School of Culture and Communication - Theses

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    The etched work of Jessie C.A. Traill, 1881-1967
    Lee, Mary Alice ( 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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    Uneasy allies: an Englishman in Australia: Henry Vigors Hewitt 1839-1931
    Vafeas, H. V. ( 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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    Shakespeare in Australia: the making of a colonial literary institution from 1788 to 1901
    Washington, Paul ( 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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    Performance studies as a discipline?: a Foucauldian approach to theory and practice
    D'cruz, Glenn ( 1993)
    This thesis has three major purposes: firstly, to describe and analyse the institutional power/knowledge relations operating in the constitution of the academic ‘discipline’ of performance/theatre studies. I deploy Michel Foucault’s conceptions of ‘discursive formation’, ‘discursive practice’, and ‘power/knowledge’; in an attempt to demonstrate the ways in which the academy distinctively articulates the discipline. The second purpose of the thesis is to map and critique specific conceptions of the ‘discipline’s’ epistemological profile, through an examination of the discursive practice of theatre at the University of Melbourne from the mid-fifties to the present. Third, I go on to prioritize a specific performance oriented articulation of the field’s epistemological profile, based on an interdisciplinary pedagogy. I describe the techniques, methods and theoretical justifications for such an articulation of the discipline by offering a critical account of The Killing Eye project - a multi-media performance which deals with the topic of serial murder - which was initiated in the context of a third year performance studies course. I conclude with an analysis of the academy’s institutional enablements and constraints in the areas of theatre practice and pedagogy.
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    The legend of the Goodfella Missus: white women, black society, 1840-1940
    McGuire, Margaret E. ( 1991)
    The legend of the Goodfella Missus is a gendered myth dear to white Australian history. The most constant motif of the Goodfella Missus is her acclimatization to and affection for all that is different in the antipodes. Concepts of aboriginality are inextricably mixed with her vision of the strange landscape and its flora and fauna. She has had a hallowed place in the Australian annals. The power and persistence of the legend, with its repressive ideology of charity and chastity, is the subject of this thesis. It is a study of race, class and gender in the context of colonization. The stereotypes of aboriginality remain remarkably constant over the century, though place, time and Aboriginal society may be radically different. The gender boundary is the most troubling and revealing because of its ambiguity in the interstice between black and white, servant and mistress, matriarch and monster. Much of the evidence has had to be recuperated, reinstating a selection of verbal and visual images of what white women could come to know of Aboriginal life. My argument works as much through repetition and resonance as it does through explication and exegesis. The historical patterning of three generations of women’s images forms a kind of unhappy hearth history, from Emigrant Gentlewoman of the 1840s, to Australia’s Daughter of the 1870s, and Modern Woman of the early twentieth century.
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    Penleigh Boyd 1890-1923
    McDonald, Hamish ( 1986)
    This thesis traces the life and work of Penleigh Boyd. In so doing it seeks to elucidate the influences which shaped his art and his life. In this process a number of themes emerge: Penleigh Boyd’s relationship to and position in the Boyd family; his own attitude to his art and the world around him; the influence on his art of other Australian artists, and the cultural milieu in which he was brought up. Penleigh Boyd was born in England in 1890 while his parents were staying at the country seat of his mother’s family. The family returned to Australia in 1894 and lived in Sandringham until 1907 when they move to Yarra Glen. Boyd attended the National Gallery School in Melbourne from 1905-1909, and, after two exhibitions in Melbourne, set off for Europe early in 1911. He stayed in Europe, mostly in England, for almost two years before returning to Australia newly married. Back in Australia he painted for two-and-a-half years and built a house at Warrandyte before he enlisted in the A.I.F. He served in France until September 1917 when he was gassed at Ypres. Repatriated to Australia in 1918, he settled in Warrandyte and painted the wattle pictures for which he is most remembered. In 1922 he left for England to organize a loan exhibition of modern art which was shown in the major capitals of Australia in 1923. Not long after the exhibition closed in Melbourne, Boyd was killed in a car accident while travelling to Sydney. Penleigh Boyd repays study for a number of reasons. Firstly, he belongs to one of the best-known of Australia’s many artistic families. His brothers Martin and Merric, his son Robin and his nephew Arthur have all made highly significant contributions to Australian cultural life. Penleigh Boyd is less well-known than most of the members of the Boyd family, partly because of his early death, but also because his art is neither as individual nor as lasting as that of the more famous members of the family. If he is remembered, it is for his paintings of wattle in blossom. These paintings are, it is true, unique in Australian art, but they cannot be compared to the achievements of either of his brothers, or indeed of his son Robin. (From Introduction)
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    The first Australian modernists: Tempe Manning, Norah Simpson and Grace Cossington Smith: gender, myth and art criticism during the First World War
    Harding, Lesley ( 1997)
    Three women artists started the shift to modernist art practice in Australia during the first world war. Norah Simpson, Grace Cossington Smith and little known artist Tempe Manning contributed to the debate and practice of new techniques and new subjects. All were students of Dattilo Rubbo's school in wartime Sydney. Unable to find a relevant level of expression in the nationalist landscape tradition, they set about painting subjects that embraced the experiences of women. Bringing together their exposure to modem art in Europe prior to the war, the politicised environment and their own personal ideas, these artists forged a new vision of Australia and a new space for Australian art. Drawing on gallery archives, newspaper articles and reviews, oral histories and a comprehensive range of secondary sources, this thesis offers a more detailed account of the emergence of modernism in Sydney, and the critical role of women artists, than has previously appeared.
