1.
National Library of Australia
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In 2012–2013, the National Library collection comprised 6,496,772 items, and an additional 15,506 metres of manuscript material. In 1901, a Commonwealth Parliamentary Library was established to serve the newly formed Federal Parliament of Australia, from its inception the Commonwealth Parliamentary Library was driven to development of a truly national collection. The present library building was opened in 1968, the building was designed by the architectural firm of Bunning and Madden. The foyer is decorated in marble, with windows by Leonard French. In 2012–2013 the Library collection comprised 6,496,772 items, the Librarys collections of Australiana have developed into the nations single most important resource of materials recording the Australian cultural heritage. Australian writers, editors and illustrators are actively sought and well represented—whether published in Australia or overseas, approximately 92. 1% of the Librarys collection has been catalogued and is discoverable through the online catalogue. The Library has digitized over 174,000 items from its collection and, the Library is a world leader in digital preservation techniques, and maintains an Internet-accessible archive of selected Australian websites called the Pandora Archive. A core Australiana collection is that of John A. Ferguson, the Library has particular collection strengths in the performing arts, including dance. The Librarys considerable collections of general overseas and rare materials, as well as world-class Asian. The print collections are further supported by extensive microform holdings, the Library also maintains the National Reserve Braille Collection. The Library has acquired a number of important Western and Asian language scholarly collections from researchers, williams Collection The Asian Collections are searchable via the National Librarys catalogue. The National Library holds a collection of pictures and manuscripts. The manuscript collection contains about 26 million separate items, covering in excess of 10,492 meters of shelf space, the collection relates predominantly to Australia, but there are also important holdings relating to Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and the Pacific. The collection also holds a number of European and Asian manuscript collections or single items have received as part of formed book collections. Examples are the papers of Alfred Deakin, Sir John Latham, Sir Keith Murdoch, Sir Hans Heysen, Sir John Monash, Vance Palmer and Nettie Palmer, A. D. Hope, Manning Clark, David Williamson, W. M. The Library has also acquired the records of many national non-governmental organisations and they include the records of the Federal Secretariats of the Liberal party, the A. L. P, the Democrats, the R. S. L. Finally, the Library holds about 37,000 reels of microfilm of manuscripts and archival records, mostly acquired overseas and predominantly of Australian, the National Librarys Pictures collection focuses on Australian people, places and events, from European exploration of the South Pacific to contemporary events. Art works and photographs are acquired primarily for their informational value, media represented in the collection include photographs, drawings, watercolours, oils, lithographs, engravings, etchings and sculpture/busts
2.
Australia
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Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and numerous smaller islands. It is the worlds sixth-largest country by total area, the neighbouring countries are Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor to the north, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu to the north-east, and New Zealand to the south-east. Australias capital is Canberra, and its largest urban area is Sydney, for about 50,000 years before the first British settlement in the late 18th century, Australia was inhabited by indigenous Australians, who spoke languages classifiable into roughly 250 groups. The population grew steadily in subsequent decades, and by the 1850s most of the continent had been explored, on 1 January 1901, the six colonies federated, forming the Commonwealth of Australia. Australia has since maintained a liberal democratic political system that functions as a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy comprising six states. The population of 24 million is highly urbanised and heavily concentrated on the eastern seaboard, Australia has the worlds 13th-largest economy and ninth-highest per capita income. With the second-highest human development index globally, the country highly in quality of life, health, education, economic freedom. The name Australia is derived from the Latin Terra Australis a name used for putative lands in the southern hemisphere since ancient times, the Dutch adjectival form Australische was used in a Dutch book in Batavia in 1638, to refer to the newly discovered lands to the south. On 12 December 1817, Macquarie recommended to the Colonial Office that it be formally adopted, in 1824, the Admiralty agreed that the continent should be known officially as Australia. The first official published use of the term Australia came with the 1830 publication of The Australia Directory and these first inhabitants may have been ancestors of modern Indigenous Australians. The Torres Strait Islanders, ethnically Melanesian, were originally horticulturists, the northern coasts and waters of Australia were visited sporadically by fishermen from Maritime Southeast Asia. The first recorded European sighting of the Australian mainland, and the first recorded European landfall on the Australian continent, are attributed to the Dutch. The first ship and crew to chart the Australian coast and meet with Aboriginal people was the Duyfken captained by Dutch navigator, Willem Janszoon. He sighted the coast of Cape York Peninsula in early 1606, the Dutch charted the whole of the western and northern coastlines and named the island continent New Holland during the 17th century, but made no attempt at settlement. William Dampier, an English explorer and privateer, landed on the north-west coast of New Holland in 1688, in 1770, James Cook sailed along and mapped the east coast, which he named New South Wales and claimed for Great Britain. The first settlement led to the foundation of Sydney, and the exploration, a British settlement was established in Van Diemens Land, now known as Tasmania, in 1803, and it became a separate colony in 1825. The United Kingdom formally claimed the part of Western Australia in 1828. Separate colonies were carved from parts of New South Wales, South Australia in 1836, Victoria in 1851, the Northern Territory was founded in 1911 when it was excised from South Australia
3.
