Coda To be a Californian was to see oneself, if hese quotations from two renowned one believed the lessons the place seemed contemporary authors, one Californian most immediately to offer, as affected only si and the other Australian, serve to by 'nature', which in turn was seen to exist refocus, to bring us back to the intentions simultaneously as a source of inspiration or underlying the writing of these chapters. In renewal ... Much of the California landscape the visual sphere rather than the literary, I has tended to present itself as metaphor ... wanted in this study to consider how people —Joan Didion, Where I was from (2003)1 of Eurocentric cultures, thrust into a new landscape, an unknown geography, were able We can learn to appreciate kinds of landscape with the aid of images to make the place their other than the one we grew up with, to see own. Ending these ruminations in 1935 was what is unique and a source of beauty in them. not an entirely arbitrary decision. Aesthetic But the landscape we most deeply belong to, exchange through reproducible images and that connects with our senses, that glows in a sharing of the emblems of popular culture our consciousness, will always be the one we continued between these two Pacific regions are born into. after this date, and continues still. But in the —David Malouf, A spirit of play (1998)2 early twentieth century historic transforma- tions in art and mass media changed the nature of the concepts of itinerancy, reproducibility and portability. In architecture, the worldwide Depression of the 1930s curtailed construction in Australia and limited direct interaction with the wider world, thus ending any extravagant imitation of Hollywood houses and Spanish Style fantasies. Further, the whole notion of Hollywood in this era caused a global shift in how images appeared in cultures and how they were absorbed into the vernacular psyche. Once the California-based movie industry gained global hegemony over popular culture, with animated icons such as Mickey Mouse and films using the landscape of Southern California as a backdrop, the possibilities of tracing the specific origins of a particular 330 Images of the Pacific Rim aesthetic or visual strand became increasingly cultural identities, consisted of continuous difficult. The nature of itinerancy changed, as exchange of all kinds of images and aesthetic moving pictures emanating out of California ideas. As my reaction to the juxtaposition of and driven by American marketing methods Northfield's Canberra poster and a California were sent around the world and consumed citrus—box label reveals, such reproducible immediately everywhere. images, dispersed freely from one Pacific coast These new forms of mass media—film, to the other, sought visually to define a sense radio, and eventually television and the of place. internet—have offered a mixing of cultural In the end, my purpose in discussing these information that is particularly suited to wide-ranging topics about a shared visual the post-colonial attitudes that Australia— culture mirrors the concerns of Joan Didion and yes, California—so clearly represent. and David Malouf: to consider the idea of an These media, these ubiquitous conduits of aesthetics of place. My own iconography of visual imagery, can overcome that 'tyranny place—my sense of what is familiar and com- of distance'—so famously described by fortable in the landscape as rendered through historian Geoffrey Blainey3—more rapidly images—has been determined by my experi- than the older printed forms of illustration ence in these two cultures of the Pacific Rim. and reproduction. These new technologies The images and the examples presented in this were by definition linked with the idea of the book suggest that this shared visual template new, of a modernity that especially spoke to is not simply serendipitous, but is the result the needs of young societies. When in 1938 of prolonged interaction between two peoples former Australian Prime Minister W. M. whose societies came of age at the same time, 'Billy' Hughes opened a direct radio telephone and in an environment that had much in service with Washington, his remarks stressed common. the important affinities between Australia and the United States, implying that only 'new' NOTES cultures could fully grasp the significance of 1. Joan Didion, Where I was from, Knopf, New York, 2003, P. 66. these modern developments: 'What we are, 2. Malouf, p. 49. you were; and what you are, we hope to be ... 