Art History & Archaeology Theses and Dissertations

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Adapting to the Market: Gabriel Metsu in Amsterdam
(2018) Lee, Sophia; Wheelock, Jr., Arthur K.; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation examines the impact that the vicissitudes of the political and economic environment of the mid-seventeenth century Dutch Republic had on the stylistic and thematic character of paintings that Gabriel Metsu (1629-1667) executed after he moved from Leiden to Amsterdam in 1654. In the early 1650s the Dutch Republic faced a multitude of difficulties. Shortly after its independence from Spain in 1648, the sudden death of Stadholder Willem II of Orange in 1650, the First Anglo-Dutch War (1652-1654), and a plague outbreak in the mid-1650s, the country was in a perilous state. The political and economic uncertainties facing the country had a direct impact on art markets. This study examines how Metsu adapted his paintings to succeed in this changing environment. After he moved to Amsterdam, which was a much larger market than Leiden, he adopted Gerrit Dou’s (1613-1675) subject matter and Jan Baptist Weenix’s (1621-1659) fluid brushwork to create a new genre style. He also looked carefully at other contemporary genre painters, including Gerard ter Borch (1617-1681), Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), and Pieter de Hooch (1629-1684), to broaden his thematic and compositional ideas. Metsu also applied his unique sense of humour, evident in expressive facial expressions and body language, to enliven his paintings and invite his viewers’ engagement. By utilizing personal connections to expand his clientele to include wealthy patrons, as well as by diversifying the sizes and subjects of his paintings, Metsu succeeded in broadening his reach to include both wealthy patrons and a broad base in the Amsterdam art market.
Adriaen van Ostade's Images of Idyllic Rural Life
(2013) Hoffman, Jessica Lynn; Wheelock, Arthur K.; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Seventeenth-century Dutch artist Adriaen van Ostade (1610-1685) created paintings of rural life that exude life and vitality. The artist devoted hundreds of canvases and panels to depicting rural folk enjoying a dance or a drink, singing songs, and enjoying the pleasures of the pipe. Though he inherited many aspects of the peasant genre tradition from predecessors such as Pieter Bruegel (c.1525-1569), Ostade, a lifelong resident of Haarlem, developed his own type of peasant image by depicting leisure activities in small inns and taverns that presented a sympathetic view of rural inhabitants. Ostade's mature paintings of festive country folk relied on preconceived notions about the peace and beauty of Haarlem's rural environs and were meant to enhance the idea of a peaceful rural escape for urban viewers. Through a critical examination of Ostade's oeuvre, I will compile a coherent and detailed look at the images of rural festivity that Ostade created throughout his long career. Ostade transformed traditional rollicking kermis scenes into subdued, leisurely celebrations focused on simple interactions along with singing and dancing. He changed the traditional stereotype of the festive peasant from a brutish, crude figure into a rustic, yet idyllic, rural fixture. The content people Ostade depicted in his mature work reflect the desires of an urban bourgeois class in Haarlem that prized their city's rural environs, which had long been extolled in literature and art. A thorough study of the works and the market for which they were produced illuminates the meaning and function of his animated pictures of rural life.
The Aesthetics of Intoxication in Antebellum American Art and Culture
(2007-04-24) Jordan, Guy Duane; Promey, Sally M; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
My dissertation, The Aesthetics of Intoxication in Antebellum American Art and Culture, proposes an ambitious re-evaluation of aesthetics in the United States between 1830 and 1860 that locates the consumption of images in relation to discourses of excess, addiction, and dependency. I uncover the antebellum period's physiological construction of looking as a somatic process akin to eating and drinking and offer a new definition of aesthetic absorption not merely as the disembodied projection of the viewer into a pictorial space, but as the corporeal ingestion of the image into the mind of the viewing subject. I demonstrate how this heretofore unstudied and historically-grounded alignment of aesthesis and alimentation played a crucial role in the production and reception of antebellum literature and visual culture. To this end, my dissertation stands as a broad-ranging cultural history that features fundamental reinterpretations of major works of art by Charles Deas, Thomas Cole, Hiram Powers, and Frederic Church.
