New Wave of National Culture in Australia

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31587, 26 January 1968, Page 13

New Wave of National Culture in Australia

Thirty years ago Australia’s artistic life was like a jigsaw which had not been fitted together. The painters had established a national style as far back as the 1880 s, but half a century later they were living off the discoveries of their parents, painting the hard Australian light on its open landscapes.

The writers, who had made no such breakthrough, were following their own path, striving to interpret the country’s history and its topical, social problems in terms of realism. They met socially but did not exchange ideas.

In the performing arts Australia was content to live off European and American ideas. There were few significant Australian composers and no playwrights. Although there was much good music and theatre it was accepted at second-hand.

Actors, singers, instrumentalists and .dancers were welcomed from abroad, while most Australian stars took the road to London or Paris.

It would be too much to say that all this has changed. The playwrights and composers are still struggling for a hearing in their own country; many of the most talented Australians still find it more stimulating—and more profitable—to work in London or in New York. But a great and exciting change has taken place, particularly in the last 20 years. The nation's cultural life has made the decisive breakthrough. The parallel with its industrial leap forward is too close to be entirely a coincidence. The stimulus has affected all the arts, bringing increased energy and expertise, and bringing something deeper—a new self-confidence and an awareness of a national culture as something valid, significant and exportable. Australians have at last lost the slight inferiority feeling which afflicted many of their creative artists in the presence of the older and deeprooted cultures of the world. New Wave

The new wave has already breached the sea-walls which enclosed the nation’s artistic life. The art boom which has swept Australia in the last generation has created a fer-

ment of new ideas and techniques. Painting has become popular; it has found a market, and the leading artists can now live by the brush. Some like Nolan, Arthur Boyd, Blackman, Drysdale and Whiteley, have built reputations overseas, and command attention on the London market The Whitechapel Gallery has built a reputation for showing the work of young Australians. They form no clearly defined national school, although most of them practise some form of expressionism. Each searches for his own vision, but the symbols they have created often drive from the Australian past: Nolan has created myths from the period of bushranging and exploration. Tucker uses the skeletonic figure of a pioneer in a wide series of contexts.

Drysdale has developed poetry from the mystique of the Aborigine. This intense inner view also dominates the writing of Patrick White, although several of his novels have been set in a slum suburb of Sydney. His two long novels which won him the respect of English critic’s were both based on themes from Australian history translated into the universal language of fiction without definite time or place. English and Australian publishers now share each other’s markets, and many Australian writers are now well known abroad, either in their own language or in translation. Several of them have been published in all the main European languages, including Russian. They can speak to the world with an Australian accent.

The performing arts have been more heavily handicapped by the sheer problems of economics. Australians have always been avid lovers of music and theatre. From the time of the Gold Rush in the 1850 s its main cities have been on the touring circuit of world celebrities. There are elderly people who can recall Paderewski, Kreisler, Pavlova, Genee and even Bernhardt—playing in French to packed houses. Audiences came to expect the best, but commercial enterpreneurs faced the prospect of endless and costly travel, playing to the population of London spread over a country almost the size of Europe. Support

As in Britain and the United States, the arts were expected to pay their own way. In times of affluence theatre and music thrived, but they did not achieve the permanence of the subsidised companies and orchestras of Europe. It is only in recent years that Australians have accepted the principle that these forms of cultural expression are a legitimate charge on public revenue. Public patronage has flowed to the arts through many routes. The Australian Broadcasting Commission maintains symphony orchestras in the capitals and engages distinguished overseas conductors to direct them. Federal, State I

and municipal authorities are making increasing grants to the theatre. The main channel of patronage from Canberra is the Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust, which was set up by public subscription to commemorate a visit by the Queen 14 years ago. In drama the trust pursue a regional policy, helping to maintain professional, repertory theatres and to send touring companies to the out-back country areas which the commercial theatre never touched. Ballet and opera were a different matter. In each field the trust has given its support to a permanent, national company, seeking to achieve the highest world standards.

In little more than four years, the Australian Ballet can claim to have moved a long way along this path. With a nucleus of dancers from a disbanded commercial company, it has been welded and polished by its first artistic director, Peggy van Praagh, Who formerly worked with the Sadler’s Wells Ballet in London. She has been joined by Robert Helpmann, an Australia dancer who went to England and rose to the position of premier danseur with the Royal Ballet in England.

The Australian Ballet has already undertaken two highly successful world tours to dance at the first Commonwealth Festival of Arts in Britain, and at the Montreal Expo 67. It has appeared in some of the world’s greatest theatres in London, Paris, Buenos Aires and many other cities. In a few months it will embark on its third tour, of East Asia and the Pacific.

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra also toured Britain in the Commonwealth Festival, and the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, offered London’s critical audiences an Australian ballet by Helpmann, with music by another Australian, Malcolm Williamson, decor by Sidney Nolan, an Australian company on stage and an Australian orchestra in the pit. London critics were warm in recognising this surprising combination of talents. Opera Company

Last year the Trust took another important step forward. Instead of arranging annual opera seasons, it has established a permanent company with its own orchestra to tour the country. It may not be long before it is seen abroad.

There is every reason to believe that it will. Since the great Melba made her name as the world’s leading operatic soprano in the 1890’s a constant stream of Australian I singers has flowed into Europe to win fame on the operatic stages of the world. It is not unusual to find that half the leading singers at Covent Garden are Australians, and under French or Italian names they appear in the Paris opera and La Scala at Milan.