Missing Persons: Symbolic Transformationin Australia’s Official Iconography

Paul Corcoran

Introduction

In the Victorian era and early years of Federation, Australian

identity was confidently represented by official symbols1 that

proudly linked new colonial ventures to ancient European

culture and British imperial sovereignty. A sharper contrast

with recent efforts to redefine and symbolise a multicultural

Australia is difficult to imagine. This study traces the

iconographic record from the colonial origins to its

contemporary expression.

Iconographic personification was a significant feature of

the seals, badges and armorial bearings in the pre-Federation

colonies of South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales.

Tracing how these symbols were altered over a considerable

period of time, or have disappeared altogether, offers an

opportunity to refocus Australia’s perennial debates about

national identity. As suggested by the title of this article,

these changes illustrate a pattern of symbolic weakening and

in some cases the complete1 ‘Official images’ include armorial bearings (coat of arms),

state seals and state badges.

  1. State Seal South Australia (1903)2. Victoria Coat of Arms (1910).

2

abandonment of iconographic personification. It will be

speculated that these alterations reflect deeper issues of

identity and representation that have emerged and are widely

expressed in contemporary political and intellectual

discourse.

4. George Dancey, The Birth of the Commonwealth(1901)

3

Personification

It is important to recognise the visual and æsthetic context

of official symbols. The Australian colonies and the

Commonwealth federation were established in an age still

conversant with ancient traditions of the mythic

personification of classical virtues and

moral ideals. As a double metaphor, these

personae were commonly emblematic of

nationhood. Britannia is an example of a

many layered,

richly ambiguous complexity. She

is an amalgam personifying Birgid

the legendary Celtic goddess, the

Roman conquest of land and

people, and perhaps an

unintentional allusion to ancient

Athena’s wisdom, bravery and

prowess.

This tradition of

representation was confidently and resplendently modernised in

Victorian political as well as popular imagery. Australia, its

3. George III two-

4

colonies and the individual states were symbolically

personified, and the ‘person’ was almost always a woman.2 This

personification occurred in graphic design, the fine arts, the

embellishment of official documents, and popular

representations in newspapers cartoons, poster art and

architectural ornamentation.

2 This is amply documented in Margaret Anderson, When Australia

was a Woman: images of a nation, Perth, 1998.

5

5. New South Wales (1883) 6. New South Wales (1883) 7. The Woman of Tomorrow (1897) 8. ANZAC Poster (1919)

9. Commonwealth Inaugural Invitation (1901)

6

Official symbols of identity in South Australia, New South

Wales and Victoria

The official

symbols of

Australian identity

and authority, in

addition to drawing

upon classical

personification,

also incorporated

the imagery and

symbolism of the heraldic tradition. Indeed, it is fair to

say that the symbols of office were more than just symbolic or

conventional. They had a performative function in empowering

and legitimating the authority of office.

In keeping with the strict code of ancient heraldry and

royal convention, the College of Arms3 and the Royal Mint in

10. Invitation, Inaugural Sitting of the Commonwealth Parliament

11. Edward VIII, Royal proclamation of SouthAustralian Coat of Arms (1937)

7

London have designed

Australia’s armorial

bearings and official

seals from first

settlement to the

present day.

Nevertheless,

contemporaneous æsthetic standards and tastes, as well as

cultural and geographical features, have always influenced the

iconographic components and styles of representation. The

artists and engravers strive to integrate the heraldic

language and imagery of armorial achievements (the granting of

arms) and the symbolic traditions of royal medallions with new

images symbolic of exotic locale and character acceptable to

the æsthetic preferences of colonial governments. Over time,

the official symbols, in effect, change but remain the same.

Official symbols are significant for a number of reasons

and purposes. The most obvious significance is that they are

official:4 vice-regally

commissioned, designed

8

and proclaimed, as evidenced by the royal proclamation shown

here.

The use of these images is carefully defined and legally

restricted as an imprimatur of the authority and to certify

the authenticity of manuscript

documents, printed materials and

objects to which they are

affixed.5 They afford a ceremonial

dignity as well as an easily

recognisable symbol of a sovereign state, as evidenced here by

the South Australian governor’s embossed seal and the printed

stationery of the Tasmanian Government.

Heraldic and mythological personification reflecting

British official iconography was typical in the early emblems,

from the early colonial period and subsequently in the

granting of arms to the federated states of the Commonwealth.6

Nevertheless the original seals of colonial New South Wales

and South Australia illustrate how the symbolism embraced,

even anticipated, distinctive identities incident to the

Australian the land, its inhabitants and the nature of the

colonial enterprise.

12. Colonial Seals (1883)

9

Australia’s very first seal, of 1791,

was struck specifically to accompany the

colony’s first governor to his post. The

reverse presents a historical tableau

representing not just Sydney’s convict

origins but its purpose as a colony,

complete with fortress-like prison and maritime trade.7 The

vernacular setting is loosely styled with classical figures

representing authority, restraint and submission. The tableau

is situated above a legend from Virgil’s Georgics: Sic fortis Etruria

crevit (‘Thus brave Etruria grew’). The motto, as well as the

rough-hewn harbour, likens the primitive beginnings of the

convict colony to the desperate and primitive beginnings of

Romulus and Remus. By the common efforts of taskmasters and

bondsmen, ‘Rome became the beauty of the world,’ and so might

Britain’s prison colony. The depiction offers a stark contrast

to the seal’s obverse, the heraldic majesty of the George IV

Royal Seal.

In symbolising colonial rule, the ‘two sides of the

medallion’ aptly reflect a dual purpose. The seals

extended the symbolism of imperial and royal prestige to an

Colonial Seal of New South

N

13. Colonial Seal of

10

expanding Commonwealth, a British asset that was appreciating

in that era rather than depreciating as it has done since

World War II. Moreover, there was a clear effort, given

visual form by the Royal Mint and the College of Arms, to

incorporate into the heraldic tradition the new peoples,

flora, fauna and terrain of areas remote in place, clime and

culture. Whereas New South Wales’s eighteenth-century seal

carried images of newly arrived colonists and convicts, the

nineteenth-century iconography enthusiastically and

colourfully embraced native imagery to symbolise the newly

established colonial governance.

14. South Australia ColonialSeal (1839)

11

Nowhere was this more evident than in

South Australia, where the early

colonial seal, showing Britannia

extending her open palm of greeting to an

indigenous man, was used from 1839 to

dignify and seal official documents.