Albert Pinkham Ryder's Two Wagnerian Paintings: The Flying Dutchman and Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens
(1988) Carman, Sharon Dale; Peters-Campbell, John; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847-1917) has traditionally been regarded as an anomalous figure in the history of art. A small, but growing, body of scholarship has recently been devoted to correcting this view of the artist and to establishing his relationship to the aesthetic currents of his time. This study explores the influence on his art of Ryder's environment, late nineteenth-century New York. Two of Ryder's paintings, each based on an incident in an opera by Richard Wagner, are examined: Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens, drawn from Gotterdammerung; and The Flying Dutchman, inspired by Der fliegende Hollander. The history of opera in nineteenthcentury New York helps to explain how an American painter came to be influenced by such distinctly German operatic themes. German immigration patterns are linked with changes in operatic taste, and the interest of native intellectuals in Wagner's music and ideas is discussed. Wagnerian staging tradition is posited as a source for the compositions of both Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens and The Flying Dutchman. It is demonstrated that the set designed by Josef Hoffmann for the original Bayreuth production of Gotterdammerung, Act III, Scene I, served as the specific compositional basis for Ryder's Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens.
The Altarpieces of Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494): Between Heaven and Earth, Faith and Art
(2017) Cadagin, Sarah Mellott; Gill, Meredith J; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation examines the altarpiece paintings of the late fifteenth-century Italian artist Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-94). While Ghirlandaio’s frescoes have often been studied as paradigms of portraiture and visual narrative, the artist’s 12 surviving altarpiece paintings have received little attention, despite Ghirlandaio’s status as one of the major figures in the history of Renaissance painting. This study is the first comprehensive and contextual investigation of Ghirlandaio’s altarpieces, and one of the first to consider his works on panel outside questions of attribution. My analysis utilizes archival discoveries, alongside focused examinations into the identities of patrons, the commission histories of these works, the original locations of the altarpieces, and the paintings’ diverse sacred iconography. Organized around a range of case studies that include altarpieces for religious orders, cathedrals, civic hospitals, and private patrons, this dissertation also demonstrates the purposes and uses of altarpieces, revealing how this persistent type functioned as a form of visual and sacred power. Altarpieces visualize and index the divine presence contained and invoked at the altar, while also drawing the beholder fully into that presence. As a vehicle between the visible and the invisible, the altarpiece was the perfect means by which artists could explore the challenges of naturalism and mimesis, illusion and the imagination. Rather than seeing artists and their altarpieces as simply reflecting cultural and religious mores, this study argues for the active role that altarpieces played – and the artists who created them – in articulating the ontologies of the altar and its liturgies. Through an examination of Ghirlandaio’s altarpieces, this study proposes a new definition of the fifteenth-century altarpiece as a dynamic object that mediated between the realm of art, as an aesthetic artifact, and the realm of the sacred, as an image that participated in the liturgies of the altar. As the first study to explore Ghirlandaio’s altarpieces, this dissertation produces a new body of knowledge about the artist, his workshop, and his painting practices. More broadly, it reassesses the materiality, functions, and ontologies of altarpieces, leading not only to a greater understanding of Renaissance religious art, but also of sacred art more generally.
Amalia van Solms and the Formation of the Stadhouder's Art Collection, 1625-1675
(2012) Treanor, Virginia Clare; Wheelock, Jr., Arthur K.; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation examines the role of Amalia van Solms (1602-1675), wife of Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange and Stadhouder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands (1584-1647), in the formation of the couple's art collection. Amalia and Frederik Hendrik's collection of fine and decorative arts was modeled after foreign, royal courts and they cultivated it to rival those of other great European treasure houses. While some scholars have recognized isolated instances of Amalia's involvement with artistic projects at the Stadhouder's court, this dissertation presents a more comprehensive account of these activities by highlighing specific examples of Amalia's patronage and collecting practices. Through an examination of gifts of art, portraits of Amalia and her porcelain collection, this study considers the ways in which Amalia contributed to the formation of the Stadhouder's art collection. This dissertation seeks to provide a greater knowledge not only of Amalia's activities as a patron and collector, but also a more throrough understanding of the genesis and function of the collection as a whole, which reflected the power and glory of the House of Orange during the Dutch Golden Age.