Will Longstaff
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Captain William Frederick Longstaff was an Australian painter and war artist best known for his works commemorating those who died in the First World War. Born in Ballarat, Victoria, Longstaff studied art privately before joining the military and he was the cousin of portrait painter Sir John Longstaff. Upon returning to Australia, Longstaff continued to paint and teach art and he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force at the outbreak of the First World War and was injured in the Gallipoli campaign. In October 1915 he joined a remount unit and served in France, in England, he began drawing again and was trained in the art of camouflage. During his time in Egypt, Longstaff had made images of the ANZAC Mounted Division, upon his appointment as an Official War Artist in 1918 he produced numerous works during the final campaigns of the Western Front. After the war, Longstaff continued his art, turning many of his sketches into paintings, even after leaving the military, he remained in England, eventually settling in Sussex. Beginning the late 1920s, he made trips to the battlefields of Belgium and France. Among these later works is Menin Gate at Midnight, arguably his most famous, the painting toured Australia in 1928–29. It was viewed by record crowds, the painting is housed in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra. In December 2000 Menin Gate at Midnight left the War Memorial on loan to the National Gallery of Australia, sacred Places, War Memorials in the Australian Landscape. ISBN9780522849769, OCLC248475377 Biography Profile at the Australian War Memorial
4.
Victoria (Australia)
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Victoria is a state in southeast Australia. Victoria is Australias most densely populated state and its second-most populous state overall, most of its population is concentrated in the area surrounding Port Phillip Bay, which includes the metropolitan area of its state capital and largest city, Melbourne, Australias second-largest city. Prior to British European settlement, the area now constituting Victoria was inhabited by a number of Aboriginal peoples. With Great Britain having claimed the entire Australian continent east of the 135th meridian east in 1788, Victoria was included in the wider colony of New South Wales. The first settlement in the area occurred in 1803 at Sullivan Bay, and much of what is now Victoria was included in the Port Phillip District in 1836, Victoria was officially created as a separate colony in 1851, and achieved self-government in 1855. Politically, Victoria has 37 seats in the Australian House of Representatives and 12 seats in the Australian Senate, at state level, the Parliament of Victoria consists of the Legislative Assembly and the Legislative Council. Victoria is currently governed by the Labor Party, with Daniel Andrews the current Premier, the personal representative of the Queen of Australia in the state is the Governor of Victoria, currently Linda Dessau. Local government is concentrated in 79 municipal districts, including 33 cities, although a number of unincorporated areas still exist, Victorias total gross state product is ranked second in Australia, although Victoria is ranked fourth in terms of GSP per capita because of its limited mining activity. Culturally, Melbourne is home to a number of museums, art galleries and theatres and is described as the sporting capital of Australia. The Melbourne Cricket Ground is the largest stadium in Australia, and the host of the 1956 Summer Olympics, Victoria has eight public universities, with the oldest, the University of Melbourne, having been founded in 1853. Victoria, like Queensland, was named after Queen Victoria, who had been on the British throne for 14 years when the colony was established in 1851. The first British settlement in the later known as Victoria was established in October 1803 under Lieutenant-Governor David Collins at Sullivan Bay on Port Phillip. In the year 1826 Colonel Stewart, Captain S. Wright, fly and the brigs Dragon and Amity, took a number of convicts and a small force composed of detachments of the 3rd and 93rd regiments. Victorias next settlement was at Portland, on the south west coast of what is now Victoria, edward Henty settled Portland Bay in 1834. Melbourne was founded in 1835 by John Batman, who set up a base in Indented Head, from settlement the region around Melbourne was known as the Port Phillip District, a separately administered part of New South Wales. Shortly after the now known as Geelong was surveyed by Assistant Surveyor W. H. Smythe. And in 1838 Geelong was officially declared a town, despite earlier white settlements dating back to 1826, days later, still in 1851 gold was discovered near Ballarat, and subsequently at Bendigo. Later discoveries occurred at sites across Victoria
5.
