Aborigines lived in Australia for thousands of years before the first Europeans arrived.

But since the 5th century BC, the existence of a Terra Australis Incognita ('Unknown Southern Land') had burned in the European imagination, and appeared fancifully on European maps.

The first incontrovertible recorded sightings of Australia's north and west coasts were made by the Dutch vessel Duyfken, under Willem Jansz, in 1606, although it is probable that Asians and Pacific Islanders had prior knowledge of the north coast. More sightings of the north, west and Tasmanian coasts were made by Dutch voyagers in the 17th century, but these failed to ascertain the existence of the supposed 'south land'.

It was left to the British to further explore the giant southern continent a hundred years later. In 1768, the British Admiralty and Royal Society organised the first scientific expedition to Tahiti in the Pacific. On board the ship Endeavour was a team of scientists, naturalists, astronomers and artists led by the captain, James Cook. Cook's orders were to observe the passage of the planet Venus across the face of the sun, and thence to proceed westwards to explore the South Pacific to locate the 'great south land'.

In April 1770, having charted the coastline of New Zealand, Cook sailed west towards Tasman's Van Diemen's Land, but was edged northwards by the swell and so made the first recorded sighting of the east coast of Australia. He sailed north from the first landfall at Point Hicks in Victoria, landing at Botany Bay. Once more heading north, he charted the coast to Cape York, landing at Possession Island where in the name of George III he claimed possession of the whole eastern coast which he called New South Wales. He then proceeded along the New Guinea coast, having proved the existence of a strait between that island and Australia.

The voyage of the Endeavour fired the imagination of the British scientific community. The scientists and artists on Cook's ship, including Sydney Parkinson, collected and recorded a wealth of new Australian specimens.

The great success of the Endeavour voyage, revealing the untapped natural resources of Australia, paved the way for British settlement of Australia which began in 1788.

At the same time, more scientific expeditions were sent to the Pacific, carrying scientists, artists and naval officers as recorders. By 1788, the remaining problem was to discover whether the known segments — New South Wales, Van Diemen's Land and the western part of the continent (New Holland) — formed one landmass. From 1801 to 1803, Matthew Flinders in the Investigator charted the unknown south coast and then became the first voyager to completely circumnavigate the continent. At the same time, the French navigator, Nicolas Baudin, was in charge of a French scientific voyage aboard Le Geographe and Le Naturaliste to complete the charting of Australia (1800). Baudin charted some of the west coast of Australia and Tasmania, and then in April 1802 he met Matthew Flinders (at a place named Encounter Bay in South Australia), as Flinders was making his way eastwards on his historic circumnavigation.

The artists on Flinders' and Baudin's expeditions produced some of the most scientifically accurate and beautiful paintings of Australian plants, animals and landscapes. These were the work of Ferdinand Bauer, Charles Alexandre Lesueur, Nicolas Petit and William Westall.

Later voyages, undertaken to chart the northern Australian coast more accurately, were documented in watercolours by naval officers. These commenced in 1817 with Phillip Parker King on the Mermaid. Others were the voyages of the Beagle under the command of J.C. Wickham and then of John Lort Stokes; and the Rattlesnake under the command of Owen Stanley.

Further expeditions took explorers and scientists into the vast inland regions of flat desert and uncleared bush in the unexplored north. From 1855to 1856, Augustus Charles Gregory led an expedition which explored the interior of northern Australia, a journey prolifically recorded by the artist Thomas Baines. Other artists who documented exploration of the northern interior were George French Angas and Samuel Thomas Gill.

Gradually northern Australia was settled, with pastoralists taking up areas of land for cattle and sheep during the 1860s and 1870s. The discovery of gold deposits also encouraged further settlement.

Travelling artists began to record the new properties and towns in the north. Among them were Charles Allen, E. P. Bedwell, Edward Bevan and William Allom who made paintings of central Queensland and Townsville.

Significant women artists in the north in this later colonial period included the professional flower painter Marian Ellis Rowan and the amateur artists, Annie Pring Marten and Harriet Jane Neville-Rolfe, who recorded daily life on isolated rural properties.

As this exhibition reveals, some of these newcomers felt a naive sense of wonder at "a paradise of new plant and animal species, ethnographic curiosities and Arcadian landscapes.'' But others saw only a "melancholy and threatening place, rife with unpleasant experiences" as they faced hazards of coral reefs, treacherous tides, heat, drought and hostile Aborigines. Others still record attractive new towns springing up and flourishing bush homesteads.

These divergent viewpoints combine to present a sharply characterised portrait of the first Europeans in Australia's tropics.

SUGGESTED PRE-VISIT ACTIVITIES [Image thumbnails link with full images and additional information]
Secondary School Focus | During the Visit | Post-Visit Activities

Using history books and atlases as a guide, mark on the map the routes followed by the following European navigators and explorers:

• James Cook 1768-1771
• Matthew Flinders 1801-1803
• John Clements Wickham and John Lort Stokes 1837-1841
• Ludwig Leichhardt 1844-1845
• Edmund Besley Court Kennedy 1848
• Augustus Charles Gregory 1855-1856, 1858
• John McDouall Stuart 1858-1862
• Robert O'Hara Burke and William John Wills 1860-1861

• Find out as much as you can about these explorers, their expeditions, scientific discoveries and the hazards they faced.