AMBIGUOUS BODIES: GENDER NON-CONFORMITY AND BODILY TRANSFORMATION IN EARLY MODERN ITALIAN ART
(2020) Berkowitz, Sara K.; Colantuono, Anthony; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation examines images of ambiguously gendered human bodies in early modern Italian art (1600-1750). Specifically, it explores how artists rendered bodies that underwent a physical change, transforming from conforming men and women into ambiguous or gender-fluid entities. However, the alterations to these figures’ forms did not relegate them to the period’s third category of gender, the hermaphrodite. Rather, they entered into liminal spaces between the defined boundaries of male and female. Focusing on Italy and its interactions with other European centers, including England and Spain, I explore the ways in which artists constructed a new visual language for the portrayal of ambiguously gendered bodies by turning to a variety of novel sources. In particular, I examine artists’ use of medical knowledge from treatises on congenital diseases, anatomical illustrations, and surgical manuals. In combination with artists’ use of classicizing myths and religious doctrines, these medical sources enabled artists to render figures as recognizable derivations from the natural order, while still retaining attributes of their humanity. Three case studies demonstrate how these issues manifested on the painted surface: Jusepe de Ribera’s portrait of Magdalena Ventura and Her Husband (1631); Jacopo Amigoni’s Musical Portrait Group: The Singer Farinelli and Friends (1750–1752); and Giovanni Andrea Coppola’s altarpiece Martyrdom of Saint Agatha (1650). The subjects of these paintings—hirsutes (figures whose hair covers the entire body or face), castrati (male singers who were castrated before reaching puberty so that their voices would remain at a prepubescent height and pitch), and Saint Agatha (an early Christian virgin martyr whose breasts were amputated) demonstrate how slippages between conforming male and female bodies existed across early modern life and belief. Drawing from the fields of Art History, Social History, Gender Studies, History of Medicine, and Literature, this dissertation elucidates the early modern preoccupation with understanding bodily difference—a preoccupation, I argue, of equal importance for artists, philosophers, and medico-philosophers as studying and representing the ideal Renaissance body. This project, therefore, presents an opportunity to reconsider the parallels between early modern definitions of non-conforming bodies and issues surrounding gender identity in contemporary society.
Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530) and the Art of Reform
(2015) Cody, Steven Joseph; Gill, Meredith J; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
During the second and third decades of the sixteenth century, Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530) distinguished himself within the city of Florence as a painter of considerable talent. He worked within a variety of religious institutions, creating altarpieces rich in theological complexity, elegant in formal execution, and dazzlingly brilliant in chromatic impact. This dissertation analyzes six of those altarpieces, offering a cross-section of Andrea's working life and stylistic development. Approaching the artist's career from this perspective provides modern audiences with a valuable glimpse into his strategies for marrying his own social ambitions to the spiritual teachings that informed ecclesiastical art. These strategies evolved as Andrea learned from each artistic commission he undertook, each altarpiece that he produced in dialogue with educated patrons and learned religious advisors. Over the course of his career, he himself privileged with increasing sophistication theological texts concerned with the idea of reform. I argue that Andrea's stylistic development as a painter describes this process of spiritual education. This argument reconsiders the established conventions of the art-historical monograph, as it adds significantly to the broader scholarly discussion of Renaissance religious art, shedding fresh light on early modern theories of subjectivity and sensation.
