By Marcus Tatton, Chris Viney and Futago (2010) the Wide Brown Land sculpture at Canberra's National Arboretum celebrates Dorothea McKellar's poem 'My Country':
'I love a sunburnt country.
A land of sweeping plains,
Of rugged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel sea,
Her beauty and her terror—
The wide brown land for me1'
second stanza of Dorothea McKellar's
'My Country'.
The form of the sculpture reflects the cursive style of McKellar's own handwriting.
In the background is Canberra's landmark Black Mountain telecommunications tower, rising 195.2 metres above the summit of the mountain.
Fabulous sculpture. At the risk of being labelled a heretic, I have always felt the Dorothea McKellar had possibly never seen proper mountain ranges in other countries when she wrote that particular line. :-(
I had a friend from Switzerland come to visit a few years ago and she laughed when I talked about Mt This and Mt that!!!! These are hills, she said! Chuckle! @terryliv
