Art History & Archaeology

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Peruvian Feather-work: Development, Purposes, and Techniques
(1965) Roll, Virginia Helen; Wilbur, June C.; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
The purpose of this study was to gain knowledge of Peruvian feather-work, its development, its purposes, and the techniques involved in the production of this material. Through research and through examination of seventy-seven pieces of feather-work at seven museums, theories propounded in research were verified. In addition, discoveries were made. An additional method of stringing the feathers was discovered. A brief history of the people shows that as they developed in agriculture, they had a parallel development in cultural accomplishments. It can be assumed that the agricultural development led to more time for cultural achievements. It has become known that their accomplishments in the area of textiles were outstanding. Among their textiles, feather-work was particularly unique.
Venetian Organ Shutters in the Renaissance
(1985) Wang, Teh-yu; Rearick, William R.; Art History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
Organ shutters, used in large organs for acoustical and aesthetic reasons, offer a two-fold interest to the art historian: iconography and style. Iconographically, many organ shutters in all periods displayed the Annunciation when closed. Images of the saints might be on the exterior or interior of the organ shutters; and the iconography evolved from simple devotional images of patron saints in ca. 1450, through narrative, historical images of patron saints in ca. 1520, to complicated combinations of themes from the Old and the New Testament in the entire sixteenth century. Stylistically, organ-shutter painters tried, from the very beginning, to break down the barrier between the pictorial plane of the organ shutters and the real space of the spectator; accordingly, two kinds of perspectival devices were used: the dal-sotto-in-su was usually used for the exterior, the eyelevel for the interior. Therefore, organ-shutter paintings are more than mere reflections of the contemporary artistic trends; a separate tradition evolved for organ-shutter perspectives. However, two styles - Manerism and Classicism - coexisted and rivalled each other, not unlike what was happening concurrently in frescoes or in easel paintings. These two styles achieved their apogee simultaneously in organ-shutter painting between 1550 and 1570. In these years Mannerism was represented by Jacopo Tintoretto, and Classicism by Paolo Veronese.
Paolo and Francesca: Unfulfilled Love in Nineteenth-Century French Art
(1986) Hall, Pamela Rae; Hargrove, June E.; Art History & Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
During the nineteenth century, the Divine Comedy became an important source of inspiration for French artists. Chief among the episodes represented was Dante's account of Paolo and Francesca, illicit lovers condemned to the Inferno's Circle of the Lustful. This paper examines specific portrayals of the Francesca tragedy and seeks to explain why the theme became especially favored by the French. The method is three fold: First, to trace the history of Dante's popularity in France; second, to analyze the thematic changes which occurred in depictions of Paolo and Francesca between 1800 and 1880; and finally, to consider the ways in which these works were influenced by contemporary philosophies and events. An historical survey of the popularity of the Divine Comedy closely indicates that France's admiration for Dante was linked to the appearance of numerous French translations of his chef d'oeuvre. Artists responded to the public's growing appreciation of the epic by incorporating Dantesque themes into their subjects: at least 111 works inspired by the Divine Comedy were exhibited at the Salon during the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century -- of these 43 were based on Francesca's tale. The Francesca episode enjoyed prominence throughout the century largely because it was relevant to the advancing political, social, religious and artistic mores of society. The motif could be adapted to address sentimentality or melancholy. It could provide a moralizing lesson on lascivious living or serve as a pretext for eroticism. The theme of unfulfilled love, popular throughout the century, was embodied in Paolo and Francesca as either chaste, lamentable, deplorable or impassioned.
Albert Pinkham Ryder's Two Wagnerian Paintings: The Flying Dutchman and Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens
(1988) Carman, Sharon Dale; Peters-Campbell, John; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
Albert Pinkham Ryder (1847-1917) has traditionally been regarded as an anomalous figure in the history of art. A small, but growing, body of scholarship has recently been devoted to correcting this view of the artist and to establishing his relationship to the aesthetic currents of his time. This study explores the influence on his art of Ryder's environment, late nineteenth-century New York. Two of Ryder's paintings, each based on an incident in an opera by Richard Wagner, are examined: Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens, drawn from Gotterdammerung; and The Flying Dutchman, inspired by Der fliegende Hollander. The history of opera in nineteenthcentury New York helps to explain how an American painter came to be influenced by such distinctly German operatic themes. German immigration patterns are linked with changes in operatic taste, and the interest of native intellectuals in Wagner's music and ideas is discussed. Wagnerian staging tradition is posited as a source for the compositions of both Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens and The Flying Dutchman. It is demonstrated that the set designed by Josef Hoffmann for the original Bayreuth production of Gotterdammerung, Act III, Scene I, served as the specific compositional basis for Ryder's Siegfried and the Rhine Maidens.