Images, dies and seal presses from the

Royal mint as well as local versions

appeared on printed documents both as a

design and incorporated as a watermark on

stationery and record forms well into the

twentieth century. The seal was lavishly reproduced in the

Government House in the celebratory leadlight ‘Federation

Windows’ in 1901. Although this seal was officially replaced

in 1904, the earlier image continued to be used as a

stationery watermark for many years. A peculiar tribute is

paid to the image by the fact that still in 2009 the 1839

design is mistakenly identified on the official Government

House website as the original colonial ‘coat of arms’ of South

Australia,8 which it never was. Indeed this misattribution

16. South Australian Commission of Arms, 1923Dexter: Ceres, Goddess of Plenty

Sinister: Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom & Liberal

12

inadvertently suggests ambivalence or even nonchalance about

the importance and relevance of the heraldic symbol.

Classical versus vernacular personification

South Australia and Victoria, from the early years of

Federation, chose forms of personification that gradually

eschewed mythic symbolism. This distancing reflected a

discomfort with mythological and symbolic figuration. This

was openly expressed in popular criticisms and ribald satire

regarding the ostensible mythological personages and their

vernacular representations.9

The response was to replace classical

imagery with vernacular

representation. This is evident

in South Australia’s protracted

effort to adopt a coat of arms. The

initial design approved by the

College of Arms was ‘announced’ but

never officially proclaimed in

1923.10

The revised design of South

Australia’s coat of arms, after

15. Federation Window(1903)

17. South Australia Coat of Arms,

13

years of indecision, procrastination and apparent government

indifference,11 was finally promulgated in 1936.12 The scroll

had been altered from ‘Faith and Works’ to ‘Faith and

Courage.’ The supporters have changed from the classical

figures of Ceres and Minerva to ‘a female figure holding a

cornucopia & sheaf of barley…and a farmer holding shears & a

fleece,’ as described on the blazon provided by the College of

Arms. Replacing the Greco-Roman deities are a man on the land

and his bountiful wife gazing faithfully at each other.

14

A

similar if less dramatic transformation, from the divine to

the quotidian, occurred in the Victorian coat of arms.

Compared to the confidently glamorous, ethereally seductive

Peace and Prosperity in the original 1910 version, the design

revised in 1973 design reflected an “interpretation of the

female Supporters…more in accord with the current ‘conception

of Australian womanhood’ to quote the suggestion put forward

at the time by the Premier’s Department.”13 They stand rather

less beguilingly on terra firma.

13 State of Victoria, ‘Ensigns of Public Authority’, Department

of Premier and Cabinet, http://www.dpc.vic.gov.au, accessed 10

September 2006.

18. Victoria Coat of Arms(1910)                                            19.

15

To provide a wider context for these æsthetic changes, New

Zealand’s coat of arms illustrates a similar trend. In this

case, a classically draped, youthful ‘New Zealand’ receives a

modern make-over.

The original of 1910 (below,

left), based on designs solicited from the public, depicted a

daughter of Britannia brandishing the flag and a Maori

chieftain, both looking outward to the larger world of Empire.

In the revised design of 1956, a mannequin-like, primly

coiffed female clings to a modest flag and a stern Maori male

gaze intently inward, the crest’s lion guardant holding the

Union flag is replaced by St. Edward’s crown designed for

Elizabeth II in 1953, and ‘New Zealand’ replaces the motto.

Australian fauna

20. New Zealand Coat of Arms

16

The armorial bearings of the Commonwealth and of all other

Australian states are supported by animals.14 This follows the

heraldic tradition of appropriating the symbolic power of

natural as well as the fantastical beasts. Æsthetic

modifications over the course of a century that are evident in

personification are also

evident in the use of faunal

representations. For example, the 2006 design of the New South

3 The College of Arms has for centuries had the jurisdiction

for granting, preserving and defending armorial bearings in

Britain. The character of this remarkable institution is

conveyed by John Campbell-Kease ed., Tribute to an Armorist. London,

2000; and Brooke-Little and John Philip Neubecker, An Heraldic

Alphabet, London, 1977; Ottfried Neubecker and John Philip

Brooke-Little, Heraldry: sources, symbols, and meaning, London, 1977. 4 Document authentication by official seal remains government

policy: ‘Overseas governments sometimes need proof that

Australian documents are genuine before they will accept them.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will certify that

a signature, stamp or seal on a document is genuine by

checking it against a specimen held on file, and stamping the

document with an AUTHENTICATION or APOSTILLE.’ DFAT,

‘Authentications and Apostilles’,

http://www.victoria.dfat.gov.au/legal.html, accessed 20

September 2005.

21. New South Wales Coat of Arms, 2006

22. New South Wales Coat of Arms, 1906

17

Wales coat of arms suggests a modern preference for creatures

of a cuddly mien compared to the exotically stylised creatures

in the original 1906 College of Arms.

South Australia’s attempt to adopt ‘iconic’ Australian

fauna as a means of displacing personification on its seldom

5 Parliament of Australia, The Use of the Coat of Arms: armed with

national pride, House of Representatives Standing Committee on

Legal and Constitutional Affairs, Canberra, 1994.6 Robert Montgomery Martin, History of the Colonies of the British Empire…

with the charters and the engraved seals, London, 1843.7 William Applegate Gullick, The Seals of New South Wales, Sydney:

Government Printer, 1921, pp. 3-7, gives the texts of court

documents of 1790 to commission and transmit the first

Territorial Seal and its issue in 1791; and received by

Lieutenant Governor (afterwards Governor) King. At p. 3, the

seal’s devices are officially described. The reproduction

here is from the unchanged third seal of 1827 (Gullick at p.

7).9 The South Australian Government’s proposed design was

published in The Register, 22 March 1923, giving rise to

subsequent editorials and numerous letters to the editor. All

were highly critical, and with one or two exceptions, the tone

was droll and satirical. A subsequent Register editorial made

light of heraldry in general and the Garter King of Arms in

particular, and disputes the attributed identities of Ceres

and Minerva, and obliquely reports readers’ comments on the

design ranging from wry to racist. The editor observed that

23. South Australia, proposed coat orarms (1982)

18

used coat of arms led to ridicule and rejection by a successor

government and the wider public.