Andrea Sansovino and the Question of Modernism in Sixteenth-Century Italian Art
(2015) Langer, Lara R.; Gill, Meredith J; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation examines major artworks by the Tuscan artist Andrea Sansovino (c.1467/70-1529), and his role in the development of sculpture at the turn of the sixteenth century. Sansovino worked from the 1490s until his death in 1529, specializing in large tombs and altars. Amid a growing population of wealthy ecclesiastics, some chose to promote their legacies with grand funerary chapels and memorials. Displays of wealth and power went hand in hand with ritual, performance, and spectacle. The goal of this study is to establish how intersections among sculpture, funerary design, and cultural developments during the papacy of Julius II (r.1503-13) brought forth innovations in the art of Sansovino, which influenced his contemporaries and later artists. Establishing Sansovino as a pioneering artist will challenge previous scholarship classifying him as a typical promoter of fifteenth-century Florentine artistic traditions. To investigate the aesthetic of Sansovino, this discussion avoids the strict categorizations “classical” or “modern,” which may limit our understanding of his exceptionality. Under the methodological framework of social art history, considering artistic practice, collaboration, patronage, and ritual, this study gives special attention to Sansovino’s masterpieces, the twin tombs at Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome. Sansovino’s approach to tomb design and sculpted altarpieces is apparent in his rethinking of wall monuments, the importance of the body in his designs, and his reinvention of classical ornamentation. Analysis of Sansovino’s works offers a nuanced comparison of his art with the works of his colleagues. Chapter One introduces Sansovino and the historical context within which he lived and worked. Chapter Two explores Sansovino’s attributed altarpieces and early influences. Chapter Three focuses on the Popolo tombs as the embodiments of Sansovino’s interest in large-scale complex monuments and their role in the celebration of art and ceremony. Chapter Four highlights Sansovino’s participation in the massive marble screen of the Santa Casa at Loreto Cathedral, and argues that Sansovino devised the barrier as a more integrated part of the church and the congregant’s acts of devotion. Chapter Five reflects on those artists who followed Sansovino’s ambitious formal experiments in tomb and altar production.
THE ARCHITECTURAL VESSELS OF THE MOCHE OF PERU (C.E. 200-850): ARCHITECTURE FOR THE AFTERLIFE
(2010) Wiersema, Juliet Benham; Pillsbury, Joanne; Venit, Marjorie; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation investigates sculpted representations of ritual architecture produced by the Moche (C.E. 200-850), a complex and socially-stratified society occupying Peru's north coast centuries before the formation of the Inca Empire. My study focuses on a single artifact type--the Moche architectural vessel--a portable fine ware ceramic container with a stirrup-shaped handle and straight spout which supports a miniature modeled building. Moche architectural vessels mimic the form of structures and features identified in full-scale Moche architecture. When discovered archaeologically, these objects accompany elite burials found within or in close proximity to Moche ritual architecture, or huacas. For art historians and archaeologists, these portable artifacts constitute one of the most important sources of data on Moche ritual architecture and as such, permit us a more nuanced understanding of ancient ceremonial structures which have been compromised by centuries of erosion, treasure hunting, and cataclysmic events. While Moche architectural vessels have been considered simple and somewhat generic representations of temples or temple complexes, my study suggests these objects instead relay explicit information about geographically, temporally, or ideologically specific ritual structures. In this dissertation, I propose a practical method for "decoding" these objects and demonstrate that, once deciphered, Moche architectural vessels can elucidate the original form, function, and ideological significance of Moche ceremonial architecture. My research draws upon several disciplines including art history, anthropology, ethnography, and ethnomusicology. Important contributions include the assembly of the first Moche architectural vessel corpus (169 vessels), the creation of a detailed 10-type Moche architectural vessel typology, a new method for visualizing these objects, and the discovery that several vessels are additionally acoustic artifacts. My study presents a new investigative model, applicable to other areas in the ancient Andes and Mesoamerica, where, for millennia, ceramic representations of architecture formed an important part of burial ritual. Moche architectural vessels also engage in a cross-cultural dialogue with architectural representations made for burial by other ancient cultures around the globe, including Han Dynasty China, Middle Kingdom Egypt, Iron Age Italy, Ancient West Mexico, and Aztec Mexico. They also illuminate the rich potential of ceremonial objects made by advanced societies without text-based histories.
