Aesthetic divisions and intensities in the Australian art field

Focusing on the Australian Cultural Fields survey data and household interviews relating to the Australian art field, this chapter develops four main lines of argument. First, while qualified and complicated by the force of age and gender, the data testifies to the continuing strength of the relations between family background, level of education and class position in determining both the degree and kinds of involvement in the Australian art field. Second, tastes also manifest the strong influence of education and class. They do so at the most general level in differentiating responses to figurative and non-figurative art forms, albeit that this is complicated by the force of age. Third, the degree of intensity invested in involvement in the visual arts is, more often than not, an inherited disposition strongly connected to family background. Finally, we pay particular attention to the distinctive qualities associated with liking Aboriginal art, particularly the respects in which, even in its abstract forms, it is differentiated from other forms of abstract art in view of the respects in which it testifies to politically purposive story telling.