The original Ceres and Minerva,

transformed in 1936 to farmer and

wife, were reincarnated in the

Minerva should have smiled for the occasion. Kyah Than

(Advertiser, 23 March 1923) asked, ‘why should we have Greek

mythology on the escutcheon rather than Captain Sturt, the

Union Jack, the Australian flag, and a wreath of wattle?’ Gwen

Barrenger (Advertiser, 28 March 1923) asked why an Australian

artist was not commissioned to ‘give us a virile, modern and

representative design’ since ‘we are a young nation, with an

individual character to build up, and we do not want for our

emblem a hoary antiquity of decadent art.’ Merlin (Advertiser,

24 March) affirmed that ‘Ceres and Minerva are mythological

persons who never heard of this place.’ ‘An Australian’

(Advertiser, 27 March) objects that Minerva ‘as goddess of wisdom

and fine arts should not be shown wearing a spear and a

helmet,’ and ‘H.F’ agrees, adding that the ‘figure

representing Ceres is a charming model maid, but she is

holding the cornucopia in a very lackadaisical manner.’8 ‘Government house, brief history, Federation windows…Coat of

Arms of the Province of South Australia.’

http://www.governor.sa.gov.au/index.php?m=assets&assetID=37.10 The design was settled upon by the Barwell Government, as

indicated in a letter (27 February 1923) so advising the

Governor. The design was published for comment in The Advertiser

19

Tonkin Government’s 1982 design for a ‘cuddly koala and a fat

little wombat’ to serve as supporters rampant guardant.15 Also of

interest was the migration of the piping shrike from the state

seal of 1903 to replace the shield’s heraldic devices. No less

noteworthy is the state’s emblematic flower, the Sturt Desert

and The Register (Adelaide) 22 March 22 1923. Clippings of the

images are in GRG 45/ Ser. 1/1921, State Records of South

Australia.11 South Australia’s Agent General in London, keen to expedite

the granting of state arms, wrote to the Government (17 August

1923) to remind the premier that he had still not received a

reply to a design ‘altered and approved by the College of

Arms’ he had sent the previous year (22 November 1922). SRSA

GRG 45/ Ser. 1/1921. On 1 October 1923, a Cabinet note to the

Premier requested that the Agent General in London be informed

that ‘The design for the coat of arms is still under

consideration.’ The cover sheet for this folio (T. O. 50,

1921) of correspondence contains additional handwritten notes

indicating that the ‘consideration’ had occurred again on 28

March 1924 and 21 May 1931.12 To commemorate the granting of arms on 20 November 1936, a

fine quality coloured and illuminated edition of the arms was

prepared by D. Wall, Government Photo-lithographer in the

Printing Office. The image was reproduced, with the Royal

Warrant, in the government’s Gazette, 27 May 1937, p. 1210.14 The emu and the kangaroo support the Commonwealth coat of

arms. Queensland’s coat of arms is supported by a red deer and

20

Pea, sprouting from a knightly helm to replace the original

royal crest, a lion passant guardant bearing an ensign of the

Southern Cross.

Iconographic abstraction

South Australia and Victoria have exhibited an unmistakable

trend toward official symbols that clearly depart from

classical personification and British symbols. They have also

forthrightly embraced contemporary styles of iconographic

abstraction. Indeed, South

Australia’s current coat of arms and

state seal, redesigned and

promulgated under the Bannon

a brolga; Tasmania’s by two Tasmanian tigers; Western

Australia’s by two kangaroos, featuring a swan on the shield.15 Matt Abraham, ‘New coat of arms still bearing fruit’, The

Advertiser, 15 September 1983. Peter Ward, ‘Now Bannon’s up in

arms about the innocent koala’, The Australian, 17 September 1983.

Ward writes: ‘The Tonkin Government forwarded more than £4000

to the Garter Principal of Arms in London for the work, with

Mr. Tonkin personally fattening the wombat’s tummy with a

pencil sketch on a draft version when it became obvious the

good garter was having difficulties with the peculiar

Australian fauna. Mr. Bannon canned the Tonkin coat of arms,

saying it was cuddly, furry and kitch [sic].’

21

Government in 1984, completes the eclipse of personification

and traditional heraldic devices in favour of corporate

branding. Ceres has departed, leaving a few pieces of fruit;

the farmer has dropped his pickaxe and left the land. To the

extent that it retains elements that resemble a coat of arms,

it is a caricature.

24. Coat of Arms (1984)

22

Similarly, The ‘great seal’ of South

Australia has been transformed in three

successive phases. The earliest is the

candid representation of Britannia’s direct

and personified encounter with

distinctively Australian imagery (1839-

1901) based on the seal engraved

by one of the famed Wyon brothers

at the Royal Mint in London, who

had in all likelihood designed the

colonial seals in New South Wales.16 In 1903, the Wyon seal

was superseded by a new ‘public seal’ that retained the

dignity of royal and imperial heraldry but gave pride of place

to the ‘piping shrike against the rising sun’

that had been adopted as the ‘state badge’ in

1901.

In 1984 the state seal was finally shorn of all heraldic

form in a simple logo alluding only to the state’s name and

the impressively omnipresent bird. In 2005, it

was reported that ‘All government logos will be replaced with

a Government of South Australia logo, in a major “re-branding”

25. Seal of SouthAustralia

26. S.A. Badge (1901) and Seal(1903)

27. South Australia

23

exercise by the State Government…. A spokesman from the

Premier’s Office said… “This policy is designed to ensure the

Government maintains a professional and consistent image.”’17

Historical association, personification and heraldic

imagery were replaced by minimalist designs depicting an

ostensibly unique ‘state bird’ and the state’s name as a

brand. That such emblems are boasted as being selected

because they are unique demonstrates the purposive absence of

extended symbolic, metaphorical or historical reference.

The abstraction of imagery and the abandonment of heraldry

are also evident in Victoria. Its coat of arms has been

retained, but seldom appears on official documents. The

Victorian Government no longer acknowledges an official seal

or state badge. The trend to abstract branding is, however,

prevalent. These logos are ubiquitous, and apparently

mandatory, in government communications.

