Painting the unfamiliar: why the first European paintings of Australian animals look so alien to our eyes

By Janelle Evans, Senior Lecturer, Critical and Theoretical Studies, Victorian College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, The University of Melbourne

In 1772, Joseph Banks commissioned the foremost painter of animals in England, George Stubbs, to paint a dingo and a kangaroo.

To our modern eyes the paintings lack the vitality and strength of the animals we are familiar with in Australia. The kangaroo more closely resembles a rodent than a bipedal marsupial. The dingo’s glassy-eyed stare lacks any animation.

Stubbs was renowned for how well he captured horses and dogs. Even today, those paintings of his capture the lifelike individual essence of his subject. So why did his paintings of the dingo and kangaroo – some of…

Read complete article

~	The Voice defeat set us all back. And since then, our leaders have given up

~	Australia’s school funding system is broken. Here’s how to fix it

~	How to look after your mental health right now if you have family in the Middle East or another conflict zone

~	Electric car sales have slumped. Misinformation is one of the reasons

~	30 years ago, Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction shook Hollywood and redefined ‘cool’ cinema

~	Ocean life, games and the digital revolution converge in Richard Powers’ Playground

~	The science of happier dogs: 5 tips to help your canine friends live their best life

~	Can listening to music make you more productive at work?

~	Election anniversary: a year into 3-party coalition government, can the centre hold?

~	Croatian band Nemeček won the Milan Mladenović Award for young musicians from former Yugoslavia