ART Exploration History

• xiii, 262 p. : ill. (some col.), ports. (some col.) ; 30 cm.
• Bibliography: p. 249-252.
• #091024 First Edition.
• Explores in more depth the issues first dealt with in European Vision and the South Pacific. Smith continues his examination of how European artists and scientists travelling to the Pacific during the time of Cook’s voyages were stimulated to see the world in new and creative ways. In analysing intensely personal responses to a newly accessible environment, Smith shows how science, topography and travel had an impact on current pictorial genres, how an empirical naturalism affected long-standing classical conventions, and how difficult it was for the artists to portray people and places they knew little about.
• Bernard Smith explores the subject of art in Australia with a focus on its history and evolution since the late 18th century. Bernard William Smith was Australia’s most eminent twentieth century art historian and a major thinker in the humanities. His first book Place, Taste and Tradition: a study of Australian art since 1788 is a key text in Australian art history, while European Vision and the South Pacific, first published in 1960, remains a pioneering masterpiece in the art and sciences of empire, imperialism and cultural contact in the Pacific.
• History – Cultural
• Race relations – Representation – History
• Race relations – Representation – Art
• Settlement and contacts – Explorers – European
• Hawaii
• Australia
• New Zealand (NZ)
• Pacific Islands
• Oceania in art
• Graphic arts — Europe — History — 18th century
• Voyages and travels in art
• Art — Psychology
• Art and science
• (Note our other Bernard Smith, Australian art historian, titles)