          28. Victorian Government Logo (2009)

24

New South Wales has partially resisted the move to abstract

logos with a formal protocol18

acknowledging its coat of arms, the

state flag dating to 1876, and a state

badge identical to the Cross of St. George

featuring on the flag’s field. But the coat of arms

as a visual image on public documents survives only

miniature form. Its complex heraldic features are reduced to a

simplified branding logo. Ironically, and despite legislation

purporting to

restrict the armorial bearings for official use, it is

possible to purchase coat of arms t-shirts, beer mugs and

other domestic items on the internet. The official symbol is

transformed into a niche market commodity.

In historical retrospect, the souvenir market

notwithstanding, personification and heraldic symbolism have

29. NSW Flag30. NSW Logo (2009)

31. T-shirt designs

25

all but disappeared in the official iconography of these three

states.

The ‘problem’ with persons

The evolution of these armorial bearings and seals reveals a

gradual transformation of iconographic forms. In some cases

there is evidence of controversy concerning the retention or

revision of design elements. Notably, there has been a

tendency to alter or even reject personification as symbols of

identity.

The successive changes indicate a loss of confidence in, or

indeed a rejection of, the symbolic references and æsthetic

appeal of heraldic iconography, especially in relation to

normative associations with mythological representations of

the human figure. Classical and even Victorian styles of

personification have been abstracted into vernacular lay

figures or fallen into disuse. Traditional figurative

personification embodied divine, heroic or otherwise

mythological entities as symbols of virtue (justice, wisdom,

courage, mercy, felicity); values and ideals (peace,

prosperity, liberty, patriotism, intelligence; authority,

unity and lineal or tribal identity (kinship, shared ethnicity

26

or Greco-European cultural heritage). The representation of

these ideals in official images has receded or been abandoned

altogether.

Where figurative representation has been retained (as in

Victoria’s coat of arms), the image has been steadily altered

to accord with contemporary representations of the human

figure and dress. This change also reflects changing attitudes

and sensitivities in relation to the appropriateness of bodily

display, particularly as representations of gender, race and

ethnicity. In the Victorian era, the symbolic figure of an

alluring young woman was a familiar image that appealed to

traditional ideals of beauty, fecundity, prosperity, maternal

fortitude and moral virtue. Moreover it was conventional to

associate such ideals with nations and empires. In recent

decades, these considerations have become controversial moral

and political issues, not only regarding assumptions about

gender, but also about their implicit connotations for

individual, group and national identity and the very

possibility of a singular representation in a diverse,

multicultural, democratic polity.

33. Punch (1900)

27

The clear effect of these social and cultural factors on

official iconography has been a depersonalising and distancing

of images from mythic reference and embodied ideals. What

remains in contemporary instances of personification is a

generic or ‘vernacular’ person: not a symbol for mythological

transmission of ideals but something like a department store

mannequin, ‘idealised’ only in the sense of appearing

perfectly ordinary and anonymous, that is, identity-less.

Symbolic purpose and function

Traditionally, official symbolic devices

such as seals and armorial bearings were

strikingly different from other widely

recognisable symbols, even if there were

shared elements, such as the kangaroo, a

ubiquitous

element in

commercial

advertising and decorative art.

Nevertheless, some copyrighted images, banners and logos

function as quasi-official Australian symbols: political party

symbols, the Aboriginal flag, the Boxing Kangaroo19 popularised

32. Boxing Kangaroo

28

by yachting and sporting teams, and other widely recognised

badges, colours and images. The kangaroo, koala, kookaburra,

platypus, emu, cockatoo and other species of wildlife were

recognised well before Federation as unique to Australia and

widely used in colonial design motifs, commercial logos, brand

names and packaging.20 Caricatures and figures of

anthropomorphic fauna, created by Australia’s prodigious pool

of political cartoon journalists, also serve as potent and

immediately recognised symbols of national identity.

In the massively enlarged visual domain afforded by

technical advances in graphic reproduction, television and the

internet, there is an abundance of corporate logos, televisual

graphics and cartoon animation. Consequently, from a

contemporary aesthetic perspective associated with commercial

advertising and multimedia entertainment, traditional arms,

seals, badges and heraldic symbols must inevitably seem dated,

unattractive or even meaningless. As a response, corporate

logos have replaced historic symbols in the ‘branding’

strategies of Commonwealth and state government ministries,

departments and commissions. Logos conform to contemporary

æsthetics, with a ‘look’ that is modern rather than old-

29

fashioned. They are readily created and reproduced by

electronic media, drawing upon the sophisticated range of

techniques of design, modification and transmission. Such

imagery, therefore, draws upon a virtually limitless range of

visual, graphic and semiotic representation. It is

constrained only by the imagination, rather than by tradition

and established forms.

It is nevertheless true that the quaintness – a term

derived from the Latin cognoscere: ‘to get to know’ – of an

image can be a strength rather than a weakness. The stability

and easy recognition of traditional ‘iconic’ images as symbols

of authority and identity should not be underestimated.

Moreover, traditional symbols are potent in their complexity.

Iconographically dense imagery offers cognitive ties to

embedded meanings available to multiple readings at every

level of sophistication. Symbols have a universalising

effect. They foster and expand involvement because their

visual appeal and referential values are not linguistically

restrictive. A symbol’s recognitive power lies in its capacity

to unify complexity, to reconcile intellect and emotion and to

synthesise, condense and simplify multiplicities of time and

34. Letters Patent establishing the Office of the Commonwealth Governor-

30

place.21 As Walzer observed, symbols ‘bring things together,

both intellectually and emotionally, thus overcoming isolation

and even individuality.’22 These qualities are rarely

available in a government department’s trendy new logo, whose

frequent appearance and replacement are boasted to be a

branding exercise: a marketing strategy for new products and

services. This very exercise is a frank admission that the

desired identity does not exist, or that the existing identity

is not desired.

By contrast,

heraldic iconography

connects Australian

identity to its own

past, to Britain’s

imperial flourishing

in the nineteenth

century and beyond

to an historic tradition extending back to its Anglo-Celtic

origins. This is proudly evidenced in the celebratory

iconography that adorns the legal documents establishing the

Australian Commonwealth. Perhaps less widely appreciated but

35. Bank of Victoria (1866 and 1975)

36. British PetroleumAustralia (1914)

31

no less embedded are the ancient iconographic traditions they

draw upon: the Greco-Roman deities (and the values they

personify) and the vibrant European and Scandinavian tribal

identification with nature and the

supernatural. Indeed these symbols have

the power to animate animosity and strengthen the deprecation

of those traditions.

