History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

Folk, The Naïve And Indigeneity: Defining Strategies In Violeta Parra's Visual Art, Serda Yalkin

Art & Art History ETDs

Since the decades following Violeta Parra’s death in 1967, the life and legacy of the folklorist, singer, poet, and visual artist has been mythologized in Chilean popular consciousness. Throughout her career, which spanned the 1940s to the 1960s, Parra launched a widespread folkloric project for the purpose of the recovery, compilation, transcription, performance, and study of the music, poetry, rituals, proverbs, folktales, and material objects of the diverse regions of Chile. She recorded and performed original music utilizing traditional rural instruments with socially critical lyrics that denounced the injustices suffered by the oppressed sectors of Chilean society, a demographic with …

Yinka Shonibare Mbe's Critiques Of Empire And His Reception In Four Transnational Case Studies, Johanna Wild

Art & Art History ETDs

In the wake of art history’s “global turn”, the installation art of Yinka Shonibare MBE has obtained vast visibility in the established centers of contemporary cultural practice in Europe and beyond. Shonibare is best known for his installations of mannequins that reenact canonized paintings and historical events culled from European modernity. Dressed in deceptively “African” Dutch Wax fabrics, Shonibare’s phenotypically ambiguous and headless mannequins ensnare audiences with a semblance of “exotic” difference, but ultimately resist the fixity of national, cultural, racial and, in some cases, gendered categorization through an incessant semiotic slippage. In his book, The Culture Game (2001), Olu …

Belén’S Plaza Vieja And Colonial Church Site: Memory, Continuity And Recovery, Samuel E. Sisneros

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

This is my capstone project for completion of a Post MA certificate in Historic Preservation and Regionalism. I received the degree in Spring, 2019. The project involves recovering the legacy of a historic colonial church site in Belén, New Mexico. The work involves the descendant community’s sense of place and the continuity of memory and sacredness of Belen’s first church and original plaza.

Narratives Of Violence And Tales Of Power: The Work Of Jorge González Camarena, The History Of The Castillo De Chapultepec, And The Establishment Of The National Museums In The Project Of Mexican Nationalism, Rebekah Bellum

Art & Art History ETDs

In the project of nationalism in Mexico, the governing bodies acted out a deliberate process of reclamation of the histories and mythologies of Mexico for the purpose of state programming, and for the development of an official narrative of nationality. In my thesis, I trace the effects of nationalism by first looking into a history of power in Mexico as articulated through the adaptive reuse, over centuries, of the Castillo de Chapultepec building. This building has housed the National Museum of History (Museo Nacional de Historia) since the early 1940s, and has played a prominent role in the construction and …

Touching Nether-Regionalisms: Paul Cadmus As Exemplary Foil To A Homegrown American Art, Maxine Marks

Art & Art History ETDs

The struggle over who writes our histories and who is included in those histories resonates within the broader scope of my project where I examine such productions and deliberations of American identity through U.S. visual language and artistic production. I challenge exclusive ideas of Americanness' and counter such exclusions within Regionalism via the artistic production of Paul Cadmus. I specifically explore issues of gender, race and class in the artworks of U.S. artist Paul Cadmus, his resulting impact on the Regionalist movement and the heteronormative masculine identity that emerges from within Regionalism. I illuminate Cadmus's contributions to Regionalism, rebuild connections …

Chronicles Of Revolution And Nation: El Taller De Gráfica Populars 'Estampas De La Revolución Mexicana' (1947), Mary Theresa Avila

Art & Art History ETDs

This dissertation concentrates on the key 1947 portfolio Las Estampas de la Revolución Mexicana' ('Prints of the Mexican Revolution') produced by El Taller de Gráfica Popular (The Popular Graphics Workshop) or TGP, a graphic art collective founded in Mexico City in 1937. The album's eighty-five prints recount Mexican history from the l870s to the 1940s, as well as address the human condition and denounce social and civil injustices. These images are anchored in the diverse narratives and legacies of the Mexican Revolution (1910 and 1920). My analysis of the visual, textual, and historical components in the TGP's 1947 portfolio, a …

The Open Veins Of Guayasamí­N'S Paintings, Maria Otero

Art & Art History ETDs

This thesis will focus on several of the smaller series that make up Ecuadorian artist Oswaldo Guayasamín's La Edad de la Ira series, using them as examples of the main themes of this body of work. These themes include representations of oppressors and the oppressed, which is a regularly occurring opposition created throughout La Edad de la Ira. The first chapter will explore images of series consisting only of oppressors in the context of Latin America's actual history by relating it to Eduardo Galeano's famous book Open Veins of Latin America. I do so in order to explore how Guayasamín's …

