The Quarantined Culture
Australian Reactions to Modernism, 1913–1939

This engaging work discusses the impact of the First World War on Australian attitudes to modernist art.

John Frank Williams (Author)

9780521477130, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 1 January 1995

300 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.44 kg

In 1913 the Australian press displayed a cosmopolitan openness to the culture of the modern world. By 1919, however, Australia had become an inward-looking society bent on keeping the outside world out - a quarantined culture. This book looks at the impact of the First World War on Australian culture, focusing on reactions to modernist art. John Williams argues that the creation of the Anzac legend, the back-to-the-land movement, notions of racial superiority and the mythology of the masculine nation were reactionary and anti-modern. Reflecting this, Australian pioneers of post-impressionism were ignored in favour of more traditional artists. This engaging book outlines the forces - social, economic, cultural, political - that led to the stagnation of Australian culture between the wars. John Williams' original and provocative work, originally published in 1995, made an important contribution to Australian cultural history.

List of illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The mad kermesse
2. 1913: a year of golden plums
3. 1913: nowadays we are most of us Nietzscheans
4. 1914–19: the gilding of battlefield lilies
5. 1919–20: blowing the national trumpet
6. The return of the city bushmen
7. Aliens among us
8. Blues in the Jazz Age
9. Fissure in the imperial landscape
10. Crash and aftermath
11. Whatever happened to the 'lost generation'?
Conclusion
Appendix
Notes
Select bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], Australasian & Pacific history [HBJM]