History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

The Casemate Wall System Of Khirbat Safra, Elizabeth Anne Emswiler

Master's Theses

Problem

A casemate wall system was found at Khirbat Safra in 2018 and 2019, which has been dated to early Iron Age I. However, no comprehensive study of Iron Age I casemate wall systems in Transjordan has been conducted. Therefore, this thesis will present and compare the findings from Kh. Safra and four other sites in Transjordan which have casemate wall systems dating to Iron Age I.

Method

A short study on the history of fortifications, casemate wall systems, and siege warfare was conducted for this thesis. The ruins from Fields A, B, C, and D at Kh. Safra were …

Piet Mondrian’S Neo-Plastic Compositions (1917-1944) And His Six Principles Of Neo-Plasticism: An Analysis Of His Aesthetic Ideas Based On A Study Of His Essays And Paintings, Ali Fallahzadeh

Student Works (2020-2029)

Amongst the modern artists of the beginning of the 20th century, Dutch painter Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) is considered a pioneer of pure abstract painting. The result of his consistent intuitive experimentations on canvas during the 1910’s was the proposal of his new artistic style in 1919 called Neo-Plasticism, nieuwe beelding in Dutch. Throughout his Neo-Plastic period (1919-1944), he aimed to depict a universal expression of ‘equilibrium’ (new term for harmony) and a vital rhythm among his universal elements of painting called plastic means or means of imaging. Besides being a pure abstract painter, Mondrian was also a prolific writer of …

Zulkifli Yusoff’S “Don’T Play During Maghrib” Installation Art: A Visual Interpretation Based On Social Interactionism, Zolkiflee Nursyakirin

Student Works (2020-2029)

Zulkifli is a world class artist who can create social criticism art based on culture, education and economical stagnancy. “Don’t Play During Maghrib, Dialogue Series 2” (DPDM) is an exceptional artwork which represented him at the Venice Biennale in 1997. There is no written research about this artwork and also there are very limited references and materials on Malaysian installation art. This led the researcher to embark on this topic as a dissertation. Since, this research focuses on the installation artwork, it is appropriate to explore and study Zulkifli Yusoff’s artwork. It is qualitative research which aims at exploring the …

Nalini Malani's Medea Project: Gender And Nationhood In Postcolonial India, Maya Varma

Art and Art History Honors Projects

In 1996, renowned contemporary Indian artist Nalini Malani embarked on what would become a decades-long project exploring the Greek myth of Medea as an embodiment of postcolonialism. Considering Medea’s historical interpretations as a mistreated wife and a villainous mother, this thesis examines how Malani transforms Medea into a metaphor of resistance to British colonialism and anticolonial nationalism in post-Partition India. Against the backdrop of the 1947 Partition and subsequent political events relating nationhood with the female body, Malani negotiates Medea as an emancipatory figure who shifts essentialized notions of womanhood into more complex narratives of violence, subjectivity, and liberation.

The Modern Formulation Of Chinese Art History And The Building Of A Nation In Early Twentieth-Century China, Chennie Huang

Dissertations and Theses

At the dawn of the twentieth century, the Chinese formulation of art history underwent dramatic changes. It moved away from the traditional narratives that did not follow a strict chronology to adopt the Western linear model which emphasizes progress and national identity. Based on the premodern tradition, the modern formulations of Chinese art history began as a political strategy for nation building amid the political upheavals, including military attacks on China that led to the end of Qing imperial rule and the beginning of the Republican era (1912-1949).

In the early 1900s, while exiled in Japan, Liang Qichao 梁啟超 (1873-1929), …

Contemporary Art And Food: An Examination Of Three Case Studies Using Anthropology And Diaspora As Key., Viridiana S. Mayagoitia

Dissertations and Theses

Food-related artworks are as crucial to understanding culture as other mediums in art like painting, installation, sculpture, and drawings. From Greek and Roman mosaics, Egyptian banquet scenes, to Renaissance frescoes and Flemish still-life paintings, the depiction of food and meals has had multiple meanings. Food as a medium in Western contemporary art was introduced in the 1930s by the Italian Futurists’ banquets, which celebrated modernity and technology underlying social and political commentary. It continued throughout the 1960s with performance art, conceptual art, and happenings, and in the 1970s with the Fluxus movement’s exploration of the boundaries between art and life. …

Legal Frameworks For Protecting Cultural Heritage In Conflict Zones, Marcie M. Muscat

Dissertations and Theses

Cultural heritage has always been at risk during times of war. UNESCO first endeavored to address the issue shortly after World War II, in 1954, when it passed the first of three signature conventions to protect against the damage, destruction, and pillage of cultural property in times of armed conflict. Lacunae and other deficiencies in their frameworks, however, rendered these conventions difficult to enforce and largely ineffectual. This study offers an assessment of the strengths and limitations of the UNESCO system of cultural-heritage protection, with a particular focus on the 1954 Hague Convention. It is argued that, by superseding certain …

Re-Thinking Risk Management Of Auction House Guarantees And Third-Party Irrevocable Bids, Nathan Krasnick

MA Theses

This paper addresses the question of how deviations between expected and actual art auction results impact the auction guarantees made within an artist’s market and among multiple artists, and whether those impacts can be identified and quantified. To do so, I use a theoretical pricing model based on datasets of historical auction records going back to the earliest available date for a specific artist but no further than 2010. I find that, in comparing the model’s expected and actual results to empirical price deviations at auction, we can identify and quantify the impact of those deviations on guarantees.

