Art History & Archaeology
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Item 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.Item 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.Item 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.Item 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.Item 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.Item 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.Item 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.Item GAUGUIN'S NOA NOA: ASPECTS OF NARRATIVE IN TEXT AND IMAGE(1991) Day, Amy Elizabeth; Hargrove, JunePaul 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.Item 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.Item 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.