The Vision Splendid features the sketchbooks of 22 nineteenth-century artists, ranging from well-known professionals like Eugene von Guérard and John Glover to amateurs about whom little is known. These artists, engineers, surveyors, military men, solicitors, public servants and pastoralists all delighted in recording what they saw and then sharing it with family, friends and the wider public. The sketches reveal what colonial life in Australia was like at that time, both in the country and in the city, and the challenges the artists faced depicting landscapes that were so different from those in Europe.