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    The graphic journey: Murray Griffin linocuts
    Bunbury, Alisa ( 1998)
    This thesis presents the first thorough examination of the prints of Vaughan Murray Griffin (1901-1992), produced in Melbourne between the 1920s and the 1980s. The thesis incorporates a catalogue raisonne of the 144 prints. Although recognised as an important contributor to early twentieth century Australian relief printing, Griffin's work has received little attention in recent years. Griffin first experimented with printing techniques in the 1920s, before settling on linocuts as a enjoyable and profitable artistic production, a sideline to his oil landscape painting. From 1932 until the 1970s, Griffin produced an opus of colourful linocuts, created by a combination of multiple block and reduction processes. This production was interrupted by the Second World War, during which he served as an Official War Artist and spent three and a half years as a prisoner of war in Changi, Malaya. The majority of the prints are decorative images of Australian native birds which were popular items from the Depression years well into the post-war period. However, in addition to these prints produced for the market, Murray produced a number of prints over the decades through which he developed and expressed personal ideas. These culminated in the 1960s group of prints which Murray called his 'Journey' series, representing his anthroposophical beliefs (based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner). The aim of this thesis is twofold: firstly, to provide a body of empirical data for the examination of Griffin's life and production and secondly, to analyse his prints in terms of wider social and artistic contexts. This analysis reveals that for a time he was at the forefront of Australian relief printmaking. Prints produced after the Second World War remained successful in the 1950s and 1960s, but have received minimal retrospective attention. This neglect was exacerbated by Griffin's involvement in anthroposophy and the intensely personal visual depiction of his beliefs.
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    Antipodean gothic
    Moore, G. Marie ( 1984)
    Introduction: The work of craftsmen who furnished Australian churches has been largely neglected and this has prompted me to seek out and research their art workmanship. It is proposed to discuss some British architects who were working during the Gothic Revival movement in England and who had some influence on the architecture in Australia. These architects forged links with the Pugin circle and craftsmen. Other British architects came to Australia and designed Gothic Revival churches and cathedrals. In order to simplify discussion the local architects have been divided into Roman Catholic and Protestant, even though in few cases was the work of an architect restricted to one particular denomination. English suppliers and craftsmen worked to designs supplied by English architects and their Australian counterparts. At first most of the Australian architects tended to employ many of the same craftsmen as their English colleagues, but it was not long before local craftsmen and suppliers were producing work comparable in quality to that of their overseas competitors. It was gradually realized that local craftsmen, like local materials, had their own particular advantages for Australian churches, and were by no means necessarily inferior to those from overseas sources. As well, architects were better able to control work done under their direct supervision, more quickly and more cheaply. Even working to an architect’s detailed plan, overseas craftsmen did not always meet the high expectations of the Australian architect. When one wanders around a church or cathedral, it is often impossible to find out who was responsible for a pulpit or font, an altar, mural decorations, a lectern or some other item of church furnishing, because so few Victorian craftsmen signed their works. It is almost as difficult to discover the name of the architects as church records are frequently non-existent. In some instances only one surviving example of an artist’s work has been found, as some church officials and clergymen apparently were not interested in the craftsmanship of the Victorian era and were quite happy to see this work removed. But others were just as reluctant to see the old treasures disappear, as evidenced in the comments of a parish priest: ….the murals were painted on canvas….and were taken down, and to my horror burned, despite a plea from someone in the parish….that they be preserved. The brassware is no longer part of the church furnishings and so I presume they along with the very beautiful pipe organ were given away or sold…..The church has been repainted…. but lacks character….unfortunately….those in charge were of a definite practical bent….with