Fine Arts Commons^™

Inspiring Piety: The Influence Of Caravaggio’S Paintings In Santa Maria Del Popolo, Cara Coleman

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This article looks at the way Italian Baroque painter, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio broke from the artistic conventions of the Renaissance and Mannerist styles in his religious paintings to create an entirely new style that reflected the needs of the post-Tridentine Catholic Church. Caravaggio pushed painting throughout Europe in a new direction, away from the idealization of the Renaissance and the artistic extremes of Mannerism, by popularizing realism in art. Caravaggio’s unique style is examined through comparisons of his paintings, The Conversion of Paul, c.1601 and The Martyrdom of Saint Peter, c.1601 in the Roman basilica, Santa Maria del Popolo …

Into The Fray, Frances Pearce

Theses and Dissertations

My sculpture and prints are about dismemberment and the destruction caused by war. To address the high cost of war, I make works that present the threat of injury, amputation, and prosthetics. I use Classical Greek art history references to address contemporary political, military, and social issues. I include images such as Amazonian women, horses, and doves. These images are coupled with references to the damage caused by conflict. While my work concerns destruction, paradoxically, my process involves additive construction. I take a mixed media approach to both my sculptures and my prints, and use a wide range of materials …

Double Zero, Anthony Earl Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis follows the trajectory of my artistic practice over the past two years, which has led to the installation of my thesis exhibition titled, Double Zero. I hope to position the work among its art and cultural terms by exploring how I have expanded my research concerning Situationist and Marxist theory as well as developed a broader photographic studio practice driven by material experimentation, play, and an investigation into how we live and interact with commodities through media.

Reconstructing A Science Fiction Autobiography, Jason R. Rood

Theses and Dissertations

This is a collection of essays revolving around concepts pertinent to my current visual arts practice, centering on a deconstruction of personal narrative mythologies. What is generated is a web of connection that spans Narrative Modes, Science Fiction, the use of Lines and Drawing, the Digital and Space and Time. Through this interweaving of topics, I am beginning the process of rebuilding the structure of a personal story for the future.

The Object Inbetween, Lucy L. Derickson

Theses and Dissertations

My mission is to bring attention to the unusual, undefined, and fluid connections we have to objects through various avenues of experience. Things, objects, and devices have shaped our culture, environment, and personal philosophies. We live, grow, learn, and mourn with objects. We worship, sympathize, and relate to objects. But what I am most interested in is a human tendency to retreat to objects, allowing them to mediate experiences of friendship and intimacy between people.

During my graduate studies, I have been evaluating my personal and professional connections with others in order to understand how technology such as smart phones …

Limelight & Indigestion, Joshua D. Thorud

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis chronicles the progression toward and creation of my thesis show, Limelight & Indigestion, as well as the cultural, technological and artistic influences and discussions that underpin the works therein. The show is an exploration of celebrity, mass media, and the nature of the desire for fame. I hope to situate my work through an investigation of topics such as Hollywood and the use of green screens and associated technology, our physical and ideological connection to cinema, the absurd in cinema history, and the complex nature of media digestion.

Fallen/Lifted, Hillary Waters Fayle

Theses and Dissertations

I use found botanical material such as leaves, seedpods, and branches to explore human connection to the physical world. By combining these organic objects with the rich traditions of needlecraft, I bind nature and the human touch. Both tender and ruthless, this intricate stitch work communicates the idea that our relationship with the natural world is both tenuously fragile and infinitely complex.

The way I think about and make art mirrors the way I think about my life and how I walk through the world. What I do is about elevating details. It is about noticing cycles and connections. It …

G.A.M.E.: A Hypermedia Edition Of James Mcneill Whistler’S The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies, Amy Colombo

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation, G.A.M.E., refashions James McNeill Whistler’s book, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, into a hypermediated facsimile text and archive. By remediating the text, the socio-historical context of the Victorian time period in which Whistler lived is reestablished, making his book more accessible to twenty-first century audiences. The era studied in this dissertation includes the expansion of the idea of celebrity, the power of the press, and the concept of art for art’s sake from 1863 through 1892. In order to showcase these concepts, archival materials, such as personal correspondence, newspaper clippings, and published pamphlets, from this period were …

Icarus: For Solo Viola And Orchestra, John C. Leavitt, Devan Freebairn

Faculty Publications

Out of class, student-led project to compose and perform a new viola concerto, with an all-volunteer (mostly student) orchestra. Composition is based on the story of Icarus, his imprisonment with his father in the labyrinth of Crete, their escape, and Icarus’ downfall when he flew too close to the sun.

Confabulation, Ruth Lakhani

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

I create work that is an investigation of memory- individual memories from a single location over a span of time. Over time, these individual memories are layered on top of each other to become remembered as one. When the boundaries between the original and successive memories become unstable and unreliable false memories are produced.

