Sarah Willard Gray

The Mapping Viewpoint in Australian Landscape Imagery: 1945-2010 Sarah Willard Gray

The purpose of this book is to analyse and discuss the use of aerial or mapping perspective in Australian landscape imagery from 1945-2010. The growing awareness of American Abstract Expressionism in Australia in the 1950s saw a period of landscape painting and photography that changed the way artists worked with the landscape motif. This allowed a unique representation of landscape that was no longer an adaption of a European tradition. This fresh approach to an established genre of artistry was made possible by the flattening of the picture plane and the absence of linear and atmospheric perspective as notated in the 15th century by Leonardo Da Vinci, Filippo Brunelleschi, Leon Battista Alberti and others. My study of ancient and contemporary Aboriginal art, using a mapping viewpoint, prompted my investigation into non-indigenous artists who also used this method in their work between 1945-2010.