Amidst the profusion of corporate and government ‘re-

branding’ exercises, it is easy to underestimate (or indeed to

disdain) the iconographic force of ancient, enduring, slowly

evolved symbols. It then becomes a question of the cost and

the value of the symbolic expression of the origins, progress

and aspirations of the social enterprise. Ought we appeal to

an ancient heritage and the dignity of seeing one’s experience

as a chapter in a universal story of human achievement, or

not?

Symbol versus brand

The evolution of highly abstract logos in the modern era is

driven by the need to create a new and

purposefully

meaningless ‘corporate identity.’ The aim

32

is to cast off a corporation’s identity, historical

associations, cultural references or products it no longer

produces (or wishes to be seen to produce).

Graphic abstraction as a function of contemporary design

and corporate logos is a subject worthy of separate æsthetic

and iconographic investigation. The relevance of such a study

is indicated by one example. The evolving BP corporate design

below illustrates the logo’s antithetical capacity compared to the

corporation’s earlier use of personification. Heraldic

iconography is ‘historic’: its purpose is to identify,

preserve and extend associations.

By contrast, modern logos are ‘a-historical’ in the strict

meaning of the word modern: ‘of the present day.’ Logos are as

much about amnesia (regarding the inky black oil personified

above as Liberty) as they are about establishing identity and

recognition.

37. British PetroleumLogos

38. Krygsman (1999)

33

Australia’s elusive identity

Australian identity has been widely examined in scholarly

inquiry, social commentary and political debate. It is a

contentious and problematic concern with historical, colonial,

racial, cultural and institutional dimensions.23 How one

represents Australian identity is typically viewed as a

special problem arising from

its convict and colonial

origins, its seemingly

precarious status as a

British-European or Western

nation in the ‘wrong’ part of the globe, and its fraught

experience of race and ethnicity from earliest settlement. The

debate is perennially refreshed by the nation’s enduring

concerns with recognition and reconciliation between its

indigenous and non-indigenous population, and its experience

as a destination for substantial migration and asylum These

features have, in fact, long been a source of doubt and

mordant humour about how, or indeed whether, Australia should

be defined and symbolised.24 Constitutional reformers,

academics, lawyers, private interest groups and a campaigning

34

press have endeavoured, so far without

success, to define Australia’s identity and

give it constitutional expression.25 Significantly, this

discourse consistently focuses on symbolic expression.

Since 1981, Ausflag has campaigned for popular support to

replace the Commonwealth flag and other Australian symbols of

identity. The flag is castigated as ‘a defaced British Ensign…

an Imperial flag which signifies our subordination to

Britain,’ representing Australia as a ‘colonial relic

reflecting a child still clinging desperately to its mother’s

breast.’26 Similarly, the Australian national anthem, Advance

Australia Fair, is a perennial object of solemn critique as well

as wry humour attracting both popular and official proposals

to replace it with a more suitable expression of Australian

identity and aspirations.

The Australian Republican Movement, established in

1991 and instrumental in initiating the 1998

Constitutional Convention, focused on the

critical importance of an appointed ‘Australian head of

state,’ with republican advocates stressing that the role of

the head of state was to be exclusively symbolic, a ‘mere

39. ARM Logos, 1998 and2009

35

figurehead.’27 Its original logo, scrupulously void of any

iconographic reference to recognisable Australian imagery,

seemed indistinguishable from that of a three or four-star

hotel chain. The new design is comprised of the Southern Cross

and a highly abstract allusion to the Australian continent.

The question of identity is also voiced in recurrent

parliamentary, academic, editorial and popular debate about

‘multiculturalism’ – whether it is the problem, the solution

or indeed the essence of Australia’s national identity. Indeed

the assumption of an absent or ill-defined national identity

is expressed in official communications from public

institutions charged with responsibility to memorialise and

indeed foster it ceremonially. The Australian War Museum’s

page, ‘National Identity,’ on its official website, Forging the

Nation, begins with a telling negativity: ‘The Commonwealth of

Australia came into existence with none of the formal symbols

by which a nation expresses its identity.’28 That this

statement is patently false29 seems to underscore the appeal of

identitylessness by taking for granted that legitimate ‘formal

symbols’ of national identity neither should nor can bear any

relationship to the past. Indeed, contemporary discussions

36

about symbolising or defining national identity often appeal

to the future: about goals and aspirations that emphasise

change, departure and separation from the past.

The debate about Australian identity is fraught with

paradoxes: a failure to resolve the symbolic issues, such as

those mentioned above, is a reflection, or perhaps a fatal

signal, of a moral and cultural failure of the Australian

nation. The successful resolution of these matters is often

posed as an essential test of Australian legitimacy, but the

nation’s illegitimacy, or at least its faulty self-

understanding, is implied by the debate itself. Thus the

nation is symbolised (‘shamefully’ it is frequently noted) by

Australia’s derivative or otherwise unhappy emblems: the

‘trappings’ of nationhood represent its colonial origins but

fail to acknowledge its ‘true’ past and present diversity.

The presumed failures of the past are now magnified by fears

for the future from both a growing ethnic diversity of

population and a global homogenisation in which the very idea

of nations and stable cultural identities are called into

question.30

41. DIMA (1999)

37

Not often appreciated is the fact that the intensity with

which Australian identity is debated, the ironic larrikin

stereotype notwithstanding, presupposes an extraordinary

degree of emotional self-consciousness and moral idealism.31

In ‘Godzone,’ we have to get it right or we’re doomed. It is

seldom recognised that identical debates occur throughout the

world. There is either a complacent or cranky refusal to

accept that symbols of national identity in all nations are

contested and inevitably compromised by historical,

linguistic, racial, religious, ethnic and moral complexity.

For example Great Britain’s Union flag is a design compromise

along those very lines: the superimposed crosses of St. George

(England), St. Andrew (Scotland) and St. Patrick (Ireland),

proudly never widely accepted in Scotland and Ireland.

Linguistic, regional and indigenous groups in Spain, France,

and Belgium assert historic, often violent, claims of separate

identity, and the same is true on every continent.

There is, then, a paradox. On the one hand, there is a

resolute insistence upon Australian

uniqueness, frequently expressed with an

ironic or playful conviction

40. Sydney OlympicsPoster (1996) launchedat Atlanta Olympic Games

38

that Australia’s qualities are better symbolised by imagery

that dispenses with traditional and official significations.