An Exploration of a Textile Pattern: Pearl Roundels Joined by Smaller Pearl Discs
(1990) Carmel, Lorna; Eyo, Ekpo; Art History & Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
Scattered around the world are a number of textiles patterned with repeat systems of pearl roundels joined by smaller pearl discs at the tangential points. The roundels bear animal motifs similar to those represented in royal Sasanian and post-Sasanian art. Based on the iconographic and stylistic similarity to the Sasanian motifs, and also because of the popularity of the pearl roundel as a framing device in Sasanian and post-Sasanian stucco and metalwork, art historians have attributed these textile fragments to Sasanian manufacture, usually dating them to the sixth or seventh century. However, in the late-Sasanian rock sculpture at Taq-i- Bustan, in western Iran, where twenty-two textile patterns are represented, there are no such textile patterns. Further to the East though, in Soviet Central Asia, recent excavations have uncovered wall-paintings with representations of textiles patterned with pearl roundels joined by smaller pearl discs. Textile fragments and a complete costume have been unearthed at sites in China and the Caucasus. In light of these discoveries, some scholars have assigned Central Asia, particularly Sogdiana, as the provenance for these textiles. This thesis examines the unique common characteristics shared by the textiles patterned with pearl roundels joined by smaller pearl discs which identifies them as a group. It suggests that their repeat pattern is most-likely the result of the adaptation of a style of Sasanian coins to the weaving process. Their influence on repeat patterns of floral roundels joined by . smaller floral discs awaits future research.
Baroque Plague Imagery and Tridentine Church Reforms
(1990) Boeckl, Christine M.; Pressly, William; Art History & Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
This dissertation aims to achieve two goals: one, to assemble as many facts as possible about the plague, regardless of period, and to relate this material to images; and two, to present a well-defined group of religious baroque plague paintings in the context of social, political and religious history. This inquiry is primarily concerned with scenes that portray saints actively involved in charitable pursuits, dispensing the sacraments to victims of the most dreaded disease, the bubonic plague. Chapter I contains a bibliographical essay, divided into three parts: medicine, theology, and art history. The next chapter considers the sources and the formation of baroque plague iconography. The remaining two chapters discuss "documentary" plague scenes and how they relate to historic events. They are presented in two sections: Italy and transalpine countries. This interdisciplinary research resulted in a number of observations. First, these narrative plague scenes were produced in Italy and in Catholic countries bordering Protestant regions: Switzerland, France, Flanders, and in the Habsburg Empire (excluding Spain). Second, the painters were mostly Italian or Italian-trained. Third, the artists observed not only the requirements specified by the Church in the 1563 Tridentine Decree on the Arts but also reflected in their work the catechetic teachings of the Council. Fourth, these religious scenes were not votive paintings but doctrinal images that served either didactic or polemic functions. Fifth, the scenes were not intended as memento mori; rather, the iconology conveyed positive images which emphasized that the faithful needed the Roman Catholic clergy to gain life-everlasting. Sixth, these plague paintings were important documents not as recordings of the conditions experienced during an epidemic but as historic testimony of liturgical practices. Last, these selected scenes mirrored the baroque Church's views on the ultimate questions about life and death.
The Representation of Purgatory in a Colonial Painting from Latin America
(1990) Vásquez, Rafael Alas; Art History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
The representation of purgatory in painting was very popular after the Council of Trent. While Protestant denied the existence of purgatory, the Catholic Church, with the help of religious orders and brotherhoods, fostered the devotion to the suffering souls. During the colonial period in Latin America, this devotion gained a unique importance. This fact is reflected in the numerous paintings representing purgatory that are displayed in cathedrals and churches. The purpose of this thesis is to study the iconography of one of these paintings representing purgatory. The chosen painting presents different figures of souls among the flames. The Virgin del Carmen is represented holding one soul, while the figures of St. Peter and St. Michael are looking toward heaven. A Crucifix and the Holy Ghost appear above the figure of the Virgin. The representation in purgatory of a bishop, a nun and a Black man, besides the depiction of souls at different ages show the Catholic belief that every sinner has to pass through purgatory. Two unusual motifs are the depiction of st. Peter in purgatory and the representation of the Virgin pulling a soul from the flames. The painting reflects the concept of purgatory that the Catholic Church spread after the Council of Trent. The effectiveness of masses to help the souls, symbolized by the depiction of Christ on the Cross, and the intervention of Mary to release souls from purgatory are two important messages that this painting is presenting to the worshiper.