Art as Lived Religion: Edward Burne-Jones as Painter, Priest, Pilgrim, and Monk
(2007-04-25) Crossman, Colette M.; Pressly, William L; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation presents the first analysis of religion in the life and work of the artist Edward Burne-Jones (1833-98) and establishes its centrality to his creative practice, identity, and reception. As a young man, he dreamed of taking holy orders and founding a monastic brotherhood. After forgoing the priesthood, he ornamented countless churches as an ecclesiastical designer and maintained a proclivity for painting Christian iconography, leading contemporaries to proclaim him one of the world's great religious artists. Today, however, using an outmoded lens that characterizes the nineteenth century as a period of precipitous religious decline, most art historians assume Burne-Jones reflects the conventional narrative of lost faith and doubt. Confusing institutional affiliation with personal belief, they have overlooked his unorthodox views, which defy the customary parameters of denomination or broad, theological movement, yet signal an ongoing, complex spiritual commitment. Moreover, misperceiving the secular as a necessary condition of modernity, some have expunged the religious from his art in an anxiety to legitimize his place in the modernist canon. Methodologies of lived religion and practice, however, offer a new means of understanding Burne-Jones. Reconsidering belief as something often expressed beyond the confines of corporate worship and creed, as behaviors and discursive patterns occupying spaces of vocation, creativity, identity, and the everyday, demonstrates that art served as a vehicle for enacting his spiritual convictions. In the overlapping, and at times conflicting, guises of a priest mediating the divine, an artist-monk for whom labor is a devotional act, and a pilgrim seeking salvation, Burne-Jones cast his artistic practice as a religious vocation meant to improve the world through the redemptive power of beauty and, in the process, secure divine favor. In addition to explicating the religious role art-making served for Burne-Jones, this project seeks to reclaim his altarpieces' liturgical functions and reconstruct how Christian audiences adapted and consumed his art for various didactic and devotional purposes. Such analysis underscores his objects' multivalency and the subjectivity of sacredness. Consequently, Burne-Jones's example provides evidence that religion was not necessarily disappearing in the Victorian age, but was being transformed and exercised in increasingly personalized ways.
ART FOR THE MARKET: COMMERCIALISM IN REN YI'S (1840-1895) FIGURE PAINTING
(2004-01-14) Li, Tang; Kuo, Jason; Kita, Sandy; Spiro, Marie; Art History and Archaeology
Ren Yi (1840-1895) was one of the most accomplished and influential Shanghai painters of the late nineteenth century. He produced a great deal of artwork, much of it figure painting. This thesis will examine the economic aspect of Ren Yi's figure paintings in terms of the circumstances under which the artworks were produced, their subject matter, style, and historical background. Ren's figure painting was done not just for art's sake, but in a broad sense for a commercial purpose, specifically for the ready art market in Shanghai. Such commercialism is best manifested in three categories of Ren's figure painting, i.e. portraits, narratives depicting mythological, legendary and historical figures, and genre scenes of ordinary people. The three categories of Ren's figure painting suggest three strategies for Ren to successfully live by painting in Shanghai: (1) Making connections with influential art patrons and artists to establish himself in Shanghai, (2) catering to the tastes and needs of the populace (especially the newly rising merchants) to attract their attention and thus make a name in Shanghai, and (3) making his artwork close to reality and thus easily accessible to the common people so as to expand his potential audience and customer base. The commercialism in Ren's figure painting was first directly related to the social, economic, and cultural circumstances in Shanghai, a city that rapidly and dramatically developed into the largest and most prosperous metropolis in the late nineteenth century. Secondly, personally, as a professional painter who lived by painting, Ren Yi had to tailor his artworks to meet the demands of his patrons and potential customers so that he could support himself. Thirdly, from an historical standpoint, the commercialism manifested in eighteenth-century Yangzhou painting, especially in artworks by Yangzhou baguai (the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou), had significant impact on Ren Yi's figure painting.