Thus government instrumentalities and quasi-official

organisations symbolise their identity in terms of the

Australian continent and its instantly recognised fauna.

Embracing a corporate branding logo is but a step away.

39

On the other hand, there is a sense that Australia is too

diverse, too dynamic, still young and unformed:

a mixture, not a compound. This is captured in

contemporary emblems of state that have

abandoned the

traditional

iconography. Official

iconography and

graphic

representations have favoured

abstract designs or transient ‘field of faces’

mosaics that frequently appear in commercial

advertising to express Australia’s cultural and

racial diversity. It could be argued that the responsibility

for iconography’s symbolic and æsthetic function of dignifying

the nation has been relinquished or, in effect, proliferated

to groups and organisations desiring to associate symbolically

and ideationally (and indeed commercially) with national

identity. It is interesting that the branding logos of

organisations that were formerly official (and ‘royal’) organs

42. Centenary of FederationCommission

43. Left: Federation Weekand Face of S.A.mosaics

40

of state have abandoned traditional Australian iconographic

symbols.

Symbolic transformation provides not

only

a window on the past but a reflection of the mood, tastes and

changing (or conflicted) identities of

the present. Some symbols do transcend the ephemeral quality

of corporate branding, as has been clearly shown by the

Aboriginal flag’s formal recognition in 1995.32 There are

instances, too, of sacred sites and historical events taking

on symbolic roles in memorialising great moral tragedies and

historic wrongs. It is interesting that the Aboriginal flag,

although seemingly abstract in design, is in fact freighted

with powerful and accessible symbolic references.

32 The website(http://www.flagaustnat.asn.au/aboriginalflag.php) of theAustralian National Flag Association documents thisrecognition:

‘The Aboriginal flag was first displayed on 12th July 1971,National Aborigines’ Day, at Victoria Square in Adelaide. Itwas also used at the ‘Tent Embassy’ in Canberra in 1972.Designed by Indigenous Elder Harold Thomas in 1971, this flagsymbolises Aboriginal identity. Yellow represents the sun(giver of life) and yellow ochre. Red represents the red earth(the relationship to the land) and the red ochre used inceremonies. Black represents the Aboriginal people.’

44. Corporate Logos

45. Aboriginal Flag (1971)

41

The tendency to reject figurative representation and adopt

abstraction was the dominant æsthetic shift in the visual arts

for much of the twentieth century,

although representation has more

recently been revived in such new genres

as hyper-realism and multi-media

installations. Portraiture has retained

16 Alfred Benjamin Wyon and Allan Wyon, The Great Seals of England from

the Earliest Period to the Present Time, London, 1887. Martin, 1843,

attributes South Australia’s great seal engraving (of 1838,

for the 1839 seal) to William Wyon (1795-1851). Nicholas

Carlisle, A Memoir of the Life and Works of William Wyon. London, 1837, p.

153, records that Wyon in 1813 won the gold medal prize from

the Society for the Encouragement of Arts for a medallion of

Ceres.17 Laura Anderson, ‘Piping shrike knocks rest off perch’, The

Advertiser, 23 May 2005, p. 8.18 ‘Emblems of NSW.’ Available:

http://www.nsw.gov.au/emblems.asp19 ‘Australian flags’,

http://myflag.com.au/images/aussie_flags/boxing_kangaroo.jpg,

accessed 20 March 2007.

20 Numerous examples are illustrated in Mimmo Cozzolino, Symbols

of Australia; John McDonald, Federation: Australian art and society 1901-2001,

Canberra, 2000; Ann Stephen ed., Visions of a Republic.

46. Australian War Memorial,

42

its popular and special place, often accommodating

expressionism and abstraction in the gesture to represent

individual persons. Abstraction has also been an important

influence in architecture and design. The effect of

depersonalisation, what Ortega y Gasset called the

21 Juan Eduardo Cirlot, A Dictionary of Symbols, New York, 1962, p.

xiii.22 Michael Walzer, ‘On the Role of Symbolism in Political

Thought,’ Political Science Quarterly 82: 2 (1967), p. 194.23 The Australian, ‘Advance Australia where?’ provides a

collection of articles and primary source material from a

special series. The Australian, 23-30 June 2005,

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/extras/where/opindex.html,

accessed 20 September 2005. Academic studies abound: Marilyn

Lake, ‘Mission Impossible: how men gave birth to the

Australian nation: nationalism, gender and other seminal

Acts’, Gender and History vol. 4 (3), 1992, pp. 305-22; Gillian

Whitlock and David Carter, eds. 1992. Images of Australia,

Brisbane, 1992; Gregory Melleuish, The Packaging of Australia: politics

and culture wars, Sydney, 1998; Catherine Lumby, ‘The Dark Side of

Nationalism’, The Bulletin (20 April 1999), p. 45; John Hirst, The

Sentimental Nation: the making of the Australian Commonwealth, Melbourne,

2000; Justin Healey, Australian’s National Identity, vol. 133, Issues in

Society, Sydney, 2000; Timothy L. Phillips, ‘Symbolic Boundaries

and National Identity in Australia,’ British Journal of Sociology,

vol. 47 (1), 1996, pp. 113-34; Sara Cousins, Contemporary

Australia: national identity, Melbourne, National Centre for Australian

43

‘dehumanisation of art,’ is evident in any art gallery and in

every modern cityscape.33

The modernist movement in art and design emerged just as

the official insignia were being designed. This movement

clearly influenced the symbols of office and national

Studies, 2001, http://www.petra.ac.id/asc/people/immigrants/

national_

identity.htmlhttp://www.radioaustralia.net.au/australia/pdf/se

lling_aus.pdf, accessed 4 September 2005.24 Humphrey McQueen, ‘Towards a post pre-capitalist flag’,

Artlink, vol. 17: 3 (1998).28 Australian War Museum. 2005. Forging the Nation,

http://www.awm.gov.au/forging/identity/index.htm, accessed 20

September 2005.29 Charters of Our Nation, the National Archives of Australia’s

major (and permanent) exhibition for the Centenary of

Federation celebrations, graphically illustrates the symbolic

elements which literally gave effect to the Commonwealth. The

Commonwealth had a regally appointed and lavishly ceremonial

‘symbolic head,’ the Governor General, a flag and other

official ensigns, and its own minted coinage and postal

images. Despite the fact that many of these symbols carried

the image of the crown, and that the reigning monarch may no

longer gladden the hearts of those who work for the Australian

War Memorial in Canberra, such symbols were, in law and fact,

the Commonwealth’s symbols of national identity. Available at:

http://www.naa.gov.au/exhibitions/federation_gallery/federatio

44

authority, in both the original commission of heraldic emblems

and their successive adaptation of vernacular and abstract

imagery. Indeed the ‘modern’ visual landscape – in art,

fashion, advertising, cinema, poster art inter alia – provides the

n_gallery.html25 Anne-Marie Willis, Illusions of Identity: the art of nation, Sydney,

