Rethinking Australia’s Art History: The Challenge of Aboriginal Art

Description

This book aims to redefine Australia’s earliest art history by chronicling for the first time the birth of the category "Aboriginal art," tracing the term’s use through published literature in the late eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Susan Lowish reveals how the idea of "Aboriginal art" developed in the European imagination, manifested in early literature, and became a distinct classification with its own criteria and form. Part of the larger story of Aboriginal/European engagement, this book provides a new vision for an Australian art history reconciled with its colonial origins and in recognition of what came before the contemporary phenomena of Aboriginal art. Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Copyright......Page 5 Dedication......Page 6 Contents......Page 8 List of Illustrations......Page 10 Acknowledgements......Page 15 Introduction......Page 18 1 Writing a History of Encounters......Page 24 i Aboriginal Art in Australian Art Histories......Page 27 ii Anthropological Studies of Aboriginal Art History......Page 29 iii Legacies of Primitivism......Page 30 iv New Art Histories......Page 32 v Current Directions in Writing on Aboriginal Art......Page 34 2 Exploration and 'Discovery'......Page 39 i First Encounters: Baudin, Flinders and King, Grey and Stokes......Page 40 ii Secondary Accounts: Hull, Tenison-Woods, Wake, Smyth and Curr......Page 56 3 Searching for the Origin of Art......Page 69 i Early Science: Darwin, Howitt and Tylor......Page 72 ii Following Grey: Bradshaw, Brockman and House, Greig and Walsh......Page 77 4 Seeing the Art of the First Australians......Page 94 i Early Australian Anthropology and Ethnology: between Science and Christianity: Roth, Worsnop, Thornton and Mathew......Page 96 5 Evolutionists and Australian Aboriginal Art......Page 117 i Science and Art History: Ruskin, Decorative Art and Grosse......Page 119 ii Spencer's Anthropological Influences: Balfour, Haddon, Lang and Frazer......Page 127 i Spencer and Anthropology: Horn Expedition, Native Tribes of Central Australia and Northern Tribes of Central Australia......Page 140 ii Spencer and Art: Across Australia, Native Tribes of the Northern Territory, The Arunta and Wanderings in Wild Australia......Page 152 7 Collecting and Exhibiting: The Dawn of 'Primitive Art'......Page 170 i The First Collections: International and Colonial Exhibitions and the Changing Content of Displays......Page 172 ii Aboriginal Art and Museums: A Defining Relationship: The Influence of Pitt Rivers on Australian Museum Displays, the Australian Museum in Sydney and from Weapons to Art......Page 182 Conclusion......Page 199 Bibliography......Page 202 Index......Page 218