Thomas Baine – visioni di Africa e Australia

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John Thomas Baines(1820 –1875) was another English artist and explorer who painted  British empirepossessions. 
He mainly explored and painted southern Africa and Australia.


After a period apprenticed to a coach painter (pittore viaggiante), at 22 Baines  left Englandfor South Africaaboard ( a bordo di) the “Olivia”. In Cape Town he  worked for a while as a scenic and portrait (ritratti) artist, and as official war artist during the so-called Eighth Frontier War for the British Army.

In 1855 Baines joined (si unì a) Augustus Gregory’s 1855–1857 Royal Geographical Society expedition  across northern Australia. Their purpose (scopo) was to explore the area around VictoriaRiver in the north-west and the entire northern area of Australiato check the suitability (adattabilità) for colonial settlements. During these expedition his contribution  was so important that MountBainesand the BainesRiver were named after (furono chiamati in suo onore) him.

In 1858 Baines was together with David Livingstone along the Zambezi, and was one of the first white men to view Victoria Falls. In 1869 Baines led one of the first gold expeditions to Mashonaland, later named Rhodesia.

From 1861 to 1862 Baines and James Chapman led an expedition to South West Africa.  During the mission they took photographs, made paintings and wrote comments then  published by Chapman in Travels in the Interior of South Africa (1868) and Baines’ Explorations in South-West Africa (1864) –  books that supply  different perspectives on the same trip.

In 1870 Baines was on a trip between the Gweru and Hunyani rivers to explore for gold.

He died in Durban in 1875.



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