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History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

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Full-Text Articles in Art and Design

A Comparative Analysis Of Henry Fuseli's Nibelungen Series And Drawings Of Courtesans, Kathryn Long Nov 2023

A Comparative Analysis Of Henry Fuseli's Nibelungen Series And Drawings Of Courtesans, Kathryn Long

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

In a series of drawings completed in 1805, artist Henry Fuseli illustrated Kriemhild, the female protagonist of the medieval German epic The Niebelungenlied. Around the same time period, Fuseli was also creating highly sexualized illustrations of courtesans. While other scholars have proposed that Fuseli’s sketches of courtesans show that he held a positive view of women, this essay compares his images of Kriemhild and courtesans to suggest that Fuseli saw Kriemhild a symbol of righteous fury, loyalty and justice, and as a moral opposite to contemporary sex workers. Fuseli’s idealization of Kriemhild combined with his posthumously published lectures reveal …


Polished Memories: Zhang Xiaogang’S Bloodline: Big Family No. 3 And The Ideal Family Of The Cultural Revolution, Abby Wiggins Mar 2023

Polished Memories: Zhang Xiaogang’S Bloodline: Big Family No. 3 And The Ideal Family Of The Cultural Revolution, Abby Wiggins

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

Zhang Xiaogang’s series of paintings, Bloodline, is a strange, surreal, and haunting collection of family portraits. As a Chinese artist who was young during the Cultural Revolution of the 60s and 70s, Zhang has a complicated relationship with his own national history. The paintings of Bloodline are not photorealistic portraits; rather, they are constructions coming from within his mind, returning to these memories and feelings decades later. This essay examines Big Family No. 3, a painting for this series done in 1995, exploring the influences and processes that contributed to its creation. It argues that this work in …


Masks: A New Face For The Theatre, Alexi Michael Siegel Dec 2018

Masks: A New Face For The Theatre, Alexi Michael Siegel

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

This study seeks to reimagine and reinvigorate modern theatre’s relationship with mask work through text-based historical research and practice-based artistic research. It focuses on three ancient mask traditions: pre- and early Hellenistic Greek theatre, Japanese Noh theatre, and Nigerian Egungun masquerades. Research on these mask traditions and recent masked productions informed the development and staging of a masked performance of Charles Mee’s Life is a Dream. The production featured sections for each of the ancient masking styles and a final section that explored masks in a contemporary theatrical style. As a whole, this creative project pulls masks out of …