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Richard White wrote Inventing Australia: Images and Identity, 1688-1980 in 1991. In his book, White examines how an Australian national identity has been shaped in the past and continues evolving through time. The title he chose for the book reflects his belief that national identity does not exist but is invented. He talks about three main points in the making of this identity. The first one concerns Europe and its influence on Australia. The second one is the importance of the intelligentsia which defines at a particular moment a certain identity and the last one concerns the presence of the economic power of the ruling class which has the possibility to influence and chose a particular identity. In his book, White talks about events through history that have helped to define a particular identity at a given time.
For instance, the myth of the ‘Coming Man’ which excluded women and gave a very ‘manly’ definition started to appear at the end of the 19th century. After creating the coming man, Australia wanted to come up with its own culture. Artists wanted to idealize Australia. This new spirit “was often associated with the growth of local manufacturing and like the manufacturing interests, Australian intellectuals and artists sought to protect the local product by advertising it as being superior to the imported and even called for tariffs.” It was during WWII that the idea of a national type and identity was changed. Instead, the Australian way of life was created and promoted by the manufacturing sector. Numerous campaigns and ads were built around this concept. During the 70s, the idea of Australia as a tolerant and multiculturalist nation began to develop. And in the 80s, Australia would put forward its great resources and sell them to the rest of the world.
White wants to put forward that it has always been difficult to find and define an identity for Australia. Australia used to be a convict land and when the Utilitarianism of Ruskin reached Australia, culture in general existed only for its moral purpose. This purpose helped to build new buildings such as libraries and schools in the 1840s. What the bohemian group/ the artists of the Heidelberg school claimed, was the acceptance of art for its own sake. They demanded the professionalization of the intelligentsia “distinguishing the professional artists and the amateurs who established the colonial cultural institutions”. The artists wanted the possibility to live off their art. Art for them needed to be more than “leisure and pleasure”. The Australian Artists’ Association (1912) and the NSW Society of Artists were created later on to protect and recognize artists in Australia. These new cultural changes brought political changes too and the labor party started to gain more importance.
In the chapter ‘Bohemians and the Bush’, White takes a closer look at the conflict which took place in the 1890s between the two different generations of artists. The Australian-born bohemian generation wanted to break away from the English influence that had been going on in Australia. They wanted to give their country a new image, and “create a distinctively national culture”, one that would represent them. For them, the image of Australia created by the Europeans was “biased and blurred” whereas theirs was “clear and pure”. They turned to France and Bohemia to oppose the older Victorian values.
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