1993; eds Wayne Hudson and David Carter, The Republican Debate,

Sydney, 1993, p. 213. In the decade since the 1998-99

constitutional referendum period, books continue to appear:

John Warhurst and Malcolm Mackerras eds, Constitutional Politics: The

Republic Referendum and the Future, St. Lucia, University of

Queensland Press, 2002; Mark McKenna, This Country: A Reconciled

Republic? Sydney, University of New South Wales Press, 2004;

Greg Barns and Anna Krawec-Wheaton, An Australian Republic,

Melbourne, Scribe, 2006.26 ‘Ausflag’, http://www.ausflag.com.au/ausflag/ausflag.html,

accessed 1 January 2004. Also Harold Scruby, 2000, ‘No one

will salute it if you don’t run it up the flagpole’, The

Australian, 26 January 2000, p. 13.27 The tone of advocacy was exemplified by Don Watson, a speech

writer for the former prime minister, Paul Keating: ‘by simply

substituting an Australian for the British monarch as our head

of state we get a republic without pomp or pain – a post-

modern republic if you like…. But the real beauty of the model

is its “minimalism”…. A simple snip and we can have a republic

for Christmas.’ Don Watson, ‘The Post-modern Republic: a

45

æsthetic environment in which those images seem old-fashioned,

quaint or reactionary.

Clearly too, the nation had changed. This was true not

only of the size, composition and diversity of its population,

but in attitudes about Australia’s relationships to empire,

the larger world as an independent nation, and to the

character and complexity of its colonial history. How one

lasting gift to the nation’, The Age, Melbourne, 4 November

1999, p. 21.30 Rhys Fox, ‘The Global Cocktail and Loss of National

Identity’, Neovox,

http://neovox.cortland.edu/vox/vox_147/vox_147.html, accessed

20 September 2005; Andrew Patterson, ‘The Fight for Australian

Culture’, 11 November 1997, http://members.

ozemail.com.au/~natinfo/ozcul3.htm, accessed 20 September

2005.

31 These points have been developed more fully in Paul Corcoran

and Sally-Ann Rowland, 1999. ‘“The Naked Flagpole”: the

republic in search of a symbol,’ Proceedings, Australasian

Political Studies Association, Sydney, vol. I, September 1999,

pp. 123-34; and P. Corcoran, ‘“Isn’t it embarrassing?”: the

affective basis of Australian political language and

Identity’, Australasian Political Studies Association

Conference. 25 September 2002, Brisbane.

http://www.gu.edu.au/school/ppp/APSA2001/secure/Political_Theo

ry_Papers_A_J.html-Political_Theory, accessed 15 March 2007.

46

might represent a state’s or the nation’s identity in terms of

an ancient code of heraldic symbols became a problem caught up

in the larger questions of national identity. Manifestly, the

effort could not be to replace the ‘face of Australia’ – its

gender, colour, heraldic and monarchical trappings and ancient

ideals – with some other face. Rather, the changes in

Australia’s official insignia have, by means of elimination

and abstraction, attempted to distance us from conflict and

disunity. In their small and specialised way, these changes

have contributed to, and reflected, a revalorisation of

history and of the images that memorialise the past.

The process is uncannily illustrated by South Australia’s

ejection of archetypal goddesses from its coat of arms in

favour of robust vernacular rustics, only to eliminate them as

stereotypically gendered figures unrepresentative of a modern,

urban, ethnically diverse population. The diversity defies

personification, thus making abstraction all the more

attractive. A simple visual cue avoids the issues associated

with demography and history. The logo becomes, in effect, a

floating signifier, infinitely malleable in appearance and

association.

47

‘Celebrating difference’ and ‘embracing the future’ are

themselves highly abstract ideas. Perhaps it is appropriate,

or at least amenable, that these ideas are expressed by

iconographic abstraction rather than archaic images, however

tinged with nostalgia or reverence, irony or malice, from the

nation’s family album.

48

Documentation of Images

1. South Australia Badge. 1903. State Records of South

Australia, GRG45, Series 1, Unit 50.1921. Digital image by

author.

2. Victoria Coat of Arms. 1910. State Records South Australia,

Treasury Department, 1839-1942, letters received, GRG 45,

Series 1, Unit 50/1921. Digital image by author.

3. George III two-penny coin. 1797. Available:

www.flickr.com/photos/10413717@N08/2594226822

4. George Dancey, The Birth of the Commonwealth. Punch Annual,

Melbourne, 1901. In Marguerite Mahood, The Loaded Line: Australian

political caricature 1788-1901, Melbourne, 1973, p. 278.

5. Giovanni Fontana, New South Wales, 1883. Ann Stephen ed.,

Visions of a Republic: The Work of Lucien Henry. Sydney: Powerhouse

Publishing, 2001, p. 75.

6. Nicholas Habbe, New South Wales, 1884. Ibid.

7. The Woman of Tomorrow: The World at Her Feet, Melbourne Punch, 3 Dec.

1897, in Suzane Fabian ed., Mr. Punch Down Under: A Social History of

the Colony from 1856 to 1900. Melbourne: Greenhouse Publishing,

1982, p. 124.

8. ANZAC Memorial Poster, 1919. Available:

http://ink.news.com.au/mercury/anzac/album/pages/anzac18_jp

g.htm

9. Invitation to the Celebration of the Opening of the

Commonwealth Parliament, 9 May 1901. Canberra: National

Archives Australia. NAA: A/2695 2003/00466508.

49

10. Norman Lindsay and John Longstaff, Invitation to the

Inaugural Sitting of the Commonwealth Parliament, 1901.

John McDonald, Federation: Australian Art and Society 1901-2001.

Canberra: National Gallery of Australia, 2000, p. 19.

