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Book Review
| Ross McMullin, Will Dyson: Australia's Radical Genius, Scribe, Melbourne, 2006. pp. xiv + 448. $59.95 cloth.
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| Don't expect to read about a cartoonist being a loveable larrikin. Nor does this book require us to indulge the artist of the past and forgive the quaint corniness of his ideas, as we have grown so much more sophisticated. Will Dyson was a talented artist, a great thinker and orator, a gifted wordsmith and poet and a deeply political being. His satire was biting, his wit was sharp and his work was inseparable from his identity. |
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Ross McMullin has drawn a nuanced and thorough portrait of Will Dyson, (1880 until 1938) through what is clearly a most extensive archive. Thank God people wrote so many letters back then! And because the people who surrounded the man were often also well-known and written about, we have a wealth of context from which to draw our subject. |
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Will Dyson was eighth of 11 children of a Ballarat Gold miner. The second-eldest son, Ted, left school at 12 to work with his father and help support the family, but, with literary leanings in spite of his minimal schooling, he began to write for various publications, including the Sydney Bulletin. Ted's budding career as a journalist was vital in influencing his talented siblings into writing, drawing and activism, with a political sensibility born directly out of the goldfields and the Eureka uprising. Will, who looked to Ted's influence more than his father's, and who also left school at 12, began to take an interest in drawing. |
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One of the striking things is the extent to which these people were self-educated. We're not really told how, but they emerge into adulthood able to write and speak with flair and eloquence, and in the case of Will and others of his siblings, teach themselves to draw, soaking up every lesson of life. The 'perpetual adolescence' of our time is nowhere to be seen – these guys just got on with becoming who they wanted to be. |
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They also led a lively intellectual life. An almost idyllic picture is presented of the bohemian haunts, peopled with artists, poets, journalists and musicians; powerful politicians and lawyers; and assorted bon vivants. Clearly a large part of education was not institutional; talking with interesting people counted for much more. At 18, Dyson befriended Norman Lindsay, later marrying his sister Ruby. One of Lindsay's brothers married a sister of Dyson's. So they were inextricable, although not happily ever after. |
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When Australia failed to provide Dyson with sufficient opportunities to be published, in spite of his obvious talent, he decided to go to London. There he found work almost immediately, and dazzling success shortly after – London was big enough for him and the scope of national and European politics inspired him more than the relatively isolated world of Australia. |
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Here, in the pre-war years of London, we see a kind of simplicity in newspapers – they were politically partisan – but there wasn't the proliferation of commercial interests to complicate the editorial policy, and there certainly wasn't the mass of diverse information and supplements we've come to expect now. The fearlessly partisan political cartoon was one of just a few vital elements, given considerable prominence (often a whole page). Commercial imperatives began to play more of a role in newspapers after the war – often the radical politics needed to be toned down to increase readership. Dyson had trouble accommodating them – and them, him. |
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When war broke out, Dyson became a war artist for the Australian Infantry Force, and contributed greatly to the record of Australian involvement in World War I, even sustaining injuries as he sought to view the action from the front line. There, he formed a lasting friendship with reporter and historian Charles Bean. His drawing style developed greatly through such an intense period of observation, and his ability to capture the mood and character of the Australian soldiers was invaluable in conveying the reality of their experience in the battlefields of France. He empathised profoundly with his subjects. |
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The war aged him, and depleted much of his idealism. However, the loss of his beloved wife to the flu shortly after the war was a far greater blow. For this reason, as well as the changing nature of newspapers, he found it difficult to draw political cartoons with the same conviction, and was persuaded to return to Australia in 1925. He took up etching to international acclaim, but was frustrated by the comparatively lean intellectual life he found now in Australia – its 'mental timidity' (p. 342) – returning later to England and to political cartoons. |
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Will Dyson: Australia's Radical Genius is a biography, a political history, a World War I history and a partial history of Australian art and literature. The proliferation of characters and events recorded in this book makes occasional hard work, but the lack of footnotes makes it accessible – the quotes and references are all there to see. The many examples of Dyson's work are also fascinating, although it would have been interesting to see more of his earlier efforts, before he became consummate. There are so many aspects of the times in which Dyson lived which help to define him and upon which he was greatly influential. It is ironic that the success and acclaim he achieved internationally were greater than he found at home – as one artist said of Dyson's work, 'If Australians fail to appreciate him, it will only be because he is too good for them' (p. 312). Indeed, to this day it would seem we've often reserved our adoration for less brilliant minds which nevertheless fulfil our fondness for loveable larrikins. |
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| Sydney Morning Herald |
CATHY WILCOX | |
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