Art Theses and Dissertations

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Edwin Forbes
(1966) Ahrens, Jacob Edward Kent; Grubar, Francis S.; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
Edwin Forbes (1839-1895) became a Special Artist for Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper in 1862, and traveled with the Union Armies during the Civil War to record the battles and camp-scenes . Approximately 150 of his battlefield sketches were reproduced in the pages of Leslie's. After the war, Forbes settled in Brooklyn, New York, where he established himself as an etcher and painter. A vast majority of his work relied on the sketches he had made during the Civil War. In 1876 he exhibited his Life Studies of the Great Army, a collection of forty etchings, at the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. The etchings were well received, and brought him national and international recognition as an etcher. Life Studies remains his major achievement. Forbes published Thirty Years After, An Artist's Story of the Great War in 1891. This second collection consists of several hundred etchings based on the battlefield sketches. Forbes wrote a chatty text to accompany the etchings. During the 1880's, Forbes illustrated several children's books such as Josephine Pollard's Our Naval Heroes in Words of Easy Syllables (New York, 1886). The etchings in these books are of a generally poor quality. Twelve oil paintings dealing with the Gettysburg Campaign are among his better work. They are small canvases which reveal his skill as a painter. Forbes also wrote a short account of "The Gettysburg Campaign," which remains unpublished. Besides war themes based on the field sketches, Forbes was interested mostly in animal studies. Some of his paintings from the seventies resemble Tait's work during the same period . Several charming pencil studies of ducks, hens, and other barnyard animals have been discovered in Philadelphia and Washington. Forbes' favorite animal, however, was the horse. Unfortunately, most of these studies have disappeared. One of Forbes' last achievements was the invention of a starting-gate for horse races in 1891.
The Folklore and Life of My Native Country in Pictorial Terms
(1967) Al-Harithi, Naziha Rashid; Maril, Herman; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
The content of this thesis exhibition is involved in exploration of the folklore and life of the people of my native country in terms of a more contemporary painting language. Color symbols and patterns play a great role in these concepts.
THOMAS P. ANSHUTZ: A REAPPRAISAL OF EAKINS' PUPIL AS AN ARTIST AND TEACHER
(1973) Maynard, Catherine Simpson; Jordan, Jim M.; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
Though seldom mentioned in surveys of American art, Thomas Anshutz, through his connection with the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts--for over thirty-six years--first as student, then as teacher and director; came in contact with many painters who became leaders in art in this country. Further investigation of Anshutz and his relationship to Eakins, to the Eight and other contemporaries, seems necessary. Obviously Anshutz has been severely underestimated as an artist and teacher. The predominating influence in Anshutz's career was Thomas Eakins. The Eakins years from 1876 to 1891, include time spent with Eakins while a student as well as Anshutz's early teaching years. This time span was the most productive in terms of his painting output and produced the well known Steel Workers, Noontime. After his first trip to Europe in 1892, Anshutz evolved away from Eakins stylistically to a brighter more painterly oeuvre. However, Anshutz continued the tradition of Eakins and his significance as a teacher seems to lie in what he was able to convey to his students of Eakins' methods rather than any original contribution on his own part. As an artist his works are uneven in quality. Other than some promising landscapes of the 1890s he never again achieved the pinnacle of Steel Workers, Noontime. He remains an obscure artist known solely for his one masterpiece and for his influence on his famous pupils, who revered him.
