Art and literature: A cosmopolitan culture

Abstract

The history of art and literature in the Australian colonies, at least in the first half of the nineteenth century, can be understood not as the beginnings of a tradition that led naturally to the nationalist culture of the Federation period, but as a series of attempts to establish forms of subjectivity and sociability, and the cultural institutions associated with them, deriving from late-Georgian and Victorian Britain. These typically looked backwards rather than forwards, and were often unsuccessful in the Australian context. Since the idea of the nation functioned as an absence in these early years, we might begin by asking: what were Australian art and literature like before the nation..