Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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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.
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Item Book Ends(2024) Hilker, Kenneth; Keener, Cy; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis marks a pivotal transition in my artistic journey, detailing the creation of Book Ends, a large wood sculpture that emerged as a culmination of my experiences and reflections during the MFA program at the University of Maryland. Moving away from my previous focus on painting, this work embraces sculpture to explore themes of memory, loss, and rebirth. Book Ends is crafted from repurposed wood, each piece with its own history and emotional weight, collected from dismantled homes and reshaped into a new form. This sculpture not only represents a physical assembly of materials but also embodies my personal and artistic transformations, reflecting on the interconnectedness of life's continuous cycles and the impermanent nature of existence. Through Book Ends, I aim to connect viewers with the deeper narratives embedded in the materials I use, inviting them to contemplate the layers of history and transformation inherent in the wood.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 Videopainting:a Dialogue(2009) Rojo Acebes, Juan Andres; Morse, Brandon; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)My video installations refer both to the pictorial quality of cinema and to the artist's role as a voyeur. The videos depict simple processes or actions, such as eating, cleaning, or applying make-up. These actions are deeply interiorized and they recreate "true" moments of intimacy by capturing the natural way in which the body communicates. The emphasis is on the actions per se, the importance of the time spent performing them, and the emotional associations that they carry. The contrast between the qualities of the new media and my recent work's content and form, has transformed my previous self-indulgent activity into a meditated exercise of nostalgia. Formally my body of work bridges the distance between a Spanish Baroque painterly aesthetics and the apparently opposed qualities of the digital medium.Item Transitions and Boundaries(2006-05-12) Scott, Barry Allan; Craig, Patrick; Art; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In any artistic career there are a number of transitions that happen to a body of work. These transitions can often seem like disconnected leaps of the imagination, though they often occur through the challenging of personal boundaries. Personal and emotional boundaries are stretched and challenged by the confrontation of a new culture; this could include a body of new information or unusual surroundings. We will observe the effects that moving to the United States of America has had on my work and the transitions that have taken place in this work as a result of my confrontation with this culture.Item 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.Item Monuments of a Syncretic Society: Wall Painting in the Latin Lordship of Athens, Greece (1204-1311)(2005-11-30) Hirschbichler, Monika; Gerstel, Sharon; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation focuses on wall painting in the thirteenth-century lordship of Athens, an area roughly corresponding to modern-day Attica, Boeotia and the Argolid in southern Greece. The lordship was established as part of the Latin Principality of Morea in 1205 when, in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade, Frankish forces moved outward from the fallen city of Constantinople to conquer former Byzantine lands. More than twenty monuments painted in the region during the thirteenth- and the first decade of the fourteenth century still preserve all or part of their original decoration. Notwithstanding the informative potential of such an extensive body of evidence, there has been no systematic investigation of the decorative programs in light of the particular socio-cultural conditions of Latin Greece. The present study is intended to fill this gap and begins by outlining the scope of artistic production in the lordship in the years between 1204 and 1311. Addressing Greek- and Latin-sponsored religious and secular programs, the murals are examined in the context of their multicultural setting. Particular attention is given to social, religious and political ideas as well as to artistic practices that found their way into the art of the period as a result of the socio-cultural environment created by the historical circumstances. Highlighting issues such as Church union, liturgical practice and cultural identity as they are reflected in the paintings, the study attempts to add clarity to the modes of cultural interaction in Frankish Greece. Thus evaluated, the murals disclose a striking range of opinions and responses. They bring to light religious boundaries and reveal attempts at cultural and political re-definition, but they also display points of convergence and mutual recognition. Combined, the painted programs in the Latin lordship of Athens are physical testimonies of a syncretic society whose multicultural factions lived, if not in a state of completely peaceful agreement, at least in a state of pragmatic tolerance.