BAROQUE PLAGUE IMAGERY AND TRIDENTINE CHURCH REFORMS
(1990) Boeckl, Christine Maria; Pressly, William; Art History & Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
This dissertation aims to achieve two goals: one, to assemble as many facts as possible about the plague, regardless of period, and to relate this material to images; and two, to present a well-defined group of religious baroque plague paintings in the context of social, political and religious history. This inquiry is primarily concerned with scenes that portray saints actively involved in charitable pursuits, dispensing the sacraments to victims of the most dreaded disease, the bubonic plague. Chapter I contains a bibliographical essay, divided into three parts: medicine, theology, and art history. The next chapter considers the sources and the formation of baroque plague iconography. The remaining two chapters discuss "documentary" plague scenes and how they relate to historic events. They are presented in two sections: Italy and transalpine countries. This interdisciplinary research resulted in a number of observations. First, these narrative plague scenes were produced in Italy and in Catholic countries bordering Protestant regions: Switzerland, France, Flanders, and in the Habsburg Empire (excluding Spain). Second, the painters were mostly Italian or Italian-trained. Third, the artists observed not only the requirements specified by the Church in the 1563 Tridentine Decree on the Arts but also reflected in their work the catechetic teachings of the Council. Fourth, these religious scenes were not votive paintings but doctrinal images that served either didactic or polemic functions. Fifth, the scenes were not intended as memento mori; rather, the iconology conveyed positive images which emphasized that the faithful needed the Roman Catholic clergy to gain life-everlasting. Sixth, these plague paintings were important documents not as recordings of the conditions experienced during an epidemic but as historic testimony of liturgical practices. Last, these selected scenes mirrored the baroque Church's views on the ultimate questions about life and death.
GAUGUIN'S NOA NOA: ASPECTS OF NARRATIVE IN TEXT AND IMAGE
(1991) Day, Amy Elizabeth; Hargrove, June
Paul Gauguin's novel Noa Noa is a fictionalized account of his first Tahitian journey. The artist planned to combine his text with ten woodblock prints, now known as the Noa Noa Suite; and he began working on both the text and the images in 1893. The two works were never printed together in the same volume, and no information has been found concerning the placement of images with text. There has been no investigation of the relationship between these images and the written story they were meant to accompany. This thesis attempts to establish a functional relationship between Gauguin's images and his text and to explore the many different narrative levels employed in Noa Noa. Both the text and the images are examined alone to determine how each functions separately as a narrative. Then, when examining the two forms together, the images are each found to connect with a specific textual passage -- a passage almost always containing references to Gauguin's previous works. This association between text and image creates an entirely new narrative. It is proven that, when writing about his painting, Gauguin created a discourse between image and text that contains a multi-layered reference to himself as a creator. Finally, it is shown that Gauguin combined this intermedia narrative with other, more universal narratives to elevate his own position as a creator.
Describing Chaos: Willem de Kooning's Collage Painting Asheville and its Relationship to Traditions of Description and Illusionism in Western Art
(1993) Brock, Charles Moore; Withers, Josephine; Art History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
Any study of Willem de Kooning is inevitably speculative. As an artist he was more concerned that the viewer "never know" and in provoking questions rather than presenting answers. The diverse and disjointed de Kooning literature bears witness to his success in this regard and to the opaque nature of his achievement. Recognizing the obdurate character of de Kooning's work, this essay, rather then directly pursuing meaning, has instead tried to address the question of how de Kooning's interest in eluding definition manifested itself in one of his most important collage paintings, Asheville of 1948. The first part of the thesis reconstructs the collage painting process of Asheville presenting it as a descriptive enterprise in which de Kooning consciously pursued the more chaotic "unknowable" aspects of his visual life by illusionistically recording fragments of objects and momentary glimpses of events. Recognizing de Kooning's interest in depicting fragmented phenomena as the underlying source for the visual chaos of Asheville illuminates the painting's relationship to long established traditions of description and illusion in Western art exemplified by the letter rack paintings of 19th century American art and 17th century Dutch art. Finally, as the contentious debate over meaning in Dutch painting illustrate, descriptive works of art, because of the ambivalent way they engage disordered aspects of visual experience, are particularly difficult to interpret. In his conscious allegiance to older descriptive and illusionistic traditions in Asheville de Kooning had found an especially effective way to obscure meaning.
