The Victory Hero(ine)

Australia as a woman

The symbolic use of the female figure in this illustration may have been read on a number of levels. There was a long allegorical tradition of presenting nations as female figures. Other civic virtues, like ‘justice’ and ‘liberty’ were also presented in the female form. This tradition dated from ancient times, but became popular again in modern history from the late-seventeenth century, when the female figure of Britannia, modelled on classical depictions of the Ancient Greek goddess Athena goddess of war and women, (and her Roman counterpart Minerva) re-appeared. Britannia was the immediate model for the many depictions of ‘Australia’, created from the mid-nineteenth century, long before the united country of Australia existed in fact. The depiction of Australia as a woman was popular throughout the late-nineteenth century and well into the twentieth. It was never an exclusive allegory of nation. The Bulletin’s ‘Little Boy from Manly’ was an alternative symbol, especially when a less dignified image was called for, but the female form of Australia was almost always used in ceremonial or formal depictions of nationhood. This female allegory of nation was especially dominant during the period around Federation and again during the First World War, but declined in popularity during the 1930s, only to reappear during World War II.

Virgil Reilly’s woman combines elements of the classical goddess, with those of a modern woman. She is unclothed, suggesting vulnerability, but also ardour. Popular images of ‘Liberty’ (the French symbol of ‘Marianne for example) often used the symbol of the bare-breasted woman. And the lights around her head suggest a diadem. But she is also unquestionably a modern woman, with contemporary hair and make-up. In this sense she could also stand for the women of Britain or Australia, exhorting their men to victory and assisting in that fight themselves.

Readers of The Australian Women’s Weekly were probably more familiar with this kind of symbolism than we are now. Classical goddesses adorned statuary on buildings throughout Australian cities, not least as symbols of ‘blind Justice’ outside every law court. Cartoons depicting Britannia and her ‘daughter’ Australia were commonplace, while the ‘V for Victory’ symbol was immensely popular during the war throughout the British Commonwealth.  So many elements of this cover image were probably recognizable to readers of the Weekly. But even without its allegorical meanings, Virgil’s image was a dramatic depiction of the desperate struggle then underway in Britain, and by inference, was a reminder of Australia’s likely fate should the British Empire be defeated.