Art and Design Commons^™

The Cult Of The Nymphs: Identity, Ritual, And Womanhood In Ancient Greece, Ivana Genov

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Examining archeological and epigraphic evidence in its historical context, in this thesis I explore the Cult of the Nymphs venerated across ancient Greek poleis. I analyze the nymph’s profound cultural and historical impact that is often overlooked in the study of ancient Greece. Nymphs were female deities thought to embody ecological sites, such as fountains and springs, and became fundamental to polis identity. Their locations were often central to city plans, and their faces, depicted on coinage, became representative of the city itself. In the community, nymphs were integral to rituals for major life events, most often in the lives …

From The Studio To The Field: André Breton’S ‘Hopi Notebook’, Katharine Conley

Arts & Sciences Articles

André Breton’s visit to the Hopi villages of Arizona in 1945 had an impact on his view of the world and of the objects he collected. His response to what he witnessed in the month when the United States dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was reflected in the notebook he kept on his trip, known as the “Hopi Notebook,” and in the poem he began writing that summer, “Ode to Charles Fourier.” His belief in the liveliness of repurposed things, haunted by their former lives, was particularly pertinent to the Hopi katsina figures he collected on his trip …

The Architecture Of Clothing: Notions Of Public And Private Space, Savannah Orsak

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Space, as defined as a three dimensional extent in which objects and events have relative position and direction, is conversely bound through clothing, architecture, and other margins that organize humanhood for everyday purpose. Continually, clothing imposes and extends itself into everyday experiences and dictates notions of interaction between both people and objects. In this written body of work, my intention is to explore public and private spatial influences within clothing and the ways in which these influences can be curated to reflect and evoke notions of interaction and identity. Following three related studies on space, form, and curation, a survey …

The Line Of Dichotomy: Standpoints And Meaning In Anne Truitt's Art, Charles J. Parsons

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Some of Anne Truitt’s formal strategies—such as using the separate faces of the work to force the viewer to engage in it sequentially—build or depend on real or literal facts of the “situation” of the artwork. If this is the case, how do such works escape being reducible to their objecthood, their literal properties of size and shape? And how do they produce effects that are not mere experience or mere affective response? The answer I offer is that they depend on conventions and interpretation.

Much of my analysis focuses on the ways Truitt makes her intentions visible through form, …

Historical Art, Ecology, And Implication, Alan C. Braddock

Arts & Sciences Articles

"For fifteen years, I have researched, published, lectured, and taught about art and ecology, focusing on contemporary contexts as well as historical work produced long before Ernst Haeckel coined “ecology” (Oecologie) in 1866, and prior to the emergence of modern environmentalism..."

Photographic Automatism: Surrealism And Feminist (Post?) Modernism In Susan Hiller's Sisters Of Menon, Katharine Conley

Arts & Sciences Book Chapters

Excerpt from book chapter: "Susan Hiller stated in a 2005 interview that what drew her ‘to look again at surrealism’ and ‘the repressed history of automatism within modernism’ was the experience she had drawing Sisters of Menon (1972) as part of a group project she initiated involving automatic practice. One reason for this reconsideration must surely have been the surrealists’ engagement in the countercultural ideals of her own generation as evidenced by their commitment to the May 1968 student protests in Paris..."

The Surrealist Collection: Ghosts In The Laboratory, Katharine Conley

Arts & Sciences Book Chapters

Excerpt from book chapter: "Surrealism was forged by poets and artists who intentionally surrounded themselves with objects of philosophical significance to them, objects whose arrangement refracted back to them elements of their own beliefs. André Breton, author of the manifestoes of Surrealism, was the movement’s exemplary collector and his practice of collection yielded the movement’s mystery‐laden backdrop to the development of the principles of Surrealism just as his apartment on the rue Fontaine in Paris provided the setting for gatherings of the group’s meetings..."

"Introduction" & "Modernisms And Authority", Charles J. Palermo

Arts & Sciences Book Chapters

Modernism and Authority presents a provocative new take on the early paintings of Pablo Picasso and the writings of Guillaume Apollinaire. Charles Palermo argues that references to theology and traditional Christian iconography in the works of Picasso and Apollinaire are not mere symbolic gestures; rather, they are complex responses to the symbolist art and poetry of figures important to them, including Paul Gauguin, Charles Morice, and Santiago Rusiñol. The young Picasso and his contemporaries experienced the challenges of modernity as an attempt to reflect on the lost relation to authority. For the symbolists, art held authority by revealing something compelling—something …

Value And Hidden Cost In André Breton’S Surrealist Collection, Katharine Conley

Arts & Sciences Articles

André Breton’s collection provides a unique perspective on the environment within which the principles of surrealism were crystallized. In addition to his collection of European paintings, Breton’s Oceanic object collection grew during World War Two in New York. In essays from the 1950s and 1960s, Breton ascribed a “poetic view” and “prestige” to these things with no reference to their monetary value. And yet his history of acquisition and de-acquisition of such things and paintings show that he also understood collecting as a form of investment, despite his avowed objection to the forces of French colonialism that made it accessible …

Carrington's Kitchen, Katharine Conley

Arts & Sciences Articles

This essay argues that the objects in Leonora Carrington’s kitchen, as represented in her writing and painting, are comparable to the objects in Breton’s study, as he writes about them and has them photographed. Her most emblematic object - the cauldron - epitomizes the way she mixes the ingredients of her art, creating new substances through a literal process of embodiment. In comparison, Breton predominantly matches the ingredients of his art, through his strategy of juxtaposition, following the combinatory principle of the surrealist image, the spark that stimulates automatism’s flow. Both sets of objects reflect the spaces that house them …

The Jeffersons At Shadwell: The Social And Material World Of A Virginia Family, Susan A. Kern

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

From the 1730s through the 1770s Shadwell was home to Jane and Peter Jefferson, their eight children, over sixty slaves owned by them, and numerous hired workers. Archaeological and documentary evidence reveals much about Thomas Jefferson's boyhood home. Shadwell was a well-appointed gentry house at the center of a highly structured plantation landscape during a period of Piedmont settlement that scholars have traditionally classified as frontier. Yet the Jeffersons accommodated in their house, landscape, material goods, and behaviors the most up-to-date expectations of Virginia's elite tidewater culture. The material remnants of Shadwell raise questions about the character of this frontier …

All Sorts Of China Ware Large, Noble And Rich Chinese Bowls: Eighteenth-Century Chinese Export Porcelain In Virginia, David Andrew Madsen

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Morphological Variability In Late Seventeenth And Early Eighteenth-Century English Wine Bottles, William E. Pittman

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

"I Would Not Begrudge To Give A Few Pounds More": Elite Consumer Choices In The Chesapeake, 1720-1785 The Calvert House Ceramic Assemblage, Steven Edward Patrick

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Ceramics From The Franklin Glassworks: Acquisition Patterns And Economic Stress, Meredith Campbell Moodey

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Colonial Dining Equipage And Furnishings As Revealed In Isle Of Wight County Records, 1743-1752, Mary Lee Glenn

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.