The St. Peter Icon of Dumbarton Oaks Reconsidered
(1993) Georgievska-Shine, Aneta; Spiro, Marie; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
The thesis concentrates on an icon of st. Peter from the Dumbarton Oaks Collection. The author reexamines its present dating to the end of the 13th and beginning of the 14th centuries, and attribution to Macedonia, and suggests that the icon be seen within the oeuvre of Michael and Eutychius, the two preeminent artists of that time/ region. Stylistically, St.Peter is closest to their work of 1314-17, exemplified in the frescoes from the King's Church in studenica and st. George in staro Nagorichino. Iconographically, this icon finds a unique parallel in the Church of Peribleptos, Ochrid (1295), where St. Peter is also shown with keys around his neck. Since the proposed attribution falls within the reign of the Serbian King Milutin (1282-1321), the thesis considers how the Serbian political predicaments at the time reflect on st. Peter's image in the Church of the Savior at Zica, restored between 1309-16, and the Church of the Annunciation at Gracanica, built between 1311-20. These churches, like the Ochrid Peribleptos, show the First Apostle holding a church model above his head. Both the keys around the neck from the D.O. icon and Peribleptos, and the churches above St. Peter's head from Peribleptos, Zica, and Gracanica, indicate a special emphasis on the role of the First Apostle. The author further suggests that these images may reflect the ecclesiastical relationship between the Serbian and Ochrid Archbishoprics and that the D.O. icon may also be concerned with issues of church authority.
The Washington Bronze Dionysos
(1994) Bennet, Susanne Klejman; Venit, Marjorie Susan; Art History & Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
A life-size bronze of a nude youth was discovered in a river in Asia Minor in the early 1960's. The bronze no longer had the iconographic attributes that it had once held in its hands, but the head presented features which made it possible to identity the figure as representing the god Dionysos. The sculptor drew upon earlier prototypes, specifically a figure called the Westmacott athlete, which has been tentatively attributed to the Greek sculptor Polykleitos. The head of the statue reflects a different, possibly female, prototype. An investigation of a group of Roman life-size and three quarter life-size bronzes reveals that the iconographic details which identity the Washington Bronze also place it outside the category of lamp hearers to which the majority of the other statues belong. The physiques of the majority of the lamp bearers and of the Washington Bronze, however, reflect the same Polykleitan prototypes. The identification of the Washington Bronze as a devotional rather than functional statue is made through a study of the literary, religious, and archaeological evidence. The evolution in the iconography of the god is traced through his portrayals on Greek vases and in Graeco-Roman bronze and marble statuary. The Bronze was created in the Eastern Roman Empire. Through a comparative analysis of other bronzes it can be dated within the period between the beginning of the Augustan era and the third quarter of the first century A. D. A setting in the home of a devotee of the Dionysian Mysteries is adduced.
