From the introduction by the editor:

"Am I glad to be home again?" artist John Longstaff wrote upon his return from Europe in 1911. "I cannot tell you how glad. The Australian landscape has always seemed to me the most beautiful in the world as well as the most mysterious…"

For two centuries, generations of painters, photographers, designers and craftspeople have tried to make sense of the landscape Longstaff calls "mysterious". They have wrestled with it, and been captivated by it. And along the way, they have celebrated the heroes and larrikins who live within it.

Our literary community, meanwhile, frequently turns to the land and its people for inspiration. Their questions are the same: who are we, what do we value? And how does one interpret this compelling, "mysterious" land?

Among the National Gallery of Victoria's Australian collection, we found a young nation's identity come to life on paper, on canvas, on fabric. We then pored through the work of our authors and poets, playwrights, politicians, performers, journalists - and even the artists themselves - to find similar emotional journeys. And so another book of art and words was born, and a country's exploration of self continues.