From rock art to Australian modernism, from bark paintings to the Heidelberg School, The Cambridge Companion to Australian Art provides a wide-ranging overview of the movements, themes and media found in Australian art. This Companion features essays that explore the influence of different cultures on Australian art, written by some of the leading scholars and professionals working in the field. Generously illustrated with over 200 colour images, from more than 40 collections and sites throughout Australia, this Companion provides a comprehensive exploration of the artistic identity of past and present Australia.

A Companion to Australian Art is a thorough introduction to the art produced in Australia from the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 to the early 21st century. Beginning with the colonial art made by Australia’s first European settlers, this volume presents a collection of clear and accessible essays by established art historians and emerging scholars alike. Engaging, clearly-written chapters provide fresh insights into the principal Australian art movements, considered from a variety of chronological, regional and thematic perspectives. The text seeks to provide a balanced account of historical events to help readers discover the art of Australia on their own terms and draw their own conclusions. The book begins by surveying the historiography of Australian art and exploring the history of art museums in Australia. The following chapters discuss art forms such as photography, sculpture, portraiture and landscape painting, examining the practice of art in the separate colonies before Federation, and in the Commonwealth from the early 20th century to the present day. This authoritative volume covers the last 250 years of art in Australia, including the Early Colonial, High Colonial and Federation periods as well as the successive Modernist styles of the 20th century, and considers how traditional Aboriginal art has adapted and changed over the last fifty years. The Companion to Australian Art is a valuable resource for both undergraduate and graduate students of the history of Australian artforms from colonization to postmodernism, and for general readers with an interest in the nation’s colonial art history.

As a companion to 'music in Australia', rather than 'Australian music', this book acknowledges the complexity and contestation inherent in the term 'Australia', whilst placing the music of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people at its very heart. This companion emphasizes a diversity of musical experiences in the breadth of musical practice that flows though Australia, including Indigenous song, art music, children's music, jazz, country, popular music forms and music that blurs genre boundaries. Organised in four themed sections, the chapters present the latest research alongside perspectives of current creative artists to explore communities of practice and music's ongoing entanglements between Indigenous and non-Indigenous cultural practices, the influence of places near and far, of continuity, tradition, adaptation, and change. In the final chapter, we pick up where these chapters have taken us, asking what is next for music in Australia for the future.

An indispensable reference for the study of Australian literature.

The Routledge Handbook of the Sociology of Arts and Culture offers a comprehensive overview of sociology of art and culture, focusing especially – though not exclusively – on the visual arts, literature, music, and digital culture. Extending, and critiquing, Bourdieu’s influential analysis of cultural capital, the distinguished international contributors explore the extent to which cultural omnivorousness has eclipsed highbrow culture, the role of age, gender and class on cultural practices, the character of aesthetic preferences, the contemporary significance of screen culture, and the restructuring of popular culture. The Handbook critiques modes of sociological determinism in which cultural engagement is seen as the simple product of the educated middle classes. The contributions explore the critique of Eurocentrism and the global and cosmopolitan dimensions of cultural life. The book focuses particularly on bringing cutting edge ‘relational’ research methodologies, both qualitative and quantitative, to bear on these debates. This handbook not only describes the field, but also proposes an agenda for its development which will command major international interest.

Professor John Croucher gives an account of the first and continuing history of the first peoples to live in the region now known as New South Wales, as well as its history from the days of British settlement and its more recent history, of the waves of other immigrants who have made New South Wales their home. Each section in the book focuses on a different cultural or historical aspect which is examined thoroughly from the beginnings of British settlement. The complete development of the state is told, weaving through these various areas of focus, along with the important people and events. Remarkable pioneers have helped shape not only the state but the country as a whole and their voices, some coming to us via oral history, others via historical documents, make fascinating reading.

This volume investigates Australian poetry's centrality to debates around colonialism, nationalism, diversity, embodiment, local-global relations, and the environment.