Style and Technique in the Evolution of Naturalism: North Netherlandish Landscape Painting in the Early Seventeenth Century
(1997) Gifford, Elizabeth Melanie; Wheelock, Arthur K. Jr.; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
This study of painting technique and style offers evidence of the beginnings of a landscape painting tradition native to the Northern Netherlands. The moment of decisive innovation can be found in Esaias van de Velde's naturalistic landscape paintings. Independent landscape painting developed in the Southern Netherlands in the early 16th century in the fantastic "world landscape" style of artists such as Joachim Patinir and Herri Bles. Technical study suggests that they developed a widely-followed set of painting practices as well. These meticulous techniques contributed to the stylistic continuity of Mannerist landscape painting into the 17th century, and facilitated collaboration in the prolific Antwerp workshops of artists such as Jan Brueghel and Joos de Momper. In the Northern Netherlands, landscape painting became a recognized specialty only in the 1580s and 1590s as artists emigrated from the South. Though painters such as Gillis van Coninxloo and Roelandt Savery helped to develop the influential forest landscape, they painted in the traditional Antwerp procedures. Graphic artists in Haarlem and Amsterdam in the 1610s built on a different 16th-century tradition – Pieter Bruegel's landscape drawings and the prints of the Master of the Small Landscapes – to create newly naturalistic landscape drawings and prints. In etchings depicting the local landscape they codified a new set of artistic conventions that conveyed an impression of direct observation. Esaias van de Velde, also in Haarlem, soon adapted this graphic vocabulary in innovative landscape paintings depicting local scenery. By limiting his palette and reducing the steps in the painting process he abandoned the century-old tradition of painting technique He consciously quoted the stippled handling and sketchy immediacy of landscape etchings with his rapid brushwork and with elements of the painting structure – the panel’s wood grain and the underdrawing – that he incorporated into the image. These technical innovations culminated in the work of the tonal landscape painters such as Jan van Goyen.
DEFINING TASTE: ALBERT BARNES AND THE PROMOTION OF AFRICAN ART IN THE UNITED STATES DURING THE 1920s
(1998) Clarke, Christa J.; Eyo, Ekpo; Art History & Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
Dr. Albert C. Barnes, though best known as a daring collector of modern art, was also an important and influential advocate of African art during the 1920s. In an era in which many Westerners perceived objects from sub-Saharan Africa as ethnographic curiosities or ritual artifacts, Barnes was one of the first American collectors to selectively acquire and actively promote a "comprehensive" collection of African sculpture . In 1922 , Barnes began purchasing African art through Parisian dealer Paul Guillaume. The resulting collection of over 100 masks and figural sculptures was carefully arranged by Barnes in the galleries of the Barnes Foundation, his educational institution in Merion, Pennsylvania that opened in 1925. Barnes used the collection to advance his educational aesthetic philosophy and championed the merits of African art in gallery lectures, public addresses, and published writings. Through numerous contemporary publications and photographic reproductions, the Barnes Foundation collection of African sculpture gained international recognition, contributing to the establishment of a canon of African art that is, in many ways, still accepted today. My dissertation critically examines Barnes's collecting and promotion of African sculpture as a defining moment in the history of Western taste in non-Western art. My objective in this study is twofold. First, I evaluate the aesthetic positions endorsed by Barnes and the conceptual strategies he adopted in promoting an appreciation of African artistry within a Western aesthetic framework. Second, I consider the broader parameters of Barnes's influence in defining "African art" and his role in fostering an interest in it, particularly among key figures of the Harlem Renaissance, or "New Negro" movement. As a vital and specific case study, my analysis challenges, as it engages, discourse about modernist "primitivism" as it relates to Western perceptions and constructions of African art.
Serving Exoticism: The Black Female in French Exotic Imagery, 1733-1885
(1999) Childs, Adrienne L.; Art History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
The black female played an important part in the construction of exotic female sexuality in French painting for nearly two hundred years, yet her symbolic complexity has not been fully explored. This thesis is a contextual analysis of the image of the black female in French painting from the early part of the eighteenth through the nineteenth century. Representations of black females in this era are part of the larger development of turquerie in the eighteenth century and Orientalism in the nineteenth century. Centered around European fantasies of Near Eastern and North African harem culture, turquerie and Orientalism provided an exotic framework in which issues of female sexuality and its relationship to race was explored. The objects discussed in this thesis, primarily well known works by academic painters, are examples of images in which the black female plays a significant stylistic and ideological role. The works are examined in relation to literary and scientific discourses in which ideas about black women were negotiated during the period. Slavery, imperialism, as well as colonial expansion contextualize the imagery, and offer tools with which to uncover encoded meanings inscribed in the exoticized black female. This analysis provides an expanded definition of the nature of the black female as a symbol, and outlines a complex, multidimensional framework in which black female figures operate as a sexual signifier.