The Shipwreck Paintings of Joseph Vernet: An Iconographic Study
(1975) Stevens, Adele de Werff; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
The theme of storm and shipwreck was a popular one in eighteenth-century literature, music, opera, and plays as well as in painting. Joseph Vernet (1714-1789) used this theme and became renowned for his paintings of tempest and shipwreck. For fifty-five years, Joseph Vernet's paintings of a coastal shipwreck attracted an international clientele. For them he depicted a vivid variety of clouds, turbulent seas, disabled ships, and the viscissitudes of the living and the dead. Trained by the followers of Pierre Puget in marine painting in Provence, Vernet had observed a tempest during his voyage from Marseille to Civitavecchia in 1734. For the figures in his paintings Vernet drew on the traditional motives of marine and Christian art. Other pictorial sources were the works of Salvator Rosa, Claude Gelee, Adam Elsheimer, and Tempesta, but his observation of nature and "on the spot" sketches were the basis of his paintings. A shipwreck scene often was one of the series of of the four times of day. Vernet's paintings in Italy mingled the post-shipwreck activities with other seaside pursuits in a spacious landscape. After his move to France in 1753, Vernet emphasized the rescue of people. Shipwrecked families were his contribution to the portrayal of drama in family life, which was an important current in art in the middle of the eighteenth century. During his last decade, Vernet's shipwreck scenes featured a closer connection among the persons depicted. He also showed a more compact, wellkept version of the edifice, which stands above the wrecked vessel. Throughout his career Vernet limited the violence in his shipwreck scenes to the forces of nature while portraying the noble behavior of ordinary people.
Alonso Berruguete: A Re-examination of the Polychrome Lunettes Adorning the Archbishop's Choir Stall in the Cathedral of Toledo
(1976) Silberman, Karen Leslie; Lynch, James B.; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
The principle concerns of this study of the three Spanish lunettes are establishing Alonso Berruguete as their sole carver, the lunettes' iconography, and an exploration of their stylistic sources. That the lunettes are not workshop pieces is derived by studying Berruguete's documented works. When the lunettes are compared with them it can be seen that they share the unique carving techniques and peculiarities of one and the same artist. The study made here of the iconography of the lunettes examines their very individual interpretation of the themes of the Flood, the Brazen Serpent and the Last Judgement, by comparing them to scenes of the same subjects. The reasons for a new interpretation of the iconographic scheme the three works present are established. For reasons of style , influence from antique art are explored . The work of the Renaissance and other Mannerist artists which in terms of style, closely corresponds to Berruguete's lunettes are comparatively examined. The results of the research make for a re-evaluation of the lunettes and help to illuminate the figure of Alonso Berruguete.
Ruin Imagery and the Iconography of Regeneration in Eighteenth Century French Art
(1977) Whitney, Stephen Henry; Levitine, George; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
While the extraordinary popularity of ruin imagery in eighteenth century France is well known to art historians, it has remained a largely unstudied, and thus misunderstood, cultural phenomenon. The profusion of ruin pictures and ruinous garden pavilions during the Enlightenment is generally interpreted as symptomatic of the emotional febrility and escapist perversity of a society bogged down in decadence. The popularity of ruins as motifs of interior decoration is taken as proof of the reign of rococo frivolity. The present study seeks to bring into focus how eighteenth century artists, connoisseurs and writers themselves felt about their ruin imagery. This examination is called for because the evidence of documents, literary sources and the art itself overwhelmingly suggests that ruins were considered to be symbolic of nature's regenerative vitality and wholesomeness. To the contemporary viewer, therefore, the experience of a ruin was an antidote to, not a symptom of, social and personal lethargy. Early signs of the new iconographical trends appear in the art of students at the French Academy in Rome and were probably influenced by the commitments to ecclesiastical and cultural reform expressed by Italian ruinists associated with the academy. Ruins had a longstanding association in visual imagery and literature with the contemplative life, intellectual insights and poetic inspiration; in the eighteenth century, to frequent ruin settings implied a rejection of hypocrisy, pomposity and spiritual complacency. In France, catastrophes, urban renewal projects and the Revolution created "fresh" ruins which, even more poignantly than ancient ruins, illustrated the transience of life. Images of these modern ruins clearly embodied the unstable blend of anxiety, excitement, hope and resignation with which French society watched the shirlwind of change sweeping their country toward the year 1800.
