a religious ritual, which will be shown to communicate through its use of known symbolic, metaphoric and metonymic forms of language and behaviour, the nature of the supernatural, and the interaction between the supernatural and the people of this Balinese village. It is the nature of this supernatural power, the cosmological order, and the role which this ritual played in the religious belief system of this village between 1974-6, that this thesis seeks to clarify. In addition, I will attempt to identify any change which may have occurred in the form or content of the ritual over the past fifty years, and attempt to account for the reasons for this change. In order to do this the scope of the study has been widened to include all accounts of the ritual in Bali, and three other rituals of the same genre, including one example from Java, which have been recorded between 1901 and 1970. The existing literature concerning the sanghyang dadara-dadari is meagre. Only very sketchy accounts have been located, the majority written by foreigners who just happened to observe the ritual and described it for the benefit of other foreign tourists, as one of the weird and exotic attractions of this island. Written with this aim in mind, accurate accounts of the ritual cannot be expected. These accounts cover a period between 1925 and 1941 only. Since that date no written records of the ritual have been located, which suggests, and which is supported by my research during my period of field work in Bali, that the ritual is now defunct in those villages where it was recorded prior to 1941 and in any other villages where it may have been part of the religious belief system. Only in Cemenggacn has it continued to flourish. It was therefore important to record it on tape and observe many performances in order to provide an accurate record. (From Preface)
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ItemThe etched work of Jessie C.A. Traill, 1881-1967( 1982)Jessie C. A. Traill, 1881-1967, a Melbourne-born artist, was, during her heyday, well respected both in her home state and beyond, as a painter and etcher. Today her name is most readily associated with etchings, and it is generally recognised that her contribution to the etching revival in Australia is a major one and that her work in this medium warrants a thorough study in order that her relative place in this context be fully appreciated. Her prints are, moreover, of a high quality technically speaking, and show significant innovations for Australia in both this respect and in their subject matter. They are, as well, delightful and much sought after items for the collector and connoisseur of prints. This paper is the first written study of Traill's etchings, the present generation print lover having been introduced to her work in a retrospective exhibition at the "Important Women Artists" gallery in Melbourne in 1977, and in subsequent exhibitions of Australian etchings where her works have been included. As such, the study will add to a slowly growing body of information on the major Australian etchers, material which is invaluable for an adequate formulation of the history of printmaking in Australia.
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ItemThe decorative works of Sir Edward Poynter and their critical reception( 1999)This thesis examines the decorative works of the nineteenth century British artist Sir Edward Poynter (1836-1919). His achievements as a decorative designer received considerable recognition during his lifetime but in more recent years have been overshadowed by his reputation as an academic painter. The neglect of this important component of Poynter's oeuvre by twentieth century scholarship is partly due to the destruction or dismantling of several of his major decorative commissions. Other schemes which were the focus of extensive public debate during the Victorian era — such as Poynter's designs for the Central Hall of the Palace of Westminster, the Lecture Theatre apse at the South Kensington Museum and the decoration of the dome of St Paul's Cathedral — were either not realised or only partially completed. This thesis aims to establish the extent and significance of Poynter's decorative career by a comprehensive analysis of the individual commissions and their historical context. These works encompass a variety of media, including painted furniture, stained glass, mosaics, ceramic tiles and frescoes. The accompanying catalogue and illustrations document the commissions with particular reference to their design and the stages of their execution. The thesis also locates Poynter's decorative schemes in the context of the wider debate regarding the nature and role of mural decoration during the second half of the nineteenth century. It elucidates, in particular, the crucial role played by materials and techniques in the contemporary reception of decorative works. Another important issue that arises from this study is the previously unrecognised importance of the Gothic Revival movement for the development of Poynter's career. Its influence is apparent in his belief in the role of architecture as a unifier of the arts, and in the emphasis in his decorative designs upon eclecticism and craftsmanship. Poynter's extensive involvement with the South Kensington Museum also had a major impact upon his decorative aesthetic. The strong Renaissance orientation of his mature work, which focusses on pictorial and narrative values, was directly reinforced by that institution. Poynter emerges from this study as an important but neglected figure in the history of nineteenth century British art, whose career illuminates both the positive and negative attitudes to mural decoration that characterise this period.
