James Meadows
Ballarat
This view by a popular London-based landscape
artist was one of two paintings of the great goldfields
cities, Ballarat and Bendigo, commissioned by the Victorian
colonial authorities for display in the Victorian Court 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' and 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.
Meadows never visited Australia - to create the view,
he 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.