11. ‘Proclamation by the governor of the royal warrant of

Edward VIII (20 November 1936) of the armorial ensigns and

supporters for the State of South Australia.’ State Records

South Australia, ‘Miscellaneous records of historical

interest,’ Chief Secretary’s Office, SRSA GRG 24, Series 90Unit 7 #490. Digital image by author. Proclamation

published in the Gazette (South Australian Government) (27

May 1937), p. 1210.

12. State Records of South Australia, ‘Despatches to and from

Governors, 1882-1883.’ Miscellaneous despatches from

governor’s office, South Australia, between 1837-1900 GRG2,

Series 12; Tasmanian state seal from ‘Arms of various

states,’ Treasury Department, 1839-1942, letters received,

GRG 45/ Ser. 1/1921, No 50.

13. Colonial Seal of New South Wales, 1791. William Applegate

Gullick, The Seals of New South Wales, Sydney: Government

Printer, 1921, p. 7.

14. Seal, Colony of South Australia. 1839. Leather impression

from seal, dispatched together with the die press from the

Royal Mint, London. Special Collection, State Library of

South Australia, D5349 (Misc.). Digital image by author.

33 José Ortega y Gasset, The Dehumanization of Art, Princeton,

Princeton University Press, 1968.

50

15. Federation Window (detail), 1903. Government House,

Adelaide. Digital image by author.

16. South Australian Commission of Arms. ‘South Australia’s

new coat of arms,’ The Register (Adelaide), 22 March 1923, p.

7.

17. Coat of Arms, South Australia, 1936. State Records South

Australia, ‘Miscellaneous records of historical interest,’

Chief Secretary’s Office, SRSA GRG 24, Series 90 Unit 7 #490. Digital image by author.

18. Victoria Coat of Arms, 1910. State Records South

Australia, Treasury Department, 1839-1942, letters

received, GRG 45, Series 1, Unit 50/1921. Digital image by

author.

19. Victoria Coat of Arms, 1973. State of Victoria, ‘Ensigns

of Public Authority’, Department of Premier and Cabinet,

http://www.dpc.vic.gov.au, accessed 10 September 2006.

20. ‘New Zealand’s Coat of Arms,’ 1911 design, State Records

South Australia, Governor’s Office, Despatches received

from the Secretary of State, London, 1840-1936, plate from

Her Majesty’s Stationers, 1910, in Governor’s

Correspondence, GRG2, Series 1, No. 80. Digital image by

author. Version of 1956, Ministry for Culture and Heritage,

accessed 15 September 2006: http://www.mch.govt.nz/coat-of-

arms.htm

21. New South Wales Coat of Arms, 2006. Heraldry of the world.

Available http://www.ngw.nl/int/aus/nsw.htm

22. New South Wales Coat of Arms, 1906. State Records South

Australia, Governor’s Office, Despatches received from the

51

Secretary of State, London, 1840-1936, plate from Her

Majesty’s Stationers, 1910, in Governor’s Correspondence,

GRG2, Series 1, No. 80. Digital image by author.

23. Matt Abraham, ‘New coat of arms is still bearing fruit,’

The Advertiser (Adelaide), 15 September 1983.

24. South Australia Coat of Arms, 1984. Available:

http://www.premcab.sa.gov.au/emblems/dl_coat1.htm

25. Seal of South Australia, Royal Mint, c. 1838. Image from

Robert Montgomery Martin, History of the Colonies of the British Empire…

with the charters and the engraved seals, London, Royal Mint, 1843.

26. South Australia State Badge (1901) and Public Seal (1904).

GRG45, Series 1, Unit 50.1921, State Records of South

Australia. Digital images by author.

27. South Australia Badge, 1984. By permission of the

Department of Premier and Cabinet. Available:

http://www.premcab.saa.gov.au/shrike1.htm.

28. State Government of Victoria, ‘victoriaonline’ home page:

http://www.vic.gov.au/

29. New South Wales flag, available:

http://flagspot.net/flags/au-nsw.html

30. New South Wales coat of arms as miniature logo on webpage

masthead, available:

http://www.premier.nsw.gov.au/default.html

31. Zazzle internet marketing company based in Redwood City,

California. Available:

http://www.zazzle.com/victoria_coat_of_arms_t_shirt+gifts

52

32. ‘Australian flags’, Accessed 20 March 2007:

http://myflag.com.au/images/aussie_flags/boxing_kangaroo.jp

g

33. Linley Sambourne, ‘The Puzzled Kangaroo,’ Punch (London),

27 June 1900. National Library of Australia PIC PIC S9879

LOC 3816-E. Image available: http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-

an8870612

34. Letters patent constituting the office of Governor-General 29 October 1900.

National Archives Australia. Available:

http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/scan.asp?sID=142

35. State Bank of Victoria logos, 1866 and 1975. Mimmo

Cozzolino, Symbols of Australia, Coburg, Victoria, 1980, p. 92.

36. British Petroleum Australia logo, 1914. Cozzolino, p. 173.

37. British Petroleum, ‘BP Brand and Logo’, accessed 15 March

2007 16 March 2007:

http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?

categoryid=9014508&contentid=7027677

38. Sturt Krygsman, The Australian, 5 November 1999, p. 15.

39. Australian Republic Movement logos, 1998 image from

information leaflet; 2009 version available:

http://www.republic.org.au/

40. Peace Roo Poster, designed by David Lancashire, Sydney

Olympics Organising Committee, 1996. Available:

http://www.la84foundation.org/OlympicInformationCenter/Olym

picReview/1999/OREXXVI26/OREXXVI26zd.pdf

41. Departmental logo from the cover of a brochure distributed

by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs,

1999.

53

42. Centenary of Federation Commission logo, 2001. Available:

http://www.apsc.gov.au/media/history.htm

43. Federation Week magazine cover, The Advertiser (Adelaide) 13-

21 Oct. 2001. ‘Face of S.A.’ photo mosaic, The Advertiser, 26

Jan. 2006, p. 1. B’nai B’rith poster prize winner,

‘Advancing Australia Fairly’ The Australian, 26 July 2007, p.

25.

44. Logos from corporations website home pages, available 12

July 2009.

45. Aboriginal flag, available:

http://www.flagaustnat.asn.au/aboriginalflag.php

46. Australian War Memorial, 2003, Hyde Park, London.

Available 9 July 2009:

http://www.londonlogue.com/files/2006/10/auswarmem2.jpg