'Bernard Smith (1916–2011) was unquestionably one of Australia’s greatest humanist scholars and its finest art historian. His European Vision and the South Pacific, 1768–1850 (1960) was a foundational text of post-colonialism, and in Australian Painting (1962) he set out the definitive history of Australian art to that time. Antipodean Perspective: The Selected Writings of Bernard Smith presents twenty-six art historians, curators, artists and critics, from Australia and overseas, who have chosen a text from Smith’s work and sought to explain its personal and broad significance. Their selections reveal Smith’s extraordinary range as a scholar, his profound grasp of this nation’s past, and the way his ideas have maintained their relevance as we face our future.' (Publication summary)
'The editors begin their introduction to Antipodean Perspective with some ground clearing: ‘The putting together of a series of responses to an important scholar’s work is a classic academic exercise. It is undoubtedly a worthy, but also necessarily a selective undertaking. In German it is called a Festschrift …’ The Festschrift continues to be, in academic circles especially, a way of honouring the work, contribution, influence, and originality of this or that scholar or, sometimes, of a university librarian or outstanding teacher.' (Introduction)
'The editors begin their introduction to Antipodean Perspective with some ground clearing: ‘The putting together of a series of responses to an important scholar’s work is a classic academic exercise. It is undoubtedly a worthy, but also necessarily a selective undertaking. In German it is called a Festschrift …’ The Festschrift continues to be, in academic circles especially, a way of honouring the work, contribution, influence, and originality of this or that scholar or, sometimes, of a university librarian or outstanding teacher.' (Introduction)
