Contends that the proponents of high modernism, galvanised by the outrage of the Great War, abandoned beauty (as it had been traditionally defined) as the organizing principle of art.
Investigates ideas of beauty in contemporary art and the notion of bliss as a corollary of beauty. Includes discussions with West Australian-based contemporary artists, Consuelo Cavaniglia, Pilar Mata Dupont and, Helen Smith.
Argues that houses are poetically depicted in contemporary Australian fiction as shelters, places of comfort and security.
Explores the operation of beauty in a work of art that clearly rejects a classical schema.
Argues that a turning away from aestheticism in contemporary literature is one of the reasons for the critical neglect of the significant Australian novelist, David Foster.
