The received wisdom about our earliest colonial painters was that they portrayed this strange Gondwana landscape through the prism of their European-trained eyes, producing idealised images of ordered environments very different from the natural world they were confronted with.
Now a fascinating new thesis has emerged in a book by Bill Gammage,”The Biggest Estate on Earth: How Aborigines Made Australia”, challenging that notion.
The Global Mail has an introduction to this seminal work, which demonstrates that those painters accurately recorded the landscape they found; and in fact documented aboriginal land use practices which may have profoundly shaped our continent and its eco-systems right up to European invasion.
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Great stuff – fascinating article – how come it hasn’t made headlines ‘down under’?
Good question, but as the book is only just out, maybe it will take some time to gather momentum.
Fascinating Pete, thanks for the heads up.
I see Chevrolet ads on Kookynie…when reading about land management …maybe that has been the ruin of the the great outback bush..and once sacred beaches…cars,,,
maybe the Chevy ads are there to remind us?