Conquest, Consequences, Restoration: The Art Of Rebecca Belmore, Kathleen Deblassie

Art & Art History ETDs

Rebecca Belmore (Ojibwa/Anishinabe, b. 1960 in Upsala, Ontario), embraces three themes in her oeuvre: conquest, consequences and restoration.Through the mediums of performance art, installation, video and photography, Belmore confronts Indigenous issues regarding land theft, identity, gender, racism, stereotypes,memory, contested histories, and the recovery and reclamation of a decolonized self. All of these themes are sub-categories that fall under the larger theme of the consequences of conquest. The most significant component of Belmores work, however, is restoration, which embraces themes of healing, self-determination and sovereignty. Traditional art-historical methodologies can and have been used to analyze Indigenous art. This thesis proposes that …

The Reception Of Autos-De-Fe In 18th Century New Spain: Image, Text And Practice, Emmanuel Ortega

Art & Art History ETDs

In 18th century New Spain, autos-de-fé were publicly performed as a way to openly confront the sins of heretics and to announce their penance. Paintings of these events are among the rarest scenes ever depicted on both sides of the Atlantic. Paintings, such as Un auto de f\xe8 en el pueblo de San Bartolomé Otzolotepec ca.1716, emphasize the impressive display of power enacted by the inquisition through autos-de-fé. However, they downplay the presence of the indigenous spectator-participant in lieu of the organizers and elite invitees. In terms of content, however, this painting represents a unique example of auto images since …

Three Case Studies Of National Narratives In Central American Art, Gustavo Larach

Art & Art History ETDs

This thesis explores the ways in which two Central American artists of the 20th century conceived of their own emerging nations through works of art that present national narratives. The first artist discussed is the Nicaraguan Armando Morales (b. 1927). This discussion centers on Moraless lithographic portfolio of seven images titled La saga de Sandino, which recounts the rebellion led by Augusto César Sandino (1895-1934) between 1926 and 1933. The second artist discussed is the Honduran Arturo López Rodezno (1908-75), who set out to produce, between the 1940's and 1960's, murals that focused on the figures of ancient Maya rulers …

The Interrelationship Of Identities: How Artistic Practice Informs Teaching In The Visual Arts, Karen G. Adams Edwards

Art & Art History ETDs

This research is an investigation into the relationship between artistic practice and art teaching in secondary art teachers. After an examination of various perspectives on this relationship that have appeared in scholarly journals over the last several decades, some of which argue that artistic practice is essential to the quality of an art teacher's teaching, and some of which regard the two practices as separate, I interviewed five secondary art teachers to find out more about this relationship. I conducted the interviews in a semi open-ended fashion, asking questions that invited participants to discuss teaching preferences and priorities as well …

The Once And Future King: A New Approach To Ancient Maya Mortuary Monuments From Palenque, Tikal, And Copan, Elizabeth Olton

Art & Art History ETDs

This dissertation examines the Temple of the Inscriptions, Temple I, and Temple 26 and explores what could have motivated the Maya to construct these large monuments and how they might have been meaningful. Traditional art historical methods of comparative and formal analyses are employed as tools for discussing patterns of meaning among these temples. The structural and decorative programs shared by all three temples signal that they are part of a separate genre of architecture that is specifically mortuary and interactive. Furthermore, these features are also a mode of communication. Messages depicted in the offerings, sculpture, and spaces of the …

Imagining The Noble And Loyal City: An Introduction To The Biombo Franz Mayer, Madalena Consuelo Salazar

Art & Art History ETDs

The decorative arts of New Spain had, until recently, been peripheral in art historical discourse. Current scholars have begun to widen the lens of interpretation to include new spheres of influence and objects that defy traditional disciplinary classifications. One such object is the Biombo Franz Mayer, a viceregal biombo, or folding screen. Although useful for elucidating larger themes, recent studies have de-contextualized the Biombo by regarding the object in terms of group identity or as a representation of colonized spaces. Building on previous scholarship, this thesis will reintroduce the object's context, and through formal and iconographic analyses, study the screen …

'Bajo Su Sombra': The Narration And Reception Of Colonial Urban Space In Early Nineteenth-Century Havana, Cuba, Paul Barrett Niell

Art & Art History ETDs

In early nineteenth-century Havana, Cuba, a small commemorative monument was erected on the Plaza de Armas to honor the site of the city's founding. Through academic history painting, Neoclassical architecture, and the appropriation of symbolic urban space, this memorial reconstructed the sixteenth-century history of the city for nineteenth-century audiences. This addition to the plaza could be seen as an extension of the Bourbon Reforms, which aimed to modernize the city by introducing public works and pedagogical methods that would make this Cuban colony function more efficiently in the insterests of Spain. However, upon closer examination, the memorial for the plaza …