The Art of Archaeology: The Archaeological Process in the Work of Robert Smithson, Mark Dion, and Fred Wilson
(2005-05-24) Vilches, Flora; Hargrove, June; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation discusses the relationship between contemporary artwork and current archaeological theory and practice. I argue that contemporary art and scientific archaeology are both practices conducted in the present facing similar issues, such as the need to attend to power relations between past and present, and the documentation and representation of ephemeral activities. Because artists and archaeologists offer different responses to those similar issues, contemporary artwork can help materialize the very process of doing and theorizing archaeology by making its contradictions and modus operandi visible. I focus on both the social context and the circulation and reception of the work of American artists Robert Smithson, Mark Dion, and Fred Wilson. The specific artworks in question are all ephemeral, site-specific installations that have been recorded through photographs. Although Smithson, Dion, and Wilson do not intend to comment theoretically on archaeological practice, the nature of their own creative process reproduces archaeology's dynamics posing metaphors that resonate with postprocessual archaeologies, particularly with the practice of British archaeologists Michael Shanks and Christopher Tilley. I propose that the basis of the resonance between the work of the artists and the archaeologists' stems from their ability to blur the boundaries of each discipline. The work of Robert Smithson, Mark Dion, and Fred Wilson has only been partially compared with archaeological practice. This dissertation underscores how artists and archaeologists rethought their fields after the advent of postmodernism, as well as to what extent, and why, those redefinitions are similar. Furthermore, I demonstrate how the groundbreaking work of Smithson in the late 1960s not only was influential to later generations of artists such as Dion and Wilson, but also seemed to anticipate by over ten years many postulates of archaeology's own self-critique.
THE ARTĚL COOPERATIVE (1908-1934): CRAFTING CZECH MODERNITY
(2020) Bratton, Lyndsay; Mansbach, Steven A; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
Eight founding members of Artěl—the Prague avant-garde’s response to the Wiener Werkstätte—united in 1908 with a manifesto proclaiming their goals to combat inferior factory substitutes for handcrafted designs and to restore society with a sense of taste through affordable products for everyday life. Across Artěl’s stylistic, political, and ideological development, its members consistently demonstrated the complementary relationship between the folk and the modern. Whether working in the Czech variant of Cubism in the final years of the Habsburg Dual Monarchy, the folk-infused nationalist “decorativism” of the First Czechoslovak Republic after 1918, or the sober Functionalism of the late 1920s, Artěl designers struck an aesthetic balance between regional Czech folk arts and international avant-garde styles. The group thereby served to construct and promote a distinctively Czech visual culture for the international stage at a transformative moment in Czech history.
The Arts of Domestic Devotion in Renaissance Italy: The Case of Venice
(2006-11-21) Morse, Margaret Anne; Colantuono, Anthony; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation examines the rich visual culture that developed around the pervasive practice of religion in the Renaissance household, with a specific focus on the city of Venice in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is a subject that has received little attention in the recent art historical scholarship that has focused on the domestic arts in early modern Italy. Documentary evidence confirms, however, that over ninety percent of Venetian homes contained articles of spiritual import and function, consisting of a wide range of goods, from paintings by the period's most renowned artists to mass-produced items, such as prints, amulets, and prayer beads. These visible expressions of religion within the household context were essential for the formation and preservation of a devout familial dwelling. Sacred imagery fostered devotion and spiritual activity within the everyday lives of Venetians and ritual environments were fashioned throughout the household, from a picture hung on a wall to an altar furnished with the appropriate vessels and linens for mass. Images of prophylactic saints, like Christopher, Roch, and Sebastian, along with thaumaturgic objects, such as amulets and prayer beads, provided bodily and spiritual protection to family members in this sea-faring city that continually faced disease and a host of other misfortunes. The religious visual culture of the <em>casa</em> also shaped the sacred and ethical character of the family, which included the moral formation of children, the role of women in the home as spiritual educators, and the preservation of the household for future generations. Additionally, while located within a "private" setting, religious objects from domestic spaces were intimately tied to Venice's mercantile economy, and connected individuals and families to the city's wider community of Christian devotion. In a period in which the laity assumed greater control over their spiritual lives, the home served as one of the most salient settings for religious activity and expression, made possible by the acquisition and display of a variety of devotional goods.