National Gallery of Victoria
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The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as the NGV, is an art museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is Australias oldest, largest and most visited art museum, the St Kilda Road building, designed by Sir Roy Grounds, opened in 1968, and was redeveloped by Mario Bellini before reopening in 2003. It houses the international art collection and is on the Victorian Heritage Register. Designed by Lab Architecture Studio, the Ian Potter Centre opened in 2002, further money was set aside in the early 1860s for the establishment of the first National Gallery. On 24 May 1874, the first purpose built gallery, known as the McArthur Gallery, was opened in the McArthur room of the State Library, the undressed box was only ever intended as a temporary home until the much grander vision was to be realised. However such an edifice did not eventuate and the complex was instead developed incrementally over several decades, the National Gallery of Victoria Art School, associated with the gallery, was founded in 1867 and remained the leading centre for academic art training in Australia until about 1910. The Schools graduates went on to some of Australias most significant artists. In 1887, the Buvelot Gallery was opened, along with the Painting School studios, in 1892, two more galleries were added, Stawell and La Trobe. The gallerys collection was built from both gifts of works of art and monetary donations, the most significant, the Felton Bequest, was established by the will of Alfred Felton and from 1904, has been used to purchase over 15,000 works of art. £3 million was put forward in February 1960 and Roy Grounds was announced as the architect, in 1962, Roy Grounds split from his partners Frederick Romberg and Robin Boyd, retained the commission, and designed the gallery at 180 St Kilda Road. By 1967, the new $14 million complex began to take shape, and the gallery was finally relocated to the new building in the summer of 1967-1968. The new bluestone clad building was opened on Tuesday 20 August 1968 by Victorian premier Henry Bolte. In 1999, redevelopment of the building was proposed, with Mario Bellini chosen as architect, the proposal was to leave the original architectural fabric intact including the exterior facade and Leonard French stained glass ceiling, but to significantly modernise the spaces. During the redevelopment, many works were moved to a temporary external annex known as NGV on Russell, at the State Library with its entrance on Russell Street. NGV on Russell closed on 30 June 2002 to make way for the opening of the new St Kilda Road gallery. The Ian Potter Centre, NGV Australia was designed by Lab Architecture Studio, the NGVs Australian art collection encompasses Indigenous art and artefacts, Australian colonial art, Australian Impressionist art, 20th century, modern and contemporary art. The NGV houses many of the most recognisable Australian paintings, including Frederick McCubbins The Pioneer, phillips Fox, John Glover, Eugene von Guerard, Hans Heysen, George W. A large number of works were donated by Dr. Joseph Brown in 2004 which form the Joseph Brown Collection, in 2011 the NGV celebrated its 150th birthday and acquired an important painting by Correggio
6.
Narrative art
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Narrative art is art that tells a story, either as a moment in an ongoing story or as a sequence of events unfolding over time. Some of the earliest evidence of art suggests that people told stories with pictures. Static images in any artistic medium do not naturally lend themselves to telling stories as stories are told over time, although there are some common features to all narrative art, different cultures have developed idiosyncratic ways to discern narrative action from pictures. Prior to the advent of literacy most narrative art was done in a narrative style with very little overarching organization. Once literacy developed in different parts of the world began to be organized along register lines, like lines on a page. This method of linking scenes together led to ways of telling stories in the 20th century, namely the newspaper, comic strips. In painting in traditional Western art since the Renaissance, the concept of history painting covers most narrative scenes, though it requires sophisticated conventions to make the narrative clear, narrative art occurs very early in the history of art. One of the earliest works of Ancient Egyptian art is the Narmer Palette relief in the Louvre Museum, Narrative art was employed extensively in the Neo-Assyrian Period. Most significantly, the walls of the major Assyrian royal palaces were lined orthostats sculpted in low relief scenes depicting the activitives of the king. Sometimes, scenes were depicted on glazed bricks or wall paintings. Bronze bands decorating the doors of Assyrian temples and palaces were also decorated with scenes of the kings activities in narrative style. Trajans Column is an example of Imperial Roman narrative art. Book illustrations are found from ancient times in several cultures, and are often narrative in nature. Narratives occur in a space and unfold in time, in narrative art, the artist chooses how to portray the story, represent the space, and how to shape time within the artwork. Narrative art can be categorized into types, also known as modes or styles. A piece of artwork is not limited to one type of narrative. An artwork may have a type as a whole, as well as portions of the artwork itself that depict separate types of narratives. Several of these types are covered below, a depicted action in itself can suggest a scene or setting, You can imagine the Trojan War taking place at Troy without having to depict the actual city of Troy
