Visual Arts

Approaching the New England Tableland from the west, along the road from Bingara, the traveller comes across magnificent natural granite formations. Here and there, half-hidden among the trees, huge boulders are precariously balanced, presenting sculptural forms that would be the envy of human artists.Occasionally, where the bush has not been cleared for cultivation and grazing, what appear to be 'bush tucker' trees remain, clinging to the rock formations. Tenacious to the last, their roots reach out, penetrating the slightest crack, twisting and turning in their search for nourishment, while their dark green leaves, garnished with berries, thrust upward towards the sun.Further east, where the Tableland escarpment gives way to the western slopes and the morning sun rises late, enormous granite monoliths, looking like the parents of the smaller boulders to the west, defy the forces of nature and human interference. Under their ledges, sheltered from the rain, the very first New Englanders painted impressions of their lives and customs-small figures and signs that reach out from the past (see Chapter 7). These art forms-fading, incomplete and largely unexplained-form a tenuous link between nature's original creativity and the various artistic impressions of New England that have emerged since European settlement.