UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
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Item A World for All and None: De Stijl, Modernism, and the Decorative Arts(2020) Zimmerman, Devon; Mansbach, Steven; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In October 1917, the first issue of the journal De Stijl was printed in the Netherlands under the editorial leadership of Theo van Doesburg. The publication became a nexus around which a core group of progressive artists, architects, and designers were brought together. They all shared a similar goal: to be a platform through which a new aesthetic would be declared, one that would diagnose and resolve the social, cultural, and metaphysical conditions that had led to the First World War. The group’s vision was totalizing, meant to encompass all forms of art, from armchairs to architecture. This dissertation explores the position of the decorative arts within De Stijl’s utopian project. The decorative arts were the bellwether of many of the principal social, cultural, and political problems that modernity brought to the fore. As a result, the polemics that emerged from the decorative arts profoundly informed the development of De Stijl’s artistic praxis and theoretical framework during the formative years of the group. By acknowledging the origins of many of De Stijl’s intellectual and aesthetic positions within the decorative arts, this dissertation aims to present a renewed perspective on the group’s formal projects in interior design, stained glass, and furniture. By rooting the work of these artists within the instrumental role of the decorative arts, this dissertation gives needed attention to these essential, yet undertheorized aspects of De Stijl’s utopian project to provide new insights into one of the most prominent artistic movements of the interwar period. In doing so, it endeavors to call for a broader reassessment of the intrinsic role the decorative arts played in the emergence of modernism broadly, and the practice of the European avant-garde specifically, in the years following World War I.Item Picturing Devotion in Dutch Golden Age Huiskerken(2018) Harrington, Margaret; Wheelock, Arthur K; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Although the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic was officially Protestant, Catholics made up nearly one-third of the population. To circumvent laws prohibiting public worship, Dutch Catholics celebrated Mass in private homes converted into lavishly decorated huiskerken (house churches). Unfortunately, most huiskerken have been destroyed or poorly documented, and previous scholarship has examined altarpieces out of their historical contexts. This dissertation examines the decorative programs of two well-documented huiskerken: St. Bernardus in den Hoeck in Haarlem, rebuilt in 1638 and part of a large community of lay religious women (kloppen) in Haarlem, and ’t Hart, founded in 1663 in Amsterdam, and preserved today as the Museum Ons’ Lieve Heer op Solder (Our Lord in the Attic). This is the first English-language study of the complete decorative programs of these two huiskerken and their liturgical functions, and I argue that devotional paintings are best understood as pieces of these decorative programs, which included embroidered textiles, illustrated sermon manuscripts, and liturgical silver. I employ reception theory to show that the imagery in these two huiskerken aided the celebration of Mass and meditation of laypeople, especially lay religious women. The examples of St. Bernardus and ’t Hart demonstrate that the decorative programs of huiskerken are largely indebted to lay religious women, who acted as patrons and creators of devotional objects. I prove that crafts like embroidery and inexpensive engravings, commonly considered “low” art, in fact served as creative sources for “higher” art forms like paintings. Furthermore, I conclude that the use of imagery in huiskerken is more closely related to medieval devotional practices than has previously been assumed.Item Modeling the Network of Dutch and Flemish Print Production, 1550-1750(2016) Lincoln, Matthew David; Wheelock, Arthur K.; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The production of artistic prints in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Netherlands was an inherently social process. Turning out prints at any reasonable scale depended on the fluid coordination between designers, platecutters, and publishers; roles that, by the sixteenth century, were considered distinguished enough to merit distinct credits engraved on the plates themselves: invenit, fecit/sculpsit, and excudit. While any one designer, plate cutter, and publisher could potentially exercise a great deal of influence over the production of a single print, their individual decisions (Whom to select as an engraver? What subjects to create for a print design? What market to sell to?) would have been variously constrained or encouraged by their position in this larger network (Who do they already know? And who, in turn, do their contacts know?) This dissertation addresses the impact of these constraints and affordances through the novel application of computational social network analysis to major databases of surviving prints from this period. This approach is used to evaluate several questions about trends in early modern print production practices that have not been satisfactorily addressed by traditional literature based on case studies alone: Did the social capital demanded by print production result in centralized, or distributed production of prints? When, and to what extent, did printmakers and publishers in the Low countries favor international versus domestic collaborators? And were printmakers under the same pressure as painters to specialize in particular artistic genres? This dissertation ultimately suggests how simple professional incentives endemic to the practice of printmaking may, at large scales, have resulted in quite complex patterns of collaboration and production. The framework of network analysis surfaces the role of certain printmakers who tend to be neglected in aesthetically-focused histories of art. This approach also highlights important issues concerning art historians’ balancing of individual influence versus the impact of longue durée trends. Finally, this dissertation also raises questions about the current limitations and future possibilities of combining computational methods with cultural heritage datasets in the pursuit of historical research.Item Piety, Politics, and Patronage: Isabel Clara Eugenia and Peter Paul Rubens's "The Triumph of the Eucharist" Tapestry Series(2013) Libby, Alexandra Billington; Wheelock, Jr., Arthur K; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation explores the circumstances that inspired the Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia, Princess of Spain, Archduchess of Austria, and Governess General of the Southern Netherlands to commission Peter Paul Rubens's "The Triumph of the Eucharist" tapestry series for the Madrid convent of the Descalzas Reales. It traces the commission of the twenty large-scale tapestries that comprise the series to the aftermath of an important victory of the Infanta's army over the Dutch in the town of Breda. Relying on contemporary literature, studies of the Infanta's upbringing, and the tapestries themselves, it argues that the cycle was likely conceived as an ex-voto, or gift of thanks to God for the military triumph. In my discussion, I highlight previously unrecognized temporal and thematic connections between Isabel's many other gestures of thanks in the wake of the victory and "The Triumph of the Eucharist" series. I further show how Rubens invested the tapestries with imagery and a conceptual conceit that celebrated the Eucharist in ways that symbolically evoked the triumph at Breda. My study also explores the motivations behind Isabel's decision to give the series to the Descalzas Reales. It discusses how as an ex-voto, the tapestries implicitly credited her for the triumph and, thereby, affirmed her terrestrial authority. Drawing on the history of the convent and its use by the king of Spain as both a religious and political dynastic center, it shows that the series was not only a gift to the convent, but also a gift to the king, a man with whom the Infanta had developed a tense relationship over the question of her political autonomy. I argue that when Isabel presented the tapestries to the Descalzas Reales she intended them to assert her power and, moreover, compel its reciprocation. This interpretation relies on archival documents that show that Isabel frequently gave religious gifts to establish relationships of reciprocity; the simultaneously religious and political functions the convent served the Spanish royal family; as well as on the tapestries themselves.Item Reclaiming the 'Ancient Luster' of Painting: Pieter de Grebber's Regulen and Haarlem Classicism(2012) Harrington, Margaret; Wheelock, Jr., Arthur K.; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A single specimen survives of Pieter de Grebber's 1649 Regulen, or "Rules to be observed and followed by a good Painter and Draughtsman." Though infrequently discussed, I argue that De Grebber's Regulen manifest a lofty, patriotic vision for the art of painting. First, I demonstrate that the iconography of the printed broadsheet announces history painting as a way to honor important patrons, glorify the Dutch Republic, and elevate painting to a liberal art. Next, I relate the Regulen to the recently reformed Haarlem Guild of St. Luke, which established a hierarchy of professions according to universal principles of beauty. Finally, I use the Regulen to show that the Haarlem classicists paired theory with drawing from life. Guidelines like De Grebber's Regulen appealed to the Haarlem classicists as they strove to adapt the classical mode of painting to contemporary tastes and concerns.Item 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.