Arthur Shilling: Anishinaabemowin-MazinibiiʼIgewinini, Suzanne Rita Mcleod

Art & Art History ETDs

Arthur Shilling, Anishinaabe artist from Mnjikaning First Nation in southern Ontario, was one of the first generation, contemporary Native painters who emerged in the early years in the formation of a "Canadian Native" art. Born in 1941, Shilling was, first, an artist who wrestled with the creation of a dignified expression of a people struggling to place themselves within the general population, and second, a man whose principles demanded the preservation of cultural and personal integrity. Shilling's "people-portraits" transcended the narrow definitions of "Native" or "Indian" art, with his artistry too close to Western styles to be comfortably catalogued as …

Syncretic Topographies: The Portraits Of Seydou Keïta, Sara L. Marion

Art & Art History ETDs

This thesis examines the writing, exhibitions, and discourses that have accompanied the translocation of Seydou Keïta's photographs from the center of the French Sudan to the core of the New York art world. Between 1948 and 1962. this Malian photographer established a commercial portrait studio in the city of Bamako, then the capital of the French Sudan and now the capital of Mali. He produced a body of portraits that catered to the aesthetics of a West African clientele on the verge of colonial independence. Nearly forty years later. these photographs resurfaced in the exhibition Africa Explores: 20th Century African …

Types And Markets: Photography And Masks Among The Nuxalk In The Twentieth Century, Joanne P. Carrubba

Art & Art History ETDs

Nuxalk mask making styles changed throughout the twentieth century for various reasons. The ideas of transition, transformation, and the market are central to the establishment of these alterations. Mask making is one response to acculturation and one means of cultural survival; masks are an outward form of cultural pride.

The nineteenth century brought increased contact and trade between Native groups and Euro-Americans. Missionaries, more settlers, and tourists came to the Northwest Coast, all of whom wanted to see and experience the authentic Natives of the region before they disappeared. These groups were quickly followed by anthropologists who wanted to study …

The Slide: Image And Object, Cindy D. Abel Morris

Art & Art History ETDs

Through an extensive review of the literature of the history and methodology of art history and visual resources, this thesis charts the effect of the use of slides for the discipline of art history.

The three chapters examine the conjunction between slides and art history. Chapter one gives an account of the pedagogical and practical reasons for the current predominance of the slide as the reproduction of choice in art history, concluding with a discussion of the relative importance of the text and image for art history. The second chapter briefly traces the evolution of magic lantern to 35mm format …

Rethinking Martín Chambi, Michele M. Penhall

Art & Art History ETDs

This dissertation examines the photographs of Peruvian photographer Martín Chambi. A successful photographer and celebrated artist during much of his life, Chambi and his work was largely forgotten about since the 1950s and unknown outside of South America. During the 1970s he was rediscovered and his photographs made known to audiences around the world. As a result, new interpretations of him as an artist have emerged which are different from those during his life. The photographs he is known for today are not those he considered his artistic work.

Giving Birth To Onions, Stefanie London Feld-Galbraith

Art & Art History ETDs

I have always questioned the authority of Art History. I was taught that the historians gave a true, unbiased examination of art, while the critics and the artists created works wrought with subjectivity. But experience has taught me that nothing can be looked upon objectively. Even as we look, we are changing what we see.

There is not just one truth, one voice; there are many, and this is mine. The stories you are about to see are real, except for the ones I made up, which are also real. I think the truth must be something that wraps around …

Egypt Recovered: The Photographic Surveys Of Maxime Du Camp, Félix Teynard, And John Beasley Greene, And The Development Of Egyptology, Kathleen Stewart Howe

Art & Art History ETDs

This dissertation examines the work of three photographers, Maxime Du Camp, Félix Teynard and John Beasley Greene, active in Egypt in the middle of the nineteenth century. In doing so, it relates the new technology of photography to the developing discipline of Egyptology in France. It proposes connections between the photographic oeuvres of Du Camp, Teynard, and Greene and contemporary trends in the study of Egyptian antiquity. It reveals the extent to which the personal circumstances of the three photographers mediated the influence of different sectors of the French academic and intellectual establishment.

The intent of this work is to …

The Professionalization Of Artists: A New Approach To The Social History Of Art, Mcclelland

History Faculty Publications

Perhaps because of the somewhat inchoate and seemingly disorganized nature of the world of the arts, most students of modern social history and professions have steered clear of engagement with this fascinating crowd. Yet further acquaintance with the subject reveals that artists did in fact attempt to professionalize, and -- even if their efforts were not as successful as those of some others -- these efforts left a clear record of articulated demands and statements.