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ItemUneasy allies: an Englishman in Australia: Henry Vigors Hewitt 1839-1931( 1985)This thesis is an edited selection from, and commentary on, a collection of many hundreds of letters written between 1864 and 1972, diaries written 1860-1864, 1867, 1869-1871 and 1903-1907, and poems. In the first chapter diaries written 1860-1864 by my greatgrandfather Henry Vigors Hewitt are edited. These diaries were written in England, before his emigration to Australia. In following chapters, later diaries written by Henry, and several letters and poems, record his early colonial experience. Henry's second wife Mary Simmons emigrated. to Australia in 1871, and letters written by her in that year are edited in Chapter 6. Subsequent chapters draw on letters written by Henry, Mary and their children, and poems written by Henry and several of the children. Diaries written 1903-1907 by Will Hewitt while on the Coolgardie goldfields are edited in Chapter 15. All of the original letters and diaries were kept, first by Henry, then by Will, my grandfather, and then by my father. Many of the poems appeared in various newspapers; none of the rest of the material has been previously edited or published. My treatment of the material has been chronological, with some overlapping, for instance in chapters concerning the West Australian goldfields and the Boer War. My intention has been to retain the distinctive voice of each writer, while providing an historical and literary framework. For example, in looking at Mary House's poems written on the subject of World War I, I have touched on the origins of her style and convictions, the political climate of the time, and contrasted her romantic and heroic notions with letters written from Gallipoli and the Somme by her brothers Tom and. Deane Hewitt, and of course I have used historical texts as well. Thus I have provided more of a mise en scene than does the editor of Rachel Hennings' letters for example. (The Letters of Rachel Henning, ed. David Adams, Penguin, Melbourne, 1969.) At the same time my outlines of various events are necessarily brief; the material spans, at its furthest stretch, one hundred and eighteen years. It would have been possible to concentrate on one period or theme, as for example Dr. James A. Hammerton does in Emigrant Gentlewomen (Australian National University, 1979), which uses letter books of the Female Middle-Class Emigration Society as a starting-point, or as Judith Wright does in Generations of Men (Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1959) in which she draws on her grandfather's diaries to explore the history of the pioneers of north Queensland. It would also have been possible to restrict my thesis to a biography of Henry alone, which was my original intention. However as Mary Simmons' presence became more insistent and active, she demanded equal billing with Henry, and their childrens' correspondence from, variously, the Coolgardie gold-fields, remote cattle-runs in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the trenches of. World War I, also drew me on into increasingly tangled personal relationships and wider history. In order to untangle the lives and experiences of the eleven people whose letters, diaries and poems are edited here, I have in effect peacocked this large body of valuable source material. For example, Will's letters and diaries written in Coolgardie between 1896 and 1906 provide an extensive picture of daily life on a diggings. Only a fraction of that material is included in this thesis. The same is true for a wide range of topics which I have touched on: the colonial experience, emigrant women, the squattocracy and the labour movement, the 1890s, Australia at war and so on. My starting-point was not historical. It was a curiosity about the hedonistic and indolent young gentleman who wrote a diary in Bath in 1860. I followed him to Australia in 1864 and watched him change into a hardworking and ambitious landowner. In 1871 the indomitable Mary Simmons sailed into view and things became increasingly complicated. During the 1890s Henry lapsed into disappointment and apathy. But now their children were setting out to discover Australia all over again, this time seeing not through English, but through Australian eyes. Nearly all of the children shared their parents' facility for expression, and individuality of style, and many of them wrote poetry, like Henry. Thus the record of two very different Victorian English emigrants changes into the record of an Australian Victorian and Edwardian family.