George Wesley Bellows' War Lithographs and Paintings of 1918
(1981) Wasserman, Krystyna; Johns, Elizabeth; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
This thesis analyzes the sources, subject matter and style of George Bellows' seventeen war lithographs, five paintings and five drawings of 1918. Evidence is advanced to prove that the political developments of the First World War were a decisive factor in the creation of the War Series by Bellows who otherwise had no interest in war themes. The development of Bellows' patriotic feelings, culminating in the creation of war lithographs as a response to the changes of United States policy from one of neutrality to one of full involvement in the European conflict and a state of war with Germany in April 1917, is traced in Bellows' art and political statements. For the purpose of analysis Bellows' lithographs and paintings are divided into: scenes of atrocities depicting crimes committed by the German Army in Belgium in August 1914 as described in the Bryce Report published in the New York Times on May 13, 1915; Bellows' illustrations for the war stories published in magazines in 1918; and scenes inspired by war events and war photographs. Thematic and stylistic comparisons with the works of old masters and contemporary European artists are made. The study concludes that Bellows' war lithographs and paintings are not evaluated by modern critics as enthusiastically as most of his other works. It is suggested that one of the reasons why this is so, is the fact that Bellows who painted usually scenes he had known and seen, never went to war, and thus had to rely on articles, correspondence or photographs rather than on personal observations to determine the subjects of his war lithographs and paintings.
GEORGE WESLEY BELLOWS' WAR LITHOGRAPHS AND PAINTINGS OF 1918
(1981-10-19) Wasserman, Krystyna; Johns, Elizabeth; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
This thesis analyzes the sources, subject matter and style of George Bellows' seventeen war lithographs, five paintings and five drawings of 1918. Evidence is advanced to prove that the political developments of the First World War were a decisive factor in the creation of the War Series by Bellows who otherwise had no interest in war themes. The development of Bellows' patriotic feelings, culminating in the creation of war lithographs as a response to the changes of United States policy from one of neutrality to one of full involvement in the European conflict and a state of war with Germany in April 1917, is traced in Bellows' art and political statements. For the purpose of analysis Bellows' lithographs and paintings are divided into: scenes of atrocities depicting crimes committed by the German Army in Belgium in August 1914 as described in the Bryce Report published in the New York Times on May 13, 1915; Bellows' illustrations for the war stories published in magazines in 1918; and scenes inspired by war events and war photographs. Thematic and stylistic comparisons with the works of old masters and contemporary European artists are made. The study concludes that Bellows' war lithographs and paintings are not evaluated by modern critics as enthusiastically as most of his other works. It is suggested that one of the reasons why this is so, is the fact that Bellows who painted usually scenes he had known and seen, never went to war, and thus had to rely on articles, correspondence or photographs rather than on personal observations to determine the subjects of his war lithographs and paintings.
A Comparison of the Effects of Three Instructional Activities on Elementary Students' Retention of Information
(1992) Glaser, Irene C.; McWhinnie, Harold; Art Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of three supplementary instructional activities on young students' retention of information. The study was based on Dewian and Piagetian theory regarding the central role active involvement plays in cognitive development. The three supplementary instructional activities were a verbal review, an art-related activity, and a coloring sheet activity. Subjects were the second grade population (178 students in seven intact classes) of two schools representative of the urban/suburban school district in terms of test scores, racial mix, and student mobility rates. There was a control group and two experimental groups in each school, with an additional control group without pretest, to study pretest effect. A lesson about the American flag and one about deciduous trees was designed to utilize active questioning. After participating in each lesson, students in the first treatment group completed a coloring sheet; the second group, an art-related activity; and the control group, a verbal review. The treatments were designed to supplement regular classroom instruction, not as creative art activities. The study explored possible relationships between students' art-related activities and knowing, a reversal of traditional art education studies of the effect of knowing on students' art work. Multiple-choice and drawing tests were administered as pre and posttests. The ANCOVA procedure was used for data analysis to eliminate the effect of preexisting differences between groups. Flag lesson data analysis revealed no significant differences in information retention according to method, except on the drawing tests. The control groups outperformed the coloring sheet group to a significant extent indicating a negative effect of the rote coloring sheet activity on retention of information. Data analysis from the tree lesson revealed no significant differences between treatment groups. Students' tree schema appears to have played an unexpected but important role. Suggestions are made that will enable future researchers to avoid the problem this researcher encountered, in that the art-related activity group did not have time to complete their drawing activity. On three tests, females outperformed males to a statistically significant degree.
