Art History & Archaeology
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2214
Browse
3 results
Search Results
Item IGNACIO ZULOAGA AND THE PROBLEM OF SPAIN(2009) Crosson, Dena; Hargrove, June; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT Title of dissertation: IGNACIO ZULOAGA AND THE PROBLEM OF SPAIN Dena Crosson, Doctor of Philosophy, 2009 Dissertation directed by: Professor June Hargrove Department of Art History and Archeology This dissertation examines the career of Ignacio Zuloaga (1870-1945), a highly successful and influential artist during his lifetime, in the context of nationalism and the political and cultural conditions that informed his artistic persona. Positioning himself to both Spanish and foreign audiences as the "painter of Spain," his style and subject matter simultaneously exploited foreign preconceptions about Spain while serving as a lightning rod for the critical nationalist discourse preoccupying Spanish political and cultural leaders during the first decades of the twentieth century. In the 1910s and 1920s the vernacular nationalism he practiced was not opposed to modernism. But by the 1930s, nationalism had become associated with rising fascist movements both in Europe and in Spain. Through a series of case studies this dissertation problematizes the issue of modernism in art and fills an important gap in the study of the critical role of nationalism for the struggle between tradition and modernity in the arts in early twentieth-century Spain. Chapter One examines Zuloaga's influence in France through his affiliation with a group of French artists known as La Bande Noire and describes his important contribution to the rediscovery of El Greco in the last years of the nineteenth century. Chapter Two explores Zuloaga's discovery of the province of Castilla in 1898 as a subject for his work. It charts the significance of Castilla for the nationalist project of the Generation of 98 as well as for the regenerationist Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Free Institute of Learning). Chapter Three maps the growing links between Zuloaga and traditionalist and fascist ideologies, both in France and in Spain, in the 1910s and 1920s. Chapter Four investigates Zuloaga's career both in the context of the foundation and fall of Spain's Second Republic (1931-1939) and the Spanish Civil War and its aftermath. Zuloaga's career provides a significant case study for the gradual alignment, of what became traditionalism, with right-wing political ideology, an alignment by no means necessarily apparent before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936.Item The Intersection Between Nationalism and Religion: The Burghers of Calais of Auguste Rodin(2009) Lee, Jung-Sil; Hargrove, June Ellen; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)As a republican, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) conveyed political ideology in his public sculpture, but due to his interest in religion and spirituality, his interpretations differed from contemporary artists. He grafted national myths and symbols onto Catholicism and its rituals to facilitate the sacralization of the Republic. Yet, the tension between Catholicism and republicanism in his work persisted because of his religiosity and his adherence to secularism. Rodin's conflict and compromise between the two fields were not only his personal dilemma, but also that of the Third Republic. This dissertation focuses on how Rodin internalized republican ideology in his public sculpture, and how he appropriated Catholic ritual to promote political messages. In spite of the republican government's constant struggle to separate from Catholic domination, Catholicism was so deeply imbedded in French culture, Rodin recognized this complex paradigm which he co-opted to construct an ideological matrix for his public work. Aware of the powerful social role of religion, the First Republic tried to create a new religion based on deistic tradition, The Cult of Supreme Being, to unite all French people who were severely divided by factions, languages, and regionalism. This precedent tradition further proved the importance of religion's social reach in constructing national sentiment. Based on research in Rodin museums in Paris and Meudon in 2004 and 2006, this study examines how Rodin merged Catholic practices and contemporary social ideologies into the fiber of nationalist identity that served to reconcile political oppositions in France and to heal wounded civic pride after the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. Similar to the public sphere proposed by Jürgen Habermas, Rodin's public sculpture suggests ideal democratic communicative field. The Burghers of Calais is a prime example of the republican ideal of heroic martyrdom. At the same time, its overall form, figural arrangement, and poignant expressions invoke the Catholic practice of pilgrimage, drawing the audience into the scene's emotional landscape. This interpretation of The Burghers of Calais as a religious and psychological catharsis paves the way for public sculpture to function as a healing tool to rebuild personal and national subjectivity.Item Learning New Painting from Japan and Maintaining National Pride in Early Twentieth Century China, with Focus on Chen Shizeng (1876-1923)(2006-07-14) Lai, Kuo-Sheng; Kuo, Jason C; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In the early twentieth century, many Chinese painters went to Japan to study. This dissertation argues that, despite learning from Japan, these artists sought to create a better future for Chinese painting. They did not desire to create a single kind of "Eastern painting" with their Japanese counterparts. The Chinese had long claimed a kind of cultural superiority, called Sino-centrism, which did not diminish in the early twentieth century. The Japanese, however, developed a kind of thinking termed pan-Asianism, in which Asia was considered a unity, and Japan, its leader. Because of this difference, the similarities between Chinese art and Japanese art in the early twentieth century cannot be interpreted as the emergence of an "Asian art" because the Chinese did not endorse Japanese pan-Asianism. Li Shutong was one of the first Chinese painters to visit Japan to learn Western-style painting. Gao Jianfu, founder of the Lingnan School, went to Japan to learn painting and returned with the style known as Nihonga, a synthesis of traditional Japanese painting and Western-style painting. Chen Shizeng was a traditional painter of the scholar class. He also went to Japan to study. But he studied natural history, not painting. Chen Shizeng was most active during the May Fourth Movement of the late 1910s and early 1920s, when radicals wanted to abandon traditional Chinese culture. They called for a total adoption of Western culture. Although Chen Shizeng was open-minded to Western culture, he chose to defend traditional Chinese literati painting. His translation of Japanese scholar Ōmura Seigai's essay The Revival of Literati Painting was part of this defense. Chen Shizeng was strongly influenced by his teacher Wu Changshuo (1844-1927). He was inspired also by other great Chinese painters of the past, and he adapted some Western methods that he learned in Japan. However, the Japanese influence in his painting should not be interpreted as his attempt to create an "Eastern art" in collaboration with Japanese painters.