Art Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2745
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Item 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.Item 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.Item 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.Item 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.Item 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.Item 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.Item 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.Item 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.