Baroque Plague Imagery and Tridentine Church Reforms
(1990) Boeckl, Christine M.; Pressly, William; Art History & Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
This dissertation aims to achieve two goals: one, to assemble as many facts as possible about the plague, regardless of period, and to relate this material to images; and two, to present a well-defined group of religious baroque plague paintings in the context of social, political and religious history. This inquiry is primarily concerned with scenes that portray saints actively involved in charitable pursuits, dispensing the sacraments to victims of the most dreaded disease, the bubonic plague. Chapter I contains a bibliographical essay, divided into three parts: medicine, theology, and art history. The next chapter considers the sources and the formation of baroque plague iconography. The remaining two chapters discuss "documentary" plague scenes and how they relate to historic events. They are presented in two sections: Italy and transalpine countries. This interdisciplinary research resulted in a number of observations. First, these narrative plague scenes were produced in Italy and in Catholic countries bordering Protestant regions: Switzerland, France, Flanders, and in the Habsburg Empire (excluding Spain). Second, the painters were mostly Italian or Italian-trained. Third, the artists observed not only the requirements specified by the Church in the 1563 Tridentine Decree on the Arts but also reflected in their work the catechetic teachings of the Council. Fourth, these religious scenes were not votive paintings but doctrinal images that served either didactic or polemic functions. Fifth, the scenes were not intended as memento mori; rather, the iconology conveyed positive images which emphasized that the faithful needed the Roman Catholic clergy to gain life-everlasting. Sixth, these plague paintings were important documents not as recordings of the conditions experienced during an epidemic but as historic testimony of liturgical practices. Last, these selected scenes mirrored the baroque Church's views on the ultimate questions about life and death.
BAROQUE PLAGUE IMAGERY AND TRIDENTINE CHURCH REFORMS
(1990) Boeckl, Christine Maria; Pressly, William; Art History & Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
This dissertation aims to achieve two goals: one, to assemble as many facts as possible about the plague, regardless of period, and to relate this material to images; and two, to present a well-defined group of religious baroque plague paintings in the context of social, political and religious history. This inquiry is primarily concerned with scenes that portray saints actively involved in charitable pursuits, dispensing the sacraments to victims of the most dreaded disease, the bubonic plague. Chapter I contains a bibliographical essay, divided into three parts: medicine, theology, and art history. The next chapter considers the sources and the formation of baroque plague iconography. The remaining two chapters discuss "documentary" plague scenes and how they relate to historic events. They are presented in two sections: Italy and transalpine countries. This interdisciplinary research resulted in a number of observations. First, these narrative plague scenes were produced in Italy and in Catholic countries bordering Protestant regions: Switzerland, France, Flanders, and in the Habsburg Empire (excluding Spain). Second, the painters were mostly Italian or Italian-trained. Third, the artists observed not only the requirements specified by the Church in the 1563 Tridentine Decree on the Arts but also reflected in their work the catechetic teachings of the Council. Fourth, these religious scenes were not votive paintings but doctrinal images that served either didactic or polemic functions. Fifth, the scenes were not intended as memento mori; rather, the iconology conveyed positive images which emphasized that the faithful needed the Roman Catholic clergy to gain life-everlasting. Sixth, these plague paintings were important documents not as recordings of the conditions experienced during an epidemic but as historic testimony of liturgical practices. Last, these selected scenes mirrored the baroque Church's views on the ultimate questions about life and death.