little concern for aesthetics. This must be a common complaint these days…. It is , and clearly highlights the constant difficulty in tracing the work of nineteenth century craftsmen, because so much has been thoughtlessly destroyed, given away or sold. Nevertheless, with the assistance gained in conversation with curates and other interested people, as well as from the surviving records, I have been able to piece together information on the craftsmen. The main aim of this thesis has been to build up information on the craftsmen, wherever possible, to locate extant examples of their work, and to discuss other works known to have been made for a particular church, but which has since been dismantled, given away or destroyed. This study is concerned with the work of craftsmen in seven separate categories: the wood carvers; decorators and gilders; stone carvers and masons; tillers; gold and silversmiths; art metal workers; and stained glass artists. The aim is not so much a detailed stylistic analysis of this great body of material, as a survey of the output of the major craftsmen in the colony, and some of their more important works elsewhere. The mass of data has been summarized in the extensive tables at the end of the thesis.
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    'Pilgrims of the picturesque': the amateur woman artist and British colonialism, circa 1750-1860
    JORDAN, CAROLINE ( 1996)
    Until recent feminist revisions of art history, British and British colonial amateur women artists have been almost totally ignored. Although biographical information is available about them, there is no general study which analyses their collective position and role in British and colonial societies. This is the broad aim of the thesis. It examines the construction of the subject of the British, middle-class, amateur, woman artist from the late eighteenth-century, her art training and employment opportunities, and her role in establishing amateur artistic culture in the colonies of Australia and India. It is an interdisciplinary study because amateur women artists typically produced hybrid, non-canonical, visual works that cross over into the fields of science and literature. The thesis explores the way amateur women’s various leisure and work practices were linked, discursively and practically, using an interdisciplinary approach which draws on feminism, postcolonialism and Foucault’s analysis of discursive practices. These approaches to historical study have in common an analysis of power in relation to the subject. Here, the power dynamics of class, race and gender are analysed in relation to the subject of the amateur woman artist. The thesis traces a key development in the ideological construction of the amateur woman artist to the 1790s in Britain, using the evidence of female conduct and other manuals. These promoted a rational, religious, domestic and maternal model of femininity, influenced by Evangelical religious ideas and gendered concepts of nature. ‘Feminine’ leisure pursuits, such as drawing, were redefined as self-disciplinary practices which would help achieve a desirable type of modern, middle-class, female subjectivity. This discourse extended into the construction of ‘feminine’ artistic genres in commercially available drawing-manuals and was practically reinforced by the conventions of amateur women’s private art training. The thesis revises definitions of the amateur woman artist, particularly the conventional split made between the amateur of the ‘female’ private sphere and the professional of the ‘male’ public sphere. These categories overlapped in middle-class women’s artistic employment. Moreover, their status was different in the nineteenth-century. While amateurs are now devalued relative to their professional counterparts, amateurism was then a mark of class superiority. The stigma attached to professional status for women, and the structural obstacles put in the way of their achieving it, meant that amateur and professional women artists trained, worked and presented themselves in similar ways. In the so-called ‘private’ sphere, it can be seen that women’s domestic, amateur, art production served the community rather than the self and therefore belonged as much to the public as to the private sphere. The thesis examines questions of white, middle-class women’s agency in raced, classed and gendered systems of colonial power. In Australia and India, male and female amateurs were central in founding artistic cultures, which were an instrument of class hegemony. Gendered hierarchies are evident within these class-based amateur cultures. In reading women’s representations of colonial lands and other races, the thesis argues that their conventional adoption of the picturesque mode of description, ostensibly a protest against ‘male’ violence and ‘progress’, was ambivalent and, ultimately, compliant with it.