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Full-Text Articles in Painting

Women Surrealists: Muses Or Seekers?, Noor A. Asif Jan 2016

Women Surrealists: Muses Or Seekers?, Noor A. Asif

Scripps Senior Theses

Surrealism has often been labeled as a misogynistic movement that sought to provide man with an avenue into a higher reality at the expense of the humanity of women. By perceiving the opposite sex as their muses, Surrealist men rendered women as mysterious sources of the marvelous, the name given to the higher realm, which they desired to attain. I propose that Surrealist women were empowered by the fact that ‘woman’, as an abstract concept, and femininity were synonymous with the marvelous. This entailed that Surrealist women had the advantage of being “sources of revelation, as provokers of wonder, dreams, …


Goddesses Of Color: Interfaith Altars, Aimee H. Miller Jan 2016

Goddesses Of Color: Interfaith Altars, Aimee H. Miller

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper explores the intertwined history of certain goddesses of the Middle East and the Americas. This history informs the original invented contemporary deities that my project centers around. Using recycled materials and collected objects, my project displays two religious altars, one from my heritage and one from my experience living in Brazil. One altar is based on afro-Brazilian sea goddesses, and one is a contemporary imagined interpretation of a Judeo-Christian female figure. The two altars together compose an installation that seeks to unify a pagan practice and two distinct monotheistic traditions while still honoring their separate parts. These parts …


Understanding Postcolonial South Asian Communities Through Bollywood, Noor A. Asif Jan 2016

Understanding Postcolonial South Asian Communities Through Bollywood, Noor A. Asif

Scripps Senior Theses

Inspired by my personal experience as a South Asian-American, I chose to create a series of paintings that seek to analyze the relationship between South Asians and a Western environment. I was further influenced by Bollywood painted posters, which I argue encapsulate postcolonial aesthetics in the form of fair skin, colored eyes, and exoticism. Moreover, I believe that Bollywood has continued to disseminate these aesthetics to the South Asian collective community. Bollywood and its implicit fascination with the West, in addition to its inherently South Asian identity, embody the struggle that many South Asians face. This struggle, which I as …


L'Art Et L'Amour À Travers Un Amour De Swann De Marcel Proust, Sarah M. Robertson Jan 2016

L'Art Et L'Amour À Travers Un Amour De Swann De Marcel Proust, Sarah M. Robertson

Scripps Senior Theses

The esteemed French author, Marcel Proust, revolutionized the way that literature fuses with visual art. Through the detail of his novella Un Amour de Swann, Proust creates a world in which the idolatry of a painting destines one man to a life void of fulfillment in love. This thesis explores the intrinsic connection of painting and literature to love through Proust’s treatment of the Botticelli fresco, Les Épreuves de Moïse, and the carefully crafted lesson that Proust teaches to integrate art into the fabric of life. Proust’s advice reaches far beyond the constraints of his own words, and …


Macro Self-Portraiture And The Feminine Grotesque, Emily C. Wages Jan 2016

Macro Self-Portraiture And The Feminine Grotesque, Emily C. Wages

Scripps Senior Theses

According to the Mirriam-Webster online dictionary, “grotesque” is defined as “a style of decorative art characterized by fanciful or fantastic human and animal forms often interwoven with foliage or similar figures that may distort the natural into absurdity, ugliness, or caricature.” Originating from the Old Italian grottesca, cave painting, feminine of grottesco of a cave, from the time of its conception, the grotesque has been inexorably linked to art and the female. The work of other female artists that explore themes of the feminine grotesque are discussed, including Katheryn Wakeman, Jenny Saville, and Maria Lassnig. In my current work, I …