My sculptures are non-literal representations of selected interior details from my memories of a place that I visited regularly throughout my life. This place that I am inspired by has undergone several different stages of repair, from when the house was first constructed up to the …

Aggro Duality, Michael B. Lesh

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Aggro Duality features sculptures inspired by skateboarding and custom–automobile cultures. This body of work is inspired by the manufacturing process, physicality of materials, individual aesthetic, and attention to craft. Each sculpture in Aggro Duality is created through intensive construction techniques that aim to modify materials into a unified form; which indicate a combination, a duality of mechanical and organic coexistence. Within the skateboarding and custom/automobile cultures there is an aggressive attitude that pushes individuals above and beyond boundaries of traditional standards, meaning, and styles. These cultures intend to create products that are dramatic, personalized, and stand-out from the norm. This …

A Perception Of Change, A Change Of Perception, Christopher D. White

Theses and Dissertations

Change is a constant reminder that permanence is the ultimate illusion. It is through the creation of hyper-realistic, ceramic sculpture that I explore the relationship between nature, humans, and the phenomenon of impermanence. I seek to expose the beauty that often results from decay while, at the same time, making my viewer question their own perception of the world around them. The juxtaposition of natural and man-made features in combination with the skewing of scale, proportion, and material, creates an altered perspective – forcing the viewer to look closer. By combining both human and natural elements within my work I …

Distance Moving Through Me: Working In Exile, Anne Beth Albagli

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis and accompanying exhibit, Untitled [Distance Moving Through Me: Giselle and Marco] explores contemporary issues of displacement and our relationship to the site of home. Through the trope of a pilgrimage in the desert, both virtual and in person, inspired by the eviction and imprisonment of my paternal family from Egypt in 1956, Distance Moving Through Me: Working in Exile asks how we can use our virtual experience and changing perspectives of the landscape to our advantage for a more empathic world.

Lullaby, Amber M. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

I have been investigating the way in which my mind has altered my memories, especially from childhood. The more a moment is recalled, the less precise it becomes. The most inaccurate memories from childhood are the ones I have fixated on. Bedrooms are spaces where dreaming, sleeping and reverie take place leading to even more fragmenting. The intimate space of a bedroom allows me to represent the personal distorted recollections. The bedroom furniture is missing parts, shifted in height and placement or combined together. By making doubles of furniture, a direct comparison can be made from the real piece to …

Locative Media As Remix, Conor Mcgarrigle

Books/Book Chapters

While data-driven art is not new, recent developments in technical, artistic, and social spheres have coalesced to produce new opportunities for artists and activists who remix data with space and place to form locationally specific political critiques of great power and flexibility.

From This Dark Place To The Other: Violence And Connection In The Poetry Of Brian Turner, Alan R. Swirsky

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Brian Turner is a poet and American soldier who served in Iraq at the start of the 21^st century. His poetry is about his experiences as a soldier interacting with the Iraqi people, his time in America following the war, PTSD, and the endless violence in the war zone. As a comparatively recent entry into the genre of War Poetry, his work pays homage to the writers who preceded him, like Wilfred Owen and Bruce Weigl, while also referencing Middle Eastern poets typically outside the scope of American literature. Through Turner’s recurring themes and motifs, connections are established between …

Ex Post Modernism: How The First Amendment Framed Nonrepresentational Art, Sonya G. Bonneau

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Nonrepresentational art repeatedly surfaces in legal discourse as an example of highly valued First Amendment speech. It is also systematically described in constitutionally valueless terms: nonlinguistic, noncognitive, and apolitical. Why does law talk about nonrepresentational art at all, much less treat it as a constitutional precept? What are the implications for conceptualizing artistic expression as free speech?

This article contends that the source of nonrepresentational art’s presumptive First Amendment value is the same source of its utter lack thereof: modernism. Specifically, a symbolic alliance between abstraction and freedom of expression was forged in the mid-twentieth century, informed by social and …

Examining The Role Of Active Student Engagement In High School Arts Courses, Athena Irene Nichols

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A primary challenge to educators is the design and implementation of effective student engagement processes. High school students cannot be successful if they are frequently absent from school, as active engagement opportunities reinforce knowledge and help to keep students enthused in their learning. To address the challenges of frequent school absences, this study examined a gap in the literature--namely, the relationship between active engagement and arts courses as a motivator for students to remain in high school. For this study, active engagement was defined as a process in which the student's interests, efforts, and knowledge culminated in an application of …

Snip, Snap, Snout: This Tale Is Told Out, Crista A. Ames

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Mythology has shaped human thought and experience since before recorded history. Passed from one generation to the next, myths elevate and aggrandize realities that are difficult, complex or horrifying. This is what makes us human, an inspiring capacity toward metaphor and the ability to make beauty, lyricism and splendor—order from the chaos. Within mythology, the cause and effect of both misery and joy may be explored in their wholeness. In this act of imaginative translation, we may come to understand how misery and joy are naturally coexisting.

In my thesis exhibition this tale is told out, I use the layering …

Anything You Might Do, Elena Christine Bitner

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Three girls at seventeen, teetering on the cusp of adulthood, set out on a journey to escape grief, abuse, and neglect in their homes. With nothing but a few hundred dollars and what they can throw on their backs, they pile into a tiny Toyota pick-up and set out to cross the country to make a new life on the east coast. As they crawl across the desert, secrets surface that threaten their relationships and their lives. The girls stumble into a world of drugs and violence and they find themselves faced with an irrevocable choice. Will they be able …