This lavishly illustrated book celebrates Australia's unification from regional provinces to a federation. Filled with a sense of their time in history, Australia's great painters have been compared with America's Hudson River artists who expressed a similar awe about their surroundings and whose pictures gave its people a feeling of nationhood. Different in mood and scale from the earlier Heidelberg paintings, perhaps the best known of the Australian art movements, the sweeping Federation landscapes defined Australianness. The images contain natural components unique to the world's largest island -- giant eucalyptuses, expansive oceans and beaches, grand rivers, rugged mountain ranges -- and the luminous light of Australia which bathes the land.

The important book surveys Britain's art tradition from the British Renaissance in the mid-16th century as the country became the center of the "civilized" world. With the prohibition against t the religious imagery that is basic to European art, the British developed a down-to-earth perspective, a confidence and an individualism that became their hallmark.

This profusely illustrated volume was published to coincide with the exhibition of the same title, 11 March-13 June 2005. Contents: The Britishness of British Art: From the Heritage of Hans Holbein to Holman Hunt; Cataloguing the Collection; Catalogue Essays; End Notes; Collecting British Art in Adelaide; Catalogue; & Select Bibliography. Over 200 full-color illustrations. Oversize. Coated stock. Beautifully designed!

The first Tom Roberts retrospective for fifty years presenting paintings by Australia's most popular artist, one who has helped to shape the Australian identity.