It is nearly thirty years since Bernard Smith’s classic European Vision and the South Pacific opened the eyes of regional historians to anew range of perceptions: his latest book continues our education in a manner always informative and stimulating and very often most entertaining.

The Death of the Artist as Hero comprises twenty-six essays, beginning in 1946 but two-thirds from the 1980s, dealing with such themes as the relations of art anti history, Marxism, the Museum, society at large. There is an interlude on ‘The Antipodean Intervention’ of 1959 – its Manifesto is a lovely piece of polemic – and the book concludes with eight ‘Reflections on Australian Art’, the last of which, ‘On Cultural Convergence’, is nothing less than a most thought-provoking survey of the strands which enter into the complex tapestry of our multiculture, with special reference to the Aboriginal heritage. Even in the most occasional pieces there are deep soundings, and the more substantive ones would each need at least the length of this review for an adequate critique. Here is God’s plenty, and, especially for a lay reviewer, the difficulty is to know where to start.