Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
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 give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
Browse
3 results
Search Results
Item 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.Item Imitation and Adaptation in Istoriato Maiolica: A Case-Study of the Anne de Montmorency Service, 1535(2014) Dupertuis, Lindsay Leigh; Gill, Meredith J.; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis examines the production of narrative (istoriato) maiolica ceramics in sixteenth-century Urbino, particularly the practice of adapting pre-existing woodcuts and engravings to the painted scenes on the surfaces of these objects. I perform this analysis through a case-study of the Anne de Montmorency tableware service, manufactured in the workshop of Guido Durantino in 1535. Istoriato maiolica studies have often included the art-historical convention of the early modern artist as a solitary individual or genius. I will destabilize this trope by focusing on a prominent service for a powerful aristocrat that was nonetheless designed by anonymous artisans. I assert that the unique circumstances of the duchy of Urbino enabled artisans to compose narrative paintings of classical stories within the confines of their own workshop. With this in mind, I analyze the processes and design practices of these artisans through their products, and offer new conclusions about their compositional choices.Item "You've Really Got a Hold on Me": The Power and Emotion in Women's Correspondence in Fifteenth-Century Italy(2012) McLean, Nicole Lynn; Bianchini, Janna; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis examines the lives of Alessandra Strozzi and Lucrezia de'Medici of Florence. The fifteenth-century in Italy saw women's power declining, and patrician women used letter writing to enter the public sphere and exert power. This study analyzes socially constructed emotional themes in women's correspondence which is in concert with scholars like Barbara Rosenwein in that it seeks to instead situate emotions in specific historical contexts. For Alessandra, we see how she successfully employs the emotions of guilt and shame to manipulate her sons into behaving properly, as these emotions were closely connected to Italian culture. Second, in the patronage letters written to Lucrezia by potential clients, we see the use of motherly emotions by clients in hopes that Lucrezia will essentially fill a mother's role, helping them with their hardships. Even though client's letters represent a "fictive" mother/child relationship, they are a testament to Lucrezia's power as a mother.