• Look up and become familiar with the works of some of the artists who accompanied these expeditions (for example, Sydney Parkinson, who accompanied James Cook's Endeavour voyage and Ferdinand Bauer and William Westall, who travelled with Matthew Flinders)

Noble and ignoble savages. The responses of the first Europeans in Australia to the Aborigines were shaped by ideas about "noble savages". In the 18th century European imagination, the peoples of the Pacific were primitives unencumbered and uncorrupted by the weight of civilisation, living in a state close to nature and in tune with the essential goodness of the human spirit. But after colonisation and the experience of fierce conflict between European settlers and Aborigines, this image was replaced by the "ignoble savage" - the personification of a defeated people or "dying race" doomed to extinction or at best to an existence as fringe-dwellers.

• Find some early writings on the theme of the "noble savage".
• Find examples of both the "noble savage" and the "ignoble savage" in colonial Australian art.

Aboriginal resistance and frontier conflict. The British did not recognise Aboriginal ownership of the country, and exploration and colonisation inevitably caused bloodshed. Although the British government expressed concern about native rights, local authorities sent soldiers and native police troops against Aborigines. As settlement spread, there was conflict between settlers and Aborigines in one district after another.

• Find out about the history and culture of the Darambal people, who first occupied central Queensland. Research the early years of conflict after the arrival of white settlers in the area and the role of the Native Police in "dispersing" Aboriginal people.

The lure of gold. Gold rushes from the early 1850s did much to increase the non-Aboriginal population of northern Australia.

• Where were the richest goldfields in northern Australia? Research the story of the Mount Morgan gold rush and find out what life was like for the Europeans and Chinese who came to the area first as miners and later as market gardeners and businessmen.

The white tribes of the Antipodes. Research and find out what you can about the first European settlers and settlements in northern Australia.

• Why did some early settlements, such as Port Essington, fail?
• Find out the story of the pastoralist-explorers, Charles and William Archer, who first discovered the Fitzroy Valley in 1853 and opened up the district to pastoralism after establishing their head station at Gracemere in 1855.
• Describe what life was in the early years of the new towns of Rockhampton and Townsville.
• "The white tribes that made up the new settler societies were simultaneously strutters and cringers, boasting proudly of their difference from the rest of the world, particularly Britain, but suffering considerable insecurities that the civilizations they had built were insubstantial." Richard Nile and Christian Clerk (1995)

The quote above refers to the way the new European settlers in Australia regarded themselves and the places where they lived. With this quote in mind, find some examples of 19th century northern Australian paintings, songs, poems or other art forms that answer the questions "Who are we?" and "What are we?"

In this exhibition, artists in northern Australia have portrayed the tropical environment in different ways: as an Arcadia of the south; as a melancholy or threatening place; and as a familiar, settled countryside. Choose three pictures in the exhibition which represent these contrasting approaches.

• Compare and contrast the works you have chosen, referring specifically to the artists' ideas, their styles and compositional approaches.

2

Find the botanical and zoological watercolours by Ferdinand Bauer and Charles Alexander Lesueur, and the later botanical watercolours by Marian Ellis Rowan.

• Pretend you are a critic writing for a newspaper and write a few paragraphs which compare the work of the three artists. Consider the artists' command of such elements as line and form, colour, tone, pattern, rhythm and space. How successful do you think the works are as scientific records (giving accurate and detailed descriptions of specimens)? What is your view of the works' artistic quality?

Now find Annie Pring Marten's watercolours. Marten settled on the sugar plantation Branscombe, near Mackay, in 1870. Her watercolours of the new plantation house, Winterbourne, painted in 1873, were sent back to relatives in England to show what life was like in north Queensland.

• What do the watercolours tell us about the new settlers who lived at Winterbourne? Do you think Marten and her family regarded themselves as Britons or Australians? Do the pictures convey a sense of belonging in the new land? Find evidence in the pictures for your answer.

The history of European settlement in northern Australia is a fascinating story of navigators, explorers and settlers making incredible journeys and facing many hazards in a search for a new world and new ways of life.

• Have people today lost this sense of adventure? Do most of us opt for vicarious adventure - through films, television, books? Discuss or debate this as a class.
• Make a work of art entitled My Journey to a New World

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Think about how Australian society has changed since colonial times. How close do you think Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians are to reconciling the racial conflict of the past? Do we know much about the culture and lives of indigenous and Asian Australians? Have we freed ourselves from our colonial dependence on Britain, only to be swamped by the overbearing cultural influence of the United States?

• With the above issues in mind, write a short essay or have a class discussion or debate about Australia's changes since colonial times — consider whether we a better and fairer society now. Do we have a strong sense of who we are? What kind of society do you want Australia to be?

Many of the works in Blighted Paradise are a kind of visual diary of the artists' daily lives in particular places, or are fascinating records of events, people, plants and animals encountered on long journeys.

Keep your own diary and start a collection of resources to give you ideas for art works:

• Starting an art diary: try writing about and sketching some of the events in your own life that can feed your imagination with ideas and feelings. As well, pack a sketchbook and pencil or a small camera with you when you go out -whether you live in the city, near a park, in the open countryside, or by the sea, there are always plenty of subjects to explore and record. You may want to include some of these sketches and photographs in your diary, along with family photographs, poems, advertisments, news stories and ideas from films — you may find surprising links between unexpected things. All these things may suggest themes that you can develop into art works.
• Collecting for a theme: you may also find it useful to start a collection of interesting objects to inspire you. When walking through your local area, or if you are visiting a new place, collect things that you feel reflect its character: museum or gallery postcards, stamps, feathers, leaves, stones, shells, small toys — of course, only take things that you have permission to collect!