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Progress versus the Picturesque: white women and the aesthetics of environmentalism in colonial Australia 1820–1860
Author(s) -
Jordan Caroline
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
art history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 19
eISSN - 1467-8365
pISSN - 0141-6790
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8365.00325
Subject(s) - colonialism , environmentalism , frontier , contest , indigenous , amateur , white (mutation) , antinomy , aesthetics , art , history , sociology , art history , politics , political science , law , archaeology , philosophy , ecology , biochemistry , chemistry , linguistics , biology , gene
British artist–settlers steeped in the conventions of picturesque vision often found it difficult to create and preserve in the Australian colonies, in contrast to India. Colonists had to grapple not only with the patent Anglocentrism of their imported landscape aesthetic in a foreign, sometimes inhospitable environment, but with the appalling rate of destruction that accompanied the manifestations of ‘progress’, such as land clearing, on the colonial frontier. This essay argues that one aspect of an incipient environmental consciousness can be seen in the protests against progress made in the name of the picturesque by emigrants, in particular, amateur artists. It examines the classed and gendered dimensions of the inherent contest between progress and capitalist expansion and the picturesque and conservationism, through two Tasmanian artists, Louisa Meredith and Mary Allport. The essay concludes that the limits of aesthetic environmentalism for these women settlers are found in their attitudes to the indigenous Tasmanians.