Materials, Metaphors, Mysteries
(1995) Dillon, Nancy Ellen; McCarty, John; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
The following thesis does not directly address my work or the process that forms it. Rather, it exposes that which occurs before the making commences. The first section, entitled "Materials," discusses the emotions evoked by working with particular materials and attaches them to a specific instance from my childhood. Section II, "Metaphors," talks about the work of San Francisco based artist Terry Fox and his ability to resist the temptation of attaching personal significance to impersonal objects. The third section, "Mysteries," uses my childhood experiences with mosquito bites to metaphorically discuss the difficulty of ignoring the desire to logically connect my work with the emotions it awakens. As this section concludes the thesis, it makes the point that attempting such a connection is futile, and it is better to proceed in mystery than to search after something that can never be uncovered.
The Artwork of Eric Garner
(2004-05-07) Garner, Eric Philip; Ruppert, John; Art
The artwork consists of the assembly of pre-painted wood components, involving the search for a unified, transcending whole from within a set of discrete elements. The following thesis text presents an assortment of ideas about the making of the artwork, with a similar goal of creating a cohesive package of many subsets.
Songs of My Life: Five Approaches to Choreographic Explorations
(2004-05-11) Singh, Daniel Phoenix; Rosen, Meriam; Art
This written project explores five approaches to the dance performance event "Songs of My Life." The five approaches are based on developing the practical process, deriving from personal experiences, engaging women's perspectives, reorienting spectators and defining the role of art. This written work engages the performance event from a Women's Studies, Critical Studies and Cultural Studies perspective. The project works on deriving theory from the practice of dance and art, as well as using the existing theoretical models as a lens, to gain new perspectives on the choreographic process.
White Paintings
(2004-05-11) Klos, Matthew; Richardson, W C; Art
In my paintings, I strive for a delicate balance between the objects considered and the conspicuous mark. These paintings stir the imagination to encounter a physical space, yet defy complete illusionary abandon through the visceral surface of paint. The brushwork breathes life into the mechanical calculation of the work in process. A successful painting upon completion is a mimetic vision of the spaces via scraped, sprayed, broadly brushed, and tightly interwoven areas of paint. I strive for a humble and honest representation, an essential vision that is defined by the choice of subject, palette, painted mark, and the history of human error as it attempts a calculated process. This essential vision translates tone, shape, and highlight. These paintings exhibit calculated craftsmanship, yet the decisions they embody speak of anti-heroic doubt that attempts to capture the ethereal beauty inherent in the visible.
Reshaping and Recovering: Painting as an Existential Meditation
(2004-05-12) Reynolds, Susan; Kehoe, Patrice; Art
My paintings evolve from a series of re-configurations. They develop through a system of painting and repainting, shaping and reshaping and coding and decoding. This system reflects not only my intention to develop meaningful, compelling work. My painting process reflects my determination to find purpose in life in general. The spirit of the work is childlike. It is intentionally simple in its approach to abstraction. Children's toys and science textbook imagery are appropriated and playfully transformed into formal elements. A construct of layers and fragments, the work functions like a puzzle. It is my existence that I seek to understand, to piece together, and it is by painting and shaping the canvas that I make my findings visible. Throughout this thesis, I intend to explain how my painting process mirrors the spiritual introspection I engage in both inside and outside the creative act. In order to shed light on how I make this connection, I describe the methods, the influences and the references that form and inform my paintings.
Landscapes of My Physical Existence
(2004-05-12) Goh, Tai Hwa; Ruppert, John; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The body not only acts as a container of my soul but also as a vessel that leads my mind and thoughts into various investigations. My work presents sceneries of the imagination regarding my body, based upon personal and bodily experiences. Through the layers of waxed papers, I represent the accumulation of markers of life. The complexity of these layers presents the mutation resulting from the accumulation and repetition and the human experiences often alienated in our times. Most of my work is produced by printmaking. I often create aquatint and silkscreen on thin Korean paper and then combine them in three dimensional ways such as independent sculptures and installations. I always think the process of making art is the effort to search my identity. Regarding this point, I hope that this thesis will continue to develop my conceptual arguments and aesthetical methods.