Rescuing Literati Aesthetics: Chen Hengke (1876-1923) and the Debate on the Westernization of Chinese Art
(1999) Lai, Kuo-Sheng; Kuo, Jason C.; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
During the nineteenth century, China, which had always been an agricultural nation, suffered from the penetration of the industrialized Western Empires. With their much more sophisticated artillery, the West defeated China in many wars. The Chinese scholar-officials had always viewed foreigners as barbarians and were unwilling to learn from them. However, some of the scholar-officials sensed that China would languish without learning from the West and thus promoted westernization. This started the debate on westernization. Chen Hengke (1876-1923) was a traditional artist and art theorist, who lived to witness the decline of the Qing Dynasty and the establishment of the new Republic. At that time, many Chinese intellectuals such as Kang Youwei, Cai Yuanpei, Chen Duxiu, and Xu Beihong urged the westernization of Chinese painting. They thought that Chinese painting could not compete with Western painting in terms of the accurate rendering of nature, that is, realism. However, many traditional Chinese painters refuted the westernization of painting and defended traditional Chinese literati painting. Among the latter, Chen Hengke was one of the leading figures. He wrote "The Value of Literati Painting" to defend traditional painting. A Japanese art historian Omura Seigai also wrote a book The Revival of Literati Painting to defend Chinese literati painting. This thesis discusses the background of westernization, Chen Hengke' s life, his opinions on art, and how he defended Chinese painting.
Karl Briullov's Portrait of Countess Samoilova
(2002) Regina, Kristen; Hargrove, June; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md)
The stunning Portrait of Countess Samoilova (1832- 1834), painted by the Russian artist Karl Briullov (1799-1852), has been traditionally considered as only a decorative high society parade portrait. However, this thesis argues that the portrait is more than this: through encoded signifiers it ref1ects Briullov's love for and possession of Julia Samoilova, and a possible love affair between artist and sitter. Artistically these symbols developed out of the conventions of the eighteenth-century phenomenon turquerie, which continued into the nineteenth century as Orientalism. Employing such artistic conventions as turquerie in a highly personal manner, Briullov navigated across social boundaries (he was not of Samoilova's noble class) to transform this portrait into a covert profession of his love for the sitter and simultaneously possess her as his own. Popular in Europe, especially France, turquerie was at first a fashion for Turkish styles and motifs in interior design, masquerade balls, clothing and furniture. But European fantasies about the East intensified through colonial expansion at the end of the eighteenth century. Turquerie came to represent a European superiority over an exotic "other,' often manifested in the image of the black servant, which is also prevalent in Orientalist paintings. But the discourse of Orientalism extends over broader visual arenas such as the bath, harem-life, landscapes of exotic foreign lands and their inhabitants. Orientalism is a discourse which is based on continued colonial conquest and primarily considered a European, namely French and English, “othering" of the Near East and North Africa. Within the Orientalist revisionist discourse, other imperializing countries such as Russia are reconsidered. However, Oriental ism presents a dilemma when applied to Russia, as its identity is simultaneously European and Eastern "other," with western European perceptions tending to view Russia as singularly Eastern. To complicate the issue further, Russia itself was an imperialist nation. Samoilova is conceptually developed within this Russian discourse or Orientalism. As both artist and sitter were living in Italy when the portrait was painted, it was the duality and perception of Russian cultural identity that Briullov manipulated when creating Samoilova. The painting is a manifestation of both traditions of turquerie and Orientalism.
Haarlem Tabletop Still-Life Painting, 1610-1660: A Study of Relationships Between Form and Meaning
(2003) Gregory, Henry Duval V; Wheelock, Arthur K. Jr.; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, MD)
Scholars have considered Dutch still life and its meaning from a variety of methodological perspectives and have often reached different opinions on the prevalence of intentional moralizing meaning in these pictures. This study approaches meaning - that is, messages specifically religious or moralizing in nature - in still-life painting by focusing on paintings produced in Haarlem between 1610 and 1660 and assessing their capacity for meaning in terms of their visual structure and the objects featured in them. Drawing on a database of 630 paintings created for this study, I analyzed the patterns that developed in Haarlem tabletop still-life painting; from the objects and foods used in these paintings to their thematic types and compositional characteristics. The results of these analyses foster an understanding of the most typical forms of the Haarlem tabletop still life. However, these analyses also pennit one to identify works exceptional in visual structure and/or use of objects that convey unmistakable messages focused on christological and vanitas themes. A prime example of a painting with these qualities is a large canvas by the artist Willem Claesz. Heda (1635 - National Gallery of Art, Washington). The compositional structure in this picture focuses one's attention on a roll along the front edge of the table. A contrast between the roll and the rest of the table is evident: the latter has been consumed while the former is untouched. The presence of elements connoting transience - an extinguished candle and a broken berckemeier - underscores the allegorical nature of this painted table and sharpens the contrast between the roll as symbol of Christ and the rest of the table as a worldly, ephemeral indulgence. While most tabletop still Iifes painted in Haarlem between 1610 and 1660 were not overtly allegorical, a significant number were. The methodology in this study allows one to identify these paintings and assess the nature of their meaning.