Beautiful Fictions: Composing the Artificial in the Work of Mickalene Thomas
(2015) Shine, Tyler; Shannon, Joshua; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This thesis considers three paintings by the contemporary African American artist Mickalene Thomas. I argue that Thomas uses collage to analyze and highlight the socially constructed nature of identities and surroundings. I propose that collage functions in three ways in Thomas’s work: as a medium, an artistic strategy, and a metaphor for the multiple states of being in the world. Thomas refracts the art historical genres of portraiture, landscape, and still life through a black, queer, female lens that presents the complexities of black female subjectivities. However, the paucity of critical literature on Thomas’s work is indicative of a broader problem in contemporary art historical discourse when interpreting works by Black artists and often requires these artists to foreground their cultural and physical differences. This thesis redresses the simplistic interpretations of Thomas’s work by demonstrating the breadth and depth of her conceptual interests and in doing so argues that her works are propositions for how we might conceptualize the history of art.
Between Body and Spirit: Indian Influences on Modern Japanese Art
(2024) Chiu, Chao Chi; Volk, Alicia; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
This dissertation contributes to ongoing examinations on modern transcultural exchanges between Japan and other Asian countries in the field of Japanese art by investigating the influence of India on itinerant Japanese artists throughout the twentieth century. In doing so, it challenges prevailing assumptions that Japanese artistic engagement with foreign culturesoperated entirely within an imperialistic context. Among the many Asian countries that served as sources of artistic inspiration for Japan, India stood out from the rest because of its esteemed spirituality in the eyes of Japanese intellectuals. Contemporary Japanese writings emphasized India’s importance as the birth place of Buddhism and framed the South Asian country as a bastion on Asian spiritual fortitude against the influx of Western materialism. Consequently, India also attracted Buddhist artists across Japan to visit its ancient temples and museums to its art. While these Japanese abroad expressed their admiration towards India’s religiosity and adherence to keeping its traditions alive, they also fantasized about the exoticism and corporeality embodied in Indian art and contemporary locals. Such fantasies were visualized intheir works in visual icons such as half-nude females with elaborate poses, Buddhist figures, including the Buddha himself, with exaggerated Indian ethnic features, and tropical plants and animals representing a long-lost past. I argue that Japanese adaption of Indian styles and themes into their art was characterized by a precarious harmony between spiritual and corporeal elements in the artist works. Furthermore, each artist defined “spirituality” and “corporeality” in distinct way, which led to diverse approaches. My dissertation revolved around four artists as case studies: Arai Kanpō, Nōsu Kōsetsu, Ishizaki Kōyō, and Sugimoto Tetsurō. By examining the careers, writings, and artworks of each artist, I will highlight how Japanese artists interpreted Indian materials and utilized them to create unconventional works. Furthermore, I would contextualize these artists’ work in the development of Japanese perspectives toward India throughout the twentieth century, expressed through contemporary writings that praised India for its spiritual fortitude but also denigrated them as an inferior Asian country. Examining the artists’ life and works in connection to changing perspectives towards India, Buddhism, and religious art in modern society, this dissertation explores the nuances of Japan’s artistic interaction with foreign materials beyond the context of colonialism and imperialism.
Between Temple and Tomb: Lararia, the Lares, and the Dead in Roman Pompeii (80 BCE-79 CE)
(2018) Evans, Sarah Frances; Gensheimer, Maryl B; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The Lares familiares were a group of ancient Roman gods worshipped at lararia, the shrines that stood at the center of domestic religion. In this thesis, I revisit a century-long debate and present new evidence, derived from the close observation of the design and representational elements extant on the material remains of temples, tombs, and lararia, for the previously proposed but recently rejected theory that the Lares familiares were the spirits of deceased ancestors. In opposition to the approach of previous publications, I place archaeological, rather than textual, evidence from Roman Pompeii in the forefront to examine what new conclusions might be drawn. In Part 2, I consider the elements of formal design that may connect lararia not only with temple architecture, but also with tomb design. In Part 3, I analyze a series of representational elements that may suggest a similar visual connection between the Lares and the dead.