Shifting Realities and the Art of Perception
(2004-05-14) Cooper, Anna Kathlene; Morse, Brandon; Art
Through the juxtaposition of video and other media such as sound, photography and drawing my work challenges viewer perception of space and time. These installations involve abstract imagery and sound removed from everyday experience and given a new context through the capturing and editing processes. Re-presenting this sensory information in a layered format such as a projection on a drawing or a video with sound adds another dimension to the work. It plays on the human need to identify and understand. This particular combination of materials challenges the holistic understanding most humans seek by providing a fragmented, temporal, and ever-changing art experience.
Infinity in Time and Space
(2004-05-18) Mangitli, Irem; Morse, Brandon; Art
In the research process of this thesis, my practice has developed from small-scale two-dimensional prints, photographs and advertisements to life-size installations of video editing, animations and digital photography. In other words, this thesis is an exploration of three-dimensional space based on visual perceptions of geometrical and chaotic imagery. "Time as a pattern" and "time as a space" are the two major concepts discussed in my work. It investigates the effects of digitally manipulated images incorporated into animated video projections changing with time in a certain space to argue the significance of infinity. It has an intense effect of making people interact unconsciously with the artwork itself by both physically and visually challenging them in an isolated space full of obstacles. Interactivity plays a big role in the presentation of my work to engage the observer and to keep him conscious about the relationship between time and space. This thesis also talks about the ways of creating synchronization for the audio and visuals. Computer generated images forming abstract landscape illusions are harmonized with digitally produced irritating sound effects to build a claustrophobic atmosphere. To maintain that disturbing and annoying ambiance, I study the behavior of light and shadow and their relation to time and space. Eventually, I create two room-sized installations to give you an idea about the significance of the subject matter. These dark rooms consisting of cubes in the interior are divided into segments to play with the idea of space. The basic idea behind this is to force the viewer to experience the relationship between time and space by interacting with it.
MASTERS THESIS
(2004-05-24) Ravenstahl, Matthew; Craig, Patrick; Ruppert, John; Art
There are two reasons I intentionally waited, for several years, before entering into an MFA program. The first being I wanted to prove to myself that I would continue being a serious artist while balancing the daily routines of job and family. I also wanted to wait until I felt as if I was making work that was completely my own voice and no longer saw influence from my undergraduate education. I was able to exhibit frequently and started to get positive reviews from different critics. At this point I recognized that I had been working seriously and that the work was my own; therefore entering an MFA program would challenge those ideas. I thought once I entered Maryland that I would be leaving a different artist. However, it is more accurate to say that I am leaving a more mature artist and have accelerated an exploration that I already began. The past two years allowed me the time and criticism to delve deeper into existing ideas. This led to a clearer understanding of specific aspects of my creative process and in turn allowed me to explore new avenues of self expression. Ultimately, this course of study informed my existing language and forced my work to a more poignant and powerful level. The value of this experience was to arrive at certain points of clarity, and through this insight, positive changes, in my work, felt natural and informed. This component discusses these points of clarity, how they led to informed changes, within my work, and the attendant struggles inherent in the process.
Honor Farm
(2004-05-26) Hoeting, Christopher Paul; Craig, Patrick; Art
My artwork work focuses upon byproducts; byproducts of humans and byproducts as subject. My imagery picks up on the byproducts of society's organization of human life, such as prison architecture and security devices. Honor Farm is a metaphor for the human environment, space, and location that creates containment. Through the exploration of containment facilities, prisons, and barriers Honor Farm emerges as the subject matter. Desire for the barrier obstructs the balance among mind, body, and spirit. My art embraces the living environment as a link between the physical and the cerebral. The communication between material and image drives my process. Material informs the paint and the paint informs the imagery. In the last two years as an artist, my language evolved in relation to materials, images, and concepts.
the evolution of a thesis
(2006-05-04) Amos, Steve Michael; Craig, Patrick; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
The process of evolution inspires me. A chain of information needs to be created before any evolutionary process can occur. This information must be passed on and transmitted in order to create something new. During this transference, the information becomes mutated as certain traits are lost and picked up along the way. In my work tension is created by the push and pull between drawing and painting. I want my work to possess the refined qualities of a painting, yet retain the immediacy and vitality of a drawing. At the heart of this struggle is a quest for balance.