ART FOR THE MARKET: COMMERCIALISM IN REN YI'S (1840-1895) FIGURE PAINTING
(2004-01-14) Li, Tang; Kuo, Jason; Kita, Sandy; Spiro, Marie; Art History and Archaeology
Ren Yi (1840-1895) was one of the most accomplished and influential Shanghai painters of the late nineteenth century. He produced a great deal of artwork, much of it figure painting. This thesis will examine the economic aspect of Ren Yi's figure paintings in terms of the circumstances under which the artworks were produced, their subject matter, style, and historical background. Ren's figure painting was done not just for art's sake, but in a broad sense for a commercial purpose, specifically for the ready art market in Shanghai. Such commercialism is best manifested in three categories of Ren's figure painting, i.e. portraits, narratives depicting mythological, legendary and historical figures, and genre scenes of ordinary people. The three categories of Ren's figure painting suggest three strategies for Ren to successfully live by painting in Shanghai: (1) Making connections with influential art patrons and artists to establish himself in Shanghai, (2) catering to the tastes and needs of the populace (especially the newly rising merchants) to attract their attention and thus make a name in Shanghai, and (3) making his artwork close to reality and thus easily accessible to the common people so as to expand his potential audience and customer base. The commercialism in Ren's figure painting was first directly related to the social, economic, and cultural circumstances in Shanghai, a city that rapidly and dramatically developed into the largest and most prosperous metropolis in the late nineteenth century. Secondly, personally, as a professional painter who lived by painting, Ren Yi had to tailor his artworks to meet the demands of his patrons and potential customers so that he could support himself. Thirdly, from an historical standpoint, the commercialism manifested in eighteenth-century Yangzhou painting, especially in artworks by Yangzhou baguai (the Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou), had significant impact on Ren Yi's figure painting.
Cultural Intervention, Activist Art and Discourses of Oppositionality in the US, 1980-2000
(2004-01-27) Aagerstoun, Mary Jo; Withers, Josephine; Art History and Archaeology
This dissertation examines the intersection of definitions of activist art with major discourses related to art production operational during the decades of the 1980s and 1990s in the US. The four parts of the dissertation consider how definitions of activism in art during this period shifted when considered in conjunction with notions of transgression, postmodernism, the avant-garde, and the monstrous/grotesque/abject. The emphasis in each part of the dissertation will be on the aspects of discourse that have been generated in publications of various kinds that relate to cultural production. In Part 1, key discursive elements of the 1980s treated include 1) the relationship of market forces to "successful" transgressivity as well as "successful" activism in art; 2) when certain forms of art put forward as "activist" were seen as "transgressive;" and 3) debates over controversial content related to social and political issues of the day. In Part 2, activism in US art of the eighties and nineties is considered in relation to the fortunes of the artistic category "avant-garde." In this Part of the dissertation, the discussion tracks the development of interest in "progressive" postmodernism in contradistinction to a postmodernism of "regression;" and the generally negative valence "avant-garde" assumed in discourse over this twenty-year period. Part 3 explores the discursive relationship of activist art to the pronounced turn toward the body during the period: a particular kind of body portrayed as aggressively sexual, wounded, fragmented and imbricated with specificities of racial and gender identity. Part 4 proposes two works of artJudy Chicago's Dinner Party and Guillermo Gómez Peña's Temple of Confessionsas exemplary of how the discursive element of the monstrous/grotesque/abject can assertively mobilize and foreground the eclipsed and distorted presentation of the feminine and the "other" of color in dominant culture. The discussion seeks to demonstrate how, in two extremely complex works of art, the monstrous/abject/grotesque raises to high profile key issues of activism, postmodernism and the avant-garde. The discussion also addresses how ultimately conflicted and ambivalent it is to seek an unproblematically "progressive" outcome when attempting to mobilize monstrous/grotesque/abject thematics as apotropaic.