Sculptors Of The Realm: Classic Maya Artists' Signatures And Sculptural Style During The Reign Of The Piedras Negras Ruler 7, John Ellis Montgomery

Art & Art History ETDs

The discovery of hieroglyphic artists' signatures on monuments of the Classic Maya represents a turning point for the study of Precolum­bian art. As key elements in the retrieval of artists from long-standing conditions of anonymity, artists' signatures theoretically afford the scholar an opportunity to follow the careers and sculptural repertoire of individual artists, allowing recognition of the artist's style over time and on unsigned monuments. However. while various studies have tried to identify individual sculptors solely on the basis of style, to date no pro­ject working in the medium of stone monuments has explored the rela­tionship between signatures and style, …

The Problem Of Artists As Professionals In Germany, Mcclelland

History Faculty Publications

The social history of art, or more precisely, the social history of artists, has until fairly recently been an abused stepchild of both art history and "mainstream" history. Yet historians have at their disposal from the nineteenth century on increasingly rich material on both individual and collective artistic life. These sources have not been fully exploited.

The Linguistic Affiliation And Phoneticism Of Teotihuacan Iconography, David Brown

Art & Art History ETDs

This study examines one of the major issues of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican history--the identity of the Teotihuacan culture--through a correlation of figurative art and iconography with writing and language. An examination of the last century of Mesoamerican scholarship points out the inherent shortcomings of reconstructing pre-Conquest history from Nahua ethnohistorical documents in the early-Colonial period. A re-evaluation of methodological assumptions used in the reconstructions of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican history leads to the conclusion that the Teotihuacan culture should be studied as much as possible within its cosmopolitan context of the Early-Urban period. Further reassessment of previous iconographic studies reveals that many interpretations …

Anne Seymour Damer (1748-1828), Sculptor, Susan Benforado

Art & Art History ETDs

The Honourable Anne Seymour Darner (1748-1828), aristocrat, classical scholar, novelist and actress, was also that anomalous being, an amateur woman sculptor. By her own admission, she considered sculpture the chief business of her life, and the pursuit of the "true style," now known by its nineteenth-century name of neoclassicism, its focus. She studied sculpture privately, first with Giuseppe Ceracchi and then with John Bacon the Elder, in whose studio she may have worked for a short time; William Cumberland Cruikshank taught her anatomy. Her wealth and connections --her maternal grandfather was the fourth Duke of Argyll, the third Duke of …

The Fossil Records, Glenn Craig Cornwall

Art & Art History ETDs

This paper deals with how the traditional fossil record of the geological past with its scientific interpretations has influenced and affected my current work. It also deals with the more recent metaphoric explorations of Robert Rauschenberg with regard to the term "fossil" and their subsequent influence on my work. Comparisons between these different representations of fossils and my own work reveal similarities and parallels.

Stylistic And Iconographic Study Of Lower Central American Stone Sculpture, Joan Kathryn Lingen B.V.M.

Art & Art History ETDs

In this study of Pre-Columbian sculptures from Panama and Costa Rica, style and iconography were investigated with the purposes of determining relationships among the different archaeological regions of this area of Lower Central America, establishing geographic and time distributions of traits, and creating a relative chronology for both style and motif. Over 1400 volcanic stone sculptures were organized into the two primary categories of Ceremonial Objects and Figural Images. These were further divided on the basis of formal similarities.. The major emphasis of this study has been an analysis and seriation of effigy grinding stones and standing human images. Two …

Edward Weston's Early Photography, 1903-1926, Amy Conger

Art & Art History ETDs

The purpose of this study is to examine the early work of the photographer Edward Weston (1886-1958) and to investigate the nature and direction of his development as well as the social and cultural environment during the first half of his career, that is, from 1903 through 1926 when he returned definitively to the United States from Mexico. About 800 photographs made by Weston during this twenty three year period are illustrated and discussed in the catalogue.

Architecture And Town Development In The Mining Camps Of Southwestern New Mexico, Carol L. Clark

Art & Art History ETDs

The architecture and town planning of the mining communities in Grant and Sierra Counties, New Mexico during the later nineteenth century are the focus of this study. The intent is to describe and illustrate the phases of development in these towns through three stages: The Initial Settlement, The Boomtown, and The Mature Town. The changing character of the architecture reflected the increasing stability, wealth, and sophistication in the camps. These towns were populated by Anglo-American immigrants and reflected the tastes and culture of America in the late 1800's. Popular architectural styles from the Midwestern and Eastern states were imitated in …