James Meadows
Ballarat
This view by a popular London-based landscape artist
(who incidentally never visited Australia) was one of several
commissioned by the colonial authorities for display in the
Victorian pavilion of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition held in
South Kensington in 1886. The theme of the exhibition was
'progress', with a clear sub text of 'British-led progress'.
These images were obviously meant to convey the prosperity of the
newest cities in the furthest flung parts of the Empire, and it was
close to miraculous to consider that the view in this painting was
of a city merely 35 years old.
To create the view, Meadows would have used
photographs of the main buildings as well as maps and plans of the
city. He would have used standard architectural principles to
create an isometric image based on a notional vantage point perhaps
a kilometre above the south side of the city. His lack of
local knowledge becomes clear when one perceives his failure to
depict the steep escarpment to the east of Lydiard Street.