Cross-cultural research has been in vogue in Australian intellectual life for some time now, but, according to Sayers, ‘the Companion remains for the most part in the thrall’ of ‘the medium-based categories into which the field of art history has traditionally been divided’. Clearly, Joan Kerr and Heritage have been ignored. As I mention in my forthcoming biography of Joan Kerr (LhR Press), Sayers considers both the Dictionary and Heritage two of the five ‘most useful and reliable dictionaries and encyclopaedias on Australian artists’ (Australian Art: Oxford History of Art, 2001).

Kerr referred to herself as a ‘contextualist’ who aimed to embed a work of art in its time and place. Is this not the documenting of ‘the social bases and discrete circumstances of the art’s production’ that Philip Jones espouses in his Companion essay on Aboriginal art?

Kerr might have been ahead of her time, but perhaps her work is becoming an instance of out of sight, out of mind. If the application of Jones’s wider cultural context for Aboriginal art could, as Sayers proposes, lead to the development of a ‘fuller understanding’ of ‘the whole field of Australian art’, then recognition of Joan Kerr’s contribution would go some way towards achieving a truly new orthodoxy.

Susan Steggall, Manly, NSW

A step along the way

Dear Editor,

When I commissioned The Cambridge Companion to Australian Art onbehalf of CambridgeUniversity Press, I had in mind precisely what Andrew Sayers has identified as a new orthodoxy. Dr Sayers was unable to contribute at the time, because of his commitments to the National Portrait Gallery, so it is pleasing that he was able to review the work from the perspective of both art gallery and museum experience. It is doubly pleasing that he has contributed to a debate that must be ongoing as to the nature, and sources, of Australian art as an integrated whole.

European vision was, and remained, the context for Bernard Smith’s approach to Australian art. There were times when he suggested there was no such separate category, despite his immense knowledge of the subject. As academics such as Dr Susan Lowish and Dr Ian McLean have proposed, there is room to move on from the enormous contribution Smith made without belittling his ideas. These debates are throwing up new more inclusive perspectives, which reflect, one hopes, a more democratic approach to aesthetics in this country. The ground is shifting to an acceptance that an exclusively European vision no longer suffices in Australia for art or any other cultural activity.

Weaving through the cross-cultural debates that inspired the book, an equally pertinent need emerged to foreground the cross-disciplinary strengths of earlier days when science, natural history, and aesthetics were holistic in approach. Had this framework continued, we might have been able to encompass the holistic world view in which Aboriginal culture is grounded.

There are academics who have framed their work in a cross-disciplinary context, and it is significant that Sayers hints that the most successful writers in the Companion are anthropologists. While he tends to highlight the disciplinary labelling process which has diminished thinking, it seems he is also suggesting that these writers are open to incorporating attitudes and influences from art history. This is their strength: not the fact that they are nominally anthropologists.

Like Andrew Sayers, I hope the Companion represents a step along the slow road to an inclusive understanding of Australian art and aesthetics.

Sandra McComb, Brighton, Vic.

Missing the point

Dear Editor,

The review of Carrie Tiffany’s novel Mateship with Birds (February 2012) seems to miss the point, nay many points. I think Bronwyn Lea is mistaken to read Harry’s record of the Kookaburra Family as poetry. Harry never claims he is a poet, nor that he is writing (blank) verse, much less that it is ‘for Michael’. But that is a small matter. More seriously, Ms Lea is blind to the symbolism here: ‘families’ and non-families, Harry’s preoccupation. The critic also does the author a disservice in her harsh remark about her characters being ‘uniformly doleful’ and opaque. On the contrary: Tiffany fills her story not only with a varied cast, described lovingly by the author, but also with younger characters such as Michael’s schoolfriend Dora and her skittish girlfriends.

Ms Lea is also oblivious to the rich texture of the novel, its wonderful evocation of the country town and its inhabitants, the mess of the cow yard, and the keenly observed details of that decade. Ms Lea is also oblivious to the book’s psychological insights and subtle symbolism. Far from offering ‘little insight into the most fundamental of human desires’, Tiffany’s novel offers much to ponder. Dreams are important, too. I was particularly intrigued by the dream of Little Hazel, reminiscent of Freud’s take on Leonardo, and by Harry’s agonising dream of contrition after Betty reacts against him.

Finally, I think the ‘resolution’ of the novel is totally believable (contrary to what Ms Lea says) – the main characters discard their sexual reticence in reconciliation. Ms Lea doesn’t put that in context: the previous agonising scene of Harry’s repentance, his dog-like watch at the windows of Betty’s workplace, and his frantic motorcycle ride home.    Yes, Everyman’s Rules for Scientific Living was a hard act to follow. But Carrie Tiffany has done it.

Michael Jorgensen, Carlton North, Vic.

Bronwyn Lea replies:

Tiffany’s protagonist, as my review points out, does not claim to be a poet, which is precisely why it was a risky decision to fill a fifth of the novel with his ‘poems’. On page twenty-eight, the narrator states that Harry writes ‘Observations of a Kookaburra Family at Cohuna’ with Michael in mind. I agree that Tiffany has keen powers of observation, but the fact remains that writing about sex is a treacherous business for any author: sex scenes are not always received in the way an author might hope. I am not blind, as Mr Jorgensen accuses, though I admit there were several scenes in Tiffany’s novel where I would have preferred to close my eyes.

 Neighbours

Dear Editor,

It is common knowledge that a literary work must always be viewed in the light of its context and the writer’s intention. So I was amazed to see my joint biography of two family members classified in your February ‘Contents’ alongside Henry Reynolds’s A History of Tasmania, as ‘Australian History’, setting the learned reviewer Bernard Whimpress, ex-journalist and writer of many books on football and cricket, off on a private wild-goose chase of his own, stirred by my publisher’s ‘captivating’ title, The Premier and the Pastoralist: William Morgan and Peter Waite, in search of unfulfilled mateship on the one hand, and political analysis on the other, from an author who makes no claim for such a friendship, nor to be himself an historian. Actually, my original working title was Neighbours, for such was the relationship of my forebears, men who lived next door to each other and whose children played together – no more.

As a work of history, says Whimpress, The Premier and the Pastoralist represents a missed opportunity for an historian (maybe himself?) to explore South Australian politics and mateship. Maybe a little research into the author’s life, beyond the book’s jacket, would have revealed to him that, apart from chasing sheep in relatively large numbers, I have published four novels, the last of which, Fat of the Land (1998), takes its inspiration from this same family background – here indeed was a missed opportunity, both literary and academic, to compare the writer’s use of the same material in fiction and non-fiction.

Jim Morgan, Thornbury, Vic.

Bernard Whimpress replies:

I sympathise with Jim Morgan’s point about viewing a book ‘in the light of its context and the writer’s intention’. However, I reviewed what was put in front of me. And the book put in front of me was titled The Premier and the Pastoralist, not Neighbours. The strength of the title and the cover imagery led me to structure my review in the way I did. If the book had been titled Neighbours, and assuming the content was the same, it would still have been a joint biography with one key figure (William Morgan) underdone. I believe the major problem with the book is that it is a family history which has escaped into the general market. If it had been published in a limited edition to be read by extended family members and friends it would have been fine, but when offered for wider readership it has shortcomings.

William Morgan and Peter Waite are significant figures in nineteenth-century South Australia. To interest a general reader (let alone an historian like me) they need to be fleshed out more fully in an historical context.