Synopses & Reviews
An original exploration of the influence of Aboriginality on Australian art and identity.
Review
"Ian McLean's White Aborigines is a lucid and intelligent investigation of the ways in which relationships between Aborigines and non-Aborigines have been represented in Australian art from 1788 to the present. At the same time as McLean explores the historical dialogue between Aboriginal art and white Australian art he also addresses difficult questions about cultural affiliation and reconciliaton in present-day Australia." Carrie Dawson, Antipodes
Table of Contents
1. Ocean and the Antipodes; 2. Artful killings: melancholy, metaphor and the aesthetic practices of colonial art, 1500-1870; 3. The art of settlement, 1790-1880; 4. The triumph and limits of impressionism, 1880-1910; 5. Aboriginalism and Australian nationalism, 1900-1960; 6. The Aboriginal renaissance and its impact on Australian painting, 1940-1990; 7. The reception of Aboriginality in contemporary Australian painting, 1980-1996; 8. Painting for a new republic: Gordon Bennett's mirror play, 1988-1996; Postscript: What do Australians want?