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ItemShakespeare in Australia: the making of a colonial literary institution from 1788 to 1901( 1997)In the 1980s and 1990s Shakespeare scholarship in Britain and North America has produced powerful analyses of the ways in which Shakespeare operates as a cultural institution. In analysing Shakespeare as a cultural institution it is less the meanings of his plays or poems that are examined than the role that Shakespeare plays in securing important social and institutional relationships, both inside and outside the academy. This thesis adds to that body of scholarship an analysis of Shakespeare as a cultural institution in colonial Australia during the period from 1788 to 1901. Its aim is to examine the historical conditions for the development of Shakespeare's preeminent signifying power with a focus on the ways in which the "transportation" of Shakespeare from Britain to the Australian colonies occurred. The thesis develops the argument that the transportation of Shakespeare to the Australian colonies and his reproduction within the colonies were important enabling conditions for the formation of a colonial public domain. In the early years of colonial settlement the presence of Shakespeare in the colonies enabled them to exhibit evidence of the development of colonial culture both to imperial eyes and to the colonists themselves, while later in the century a number of literary and cultural organisations were established with the affirmation of Shakespeare as one of their central goals. Colonial reproduction of Shakespeare therefore helped to secure channels of communication between the colonies and the metropolitan centres of the British Empire and influenced the formation of central colonial cultural institutions - the theatre, criticism, and literature, for example - through which this communication occurred. At the same time, colonial Australia's Shakespeare helped the colonies to negotiate tensions and contradictions in their relationships with the metropolitan culture, in part because the colonies' constructions of Shakespeare registered complex interactions between discourses of colonialism, nationalism and imperialism. This thesis draws upon recent work in Shakespeare studies, postcolonial studies and Australian studies, and on original archival research into nineteenth-century Australia. Its analysis of Shakespeare as a colonial cultural institution aims to contribute to our understandings of Shakespeare's continuing influence in Australian culture and to revitalise discussion of established topics in Australian literary studies.
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ItemChinese New Year pictures: the process of modernisation, 1842-1942( 1997)The thesis is a study of a traditional popular art form of China known as New Year Pictures. Although the production of these woodblock printed images virtually ceased early this century, the relevance of this art form in contemporary China has continued. The New Year Picture is often hailed as a prototype for modern forms of visual expression. A renewed interest in this old art form has also prompted widespread conservation of the New Year Picture at the same time as making it the subject of scholarly pursuit. This study evaluates the relevance of New Year Pictures to contemporary art and society by focussing on prints produced in the period spanning the century from 1842 to 1942. This period is definitive of the changes that occurred within the popular art form. The year 1842 marks the end of the Opium War with Britain and the signing of the Treaty of Nanjing, permanently changing China’s international relationships. This, in turn, impacted greatly upon Chinese society and culture. The 1942 was the year of Mao’s “Talks at the Yan’an Conference on Literature and Art”. In mapping out strategies for artists to participate in the communist transformation of Chinese society, the “Talks” articulated an approach to Chinese art and culture that would permanently alter the way in which artistic traditions were to be utilised, both in a practical way and in the sense of how the past was to be perceived.
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ItemConsuming illusions: the magic lantern in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand 1850-1910( 2003-09)This thesis maps the existence, extent and diverse applications of the magic lantern in the Australasian colonies and brings to light a cultural practice that had remained largely invisible in histories of photography, cinema, and popular culture in nineteenth century Australasia. The thesis demonstrates that the magic lantern was popular as entertainment on both a private, domestic and a public scale. It traces its widespread adoption in two broad institutional contexts, the educational and the religious, and shows how this wide-ranging practice and consumption was supported by developing social and commercial infrastructure in the colonies and a network of touring lanternists. It argues that the magic lantern located the Australasian colonial culture within a global one centred around the consumption of visual technology and an international exchange of images. Colonial audiences were not, however, merely the passive recipients of a globalised imagery or culture. They were active contributors to it, constructing their own meanings in response to imported images. The thesis argues that, while the magic lantern functioned to affirm a sense of imperial identity in both colonisers and the colonised, it was adapted locally to the creation of colonial, intercolonial and regional identities, as an alternative to a dominant Eurocentric mass-mediated world view. Colonial practitioners applied this powerful medium to the generation of images at a local level that reveal an enthusiasm for colonial events and stories, a sense of place, and a celebration of local identity on the big screen.
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ItemObject lessons: public history in Melbourne 1887-1935( 2000-05)The thesis studies history-making in Melbourne’s central civic sphere, from its emergence in the 1880s to its decline in the 1930s. It identifies public history’s major themes and forms, and the relationships between them, based on four main cases of history-making: the articulation of the past and history in Melbourne’s 1888 Centennial International Exhibition; the historical backgrounds, development, unveilings and partial after-lives of Sir Redmond Barry’s statue, unveiled in Swanston Street in 1887, and the Eight Hours’ Day monument, unveiled in Carpentaria Place in 1903; and history-making around Victoria’s 1934-1935 Centenary Celebrations, with special emphasis on the Shrine of Remembrance and a detailed study of Cooks’ Cottage.