3. Geoffrey Blarney, The tyranny of distance: How On us, the people of the new world, much of distance shaped Australia's history, Sun Books, the future of civilisation depends.'4 In such an Melbourne, 1966. outlook, Australia and California carried the 4. In The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 December responsibility for advancing Western culture, 1938, quoted in F. K. Crowley, Modern Australia in documents 1901-1939, Wren Publishing, Melbourne, a culture that increasingly depended on images 1973, pp. 591-92. to construct its sense of meaning and belonging in the world. Globalisat ion, beginning in the mid- twentieth century, has obscured any definitive origins of recent visual borrowings between Western countries. But as the evidence presented in these chapters substantiates, the previous 150 years of association between Australia and California, at a time when both regions were striving to create distinct Coda 331 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Fig. 0.01 (frontispiece). Pacific Brand label, Fig. 1.07 Alexander Fox, Panorama of View Johnston Fruit Co., Santa Barbara, Point, Bendigo, 2 views, October 1858. California, 1917. Courtesy of The Jay T. Courtesy of Bendigo Art Gallery, Bendigo, Last Collection. The Huntington Library, Victoria. San Marino, California. Fig. 1.08 Henri Penelon, Portrait of Penelon at Fig. 0.02 James Northfield, Canberra, Federal easel in his studio, c. 1870. Photograph. Capital es- Garden City, Australia, c. 1930. Seaver Center for Western History Research, Colour lithograph. Courtesy of the James Natural History Museum of Los Angeles Northfield Heritage Art Trust O. County, California. Fig. 0.03 Glendora Brand citrus label, c. 1925. Fig. 1.09 Thomas Flintoff, Baby Bernard, Courtesy of The Jay T. Last Collection. The c. 1870s. Cartes de visite. Photograph. Huntington Library, San Marino, California. Courtesy of Mitchell Library, State Library Fig. 1.01 Clipper ship card for Coringa, sailing of New South Wales, Sydney. between New York and Melbourne, c. Fig. 1.10 Isaac Wallace Baker, Baker standing in 1870s. Robert B. Honeyman, Jr, Collection front of Batchelder's Daguerreian Saloon, of Early Californian and Western 1852. Daguerreotype. Collection of the American Pictorial Material. Bancroft Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, Library, University of California, Berkeley, California. California. Fig. 1.11 Benjamin Batchelder, Sonora, 1856. Fig. 1.02 The Mammoth Trees, in Hutchings' Stereograph. Courtesy of Haggin Museum, California Scenes, 1854. Letter-sheet Stockton, California. engraving. Courtesy of The Huntington Fig. 1.12 Benjamin Batchelder, Batchelder and Library, San Marino, California. wife (Nancy) in Stockton studio at 183 Fig. 1.03 Attributed to Joseph B. Starkweather, El Dorado Street, c. 1885. Stereograph. 1852. Daguerreotype. Nevada City. Courtesy of Haggin Museum, Stockton, Courtesy of the California History Room, California. California State Library, Sacramento, Fig. 1.13 Miners at Taylorsville, California, c. California. 1851. Daguerreotype. Courtesy of The Fig. 1.04 Merlin & Bayliss, Studios of American Huntington Library, San Marino, California. es• Australasian Photographic Company, Fig. 1.14 Fauchery & Daintree, Group of Tambarorra Street, Hill End, showing diggers, 1858. Albumen silver photograph. members of staff and passers-by, c. 1870- From Australia. Sun pictures of Victoria, 75. Photograph. Holtermann Collection, Melbourne, 1858. La Trobe Picture State Library of New South Wales, Sydney. Collection, State Library of Victoria, Fig. 1.05 Merlin & Bayliss, reverse of Merlin's Melbourne. cartes, with trademark of American & Fig. 1.15 Frederick Grosse, Gold diggers' Australasian Photographic Company's puddling machine. Wood-engraving. Sydney office in George Street. Private Published by John P. Brown, Melbourne, collection. April 1858. Image by Nicholas Chevalier. Fig. 1.06 George Robinson Fardon, San Francisco National Library of Australia, Canberra. album, 1856, p. 5. View down Stockton Fig. 1.16 Augustus Baker Peirce, Peirce and Street to Bay. Albumen print. Courtesy Creelman with Batchelder cart. Illustration of The Huntington Library, San Marino, in Peirce, Knocking About, Yale University California. Press, New Haven, 1924, p. 32. 332 Images of the Pacific Rim Fig. 1.17 Benjamin Batchelder, Sayer Brothers' PULL AWAY CHEERILY! THE GOLD Norfolk Brewery, Bayne Street frontage, DIGGER'S SONG./written and sung by Bendigo, 1861. Albumen photograph. La Harry Lee Carter, in his entertainment Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of of The Two Lands of Gold'. Also Sung Victoria, Melbourne, Victoria. by George Henry Russell, in Mr. Payne's Fig. 1.18 Benjamin Batchelder, View of Popular Entertainment, `A Night in the Littlehale's croquet tent, Stockton, Lands of Gold.'/Music composed by Henry California, c. 1885. Stereograph. Courtesy Russell. Wood-engraving. Musical Bouquet of Haggin Museum, Stockton, California. Office, London, 1853. Reproduced in California sheet music covers, The Book Fig. 2.01 J. C. F. Johnson, Euchre in the bush, c. Club of California Keepsake Series, 1959. 1872. Oil on canvas, mounted on board, 42 Courtesy of The Huntington Library, San x 60.2 cm. Bequest of Clarice May Megaw, Marino, California. 1980. Collection, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Ballarat, Victoria. Colour Plate Fig. 2.09 Harden S. Melville, cover, News from home quadrille by Jullien. Baxter colour Fig. 2.02 J. C. F. Johnson, A game of euchre. print after oil painting by Melville. Jullien Wood-engraving, in Australasian Sketcher, & Co., London, c. 1851. Music Collection, Melbourne, 25 December 1876. National National Library of Australia, Canberra. Library of Australia, Canberra. Fig. 2.10 Quirot tic Co., cover, The California Fig.