Role Of Art In International Relations : Analysis Of The Key Operational Patterns On The Example Of French Cultural Cluster, Maria Meshcherskaya

MA Theses

Reflecting on the role of art in the socio-cultural context would be unfair not to notice its unconventional nature of the transformation, definition, and understanding, depending on the time, place, and society, which would start the dispute. Yet, there is still no one answer or guide on how does art work as a singular system, using multiple mediums for translating, spreading, and sharing values from one culture to the another, without destroying origins of the message, but organically adopting it for the new environment. Luckily there is a set of tendencies kept by centuries, analysis of which might bring a …

Hilma Af Klint's Divine Commission, Paintings For The Temple : Modern Western Esotericism Embodied And Art Historical Norms Redfined, Hilary Cianciolo

MA Theses

Swedish occultist, scholar, and artist, Hilma af Klint (1862-1944), produced a series of 193 paintings after receiving a commission in 1906 from a divine spirit who offered complex iconographic insight into human ontology. The resulting series of colorful abstract paintings would not only alter her life, but also redefine contemporary perceptions of the Western art historical canon. Although all works of art are inherently spiritual to a degree, af Klint’s, commission Paintings for the Temple, is an example of Modern Western Esotericism. The commission maintains the six principle characteristics the construct is defined by, including: Role of Mediations and Imagination, …

The Old Masters Market And The Salvator Mundi: What Did It Do, What Can Be Done?, Mary Sullivan

MA Theses

On 3 November 2017, within the Post-War & Contemporary Evening Sale at Christie's auction in New York, nestled between a Vija Celmins and Jean-Michel Basquiat, was a painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, the Salvator Mundi (1490-1500.) The work quadrupled the estimated sale price of 100 million USD, hammering at 400 million (for a total of 450.3 million with buyer’s premium.) This work, setting the record for the most expensive work of art ever sold, at auction or private, creates a curious case for the Old Masters category. What appears to be a shrinking, potentially dwindling category of art, now …

Acts Of Meaning, Resource Diagrams, And Essential Learning Behaviors: The Design Evolution Of Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb, Ian Schreiber

Articles

Lost & Found is a tabletop-to-mobile game series designed for teaching medieval religious legal systems. The long-term goals of the project are to change the discourse around religious laws, such as foregrounding the prosocial aspects of religious law such as collaboration, cooperation, and communal sustainability. This design case focuses on the evolution of the design of the mechanics and core systems in the first two tabletop games in the series, informed by over three and a half years’ worth of design notes, playable prototypes, outside design consultations, internal design reviews, playtests, and interviews.

Museum Educators' Processes For Creating Inclusive Curricula On American Slavery, Dawn Chitty

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

To close a gap in the literature, this study sought to develop a deeper understanding of the processes museum educators use to create inclusive curricula on American slavery. The research design was a qualitative, descriptive, multicase study using data collected from a purposefully selected sample of museum educators, along the Eastern Seaboard region of the United States, who had previously created inclusive curricula on slavery. Null's radical curriculum theory formed the conceptual framework for this study. Individual interviews of 11 museum educators were recorded, transcribed, and coded in two cycles, using in vivo and pattern coding methods. Additionally, examples of …

Inventing Christine De Pizan: Art And Authorship In Late Medieval France, Adria Leigh Woodruff

Senior Independent Study Theses

The Book of the Queen (Harley 4431) is one of the most exquisite and fascinating manuscripts of late medieval France. Compiled for Queen Isabeau of Bavaria between 1411 and 1415 by Christine de Pizan and her small workshop, the codex is one of the largest and most illuminated of Christine’s works. While the literature on the poems of the book is vast, the miniatures have received significantly less attention. I endeavor to contribute to the literature on Christine de Pizan’s illuminations, as they serve as important amplifications of her allegories. Therefore, it is necessary to examine her miniatures in order …

Martian Mother, Elizabeth Mcgrady

Theses and Dissertations

This paper examines the relationship between humans and land, through the lens of the scientific and religious, bridging the physical realm with the spiritual. It acts as accompanying material to the project titled Martian Mother, supplementary information to the visual work, and an extension of the proposal, the center of the work. The proposal exists to send myself, or a like-minded individual, to Mars with artificial insemination equipment to give birth to the first Martian, becoming the first Martian Mother. This work is rooted firmly in speculative fiction, creating a nonlinear future framework for a new society and space exploration.

Prey Begins With Play, Seren C. Moran

Theses and Dissertations

My work examines the lasting psychological and emotional torment of trauma focusing on sexual violence against women. My thesis consists of five short animated films recounting non-fiction experiences of sexual assault. To contextualize my work within cultural and historical representations of sexual violence, this text reflects my research on the mishandling of rape in Western art history as well as contemporary politics and cinema. In both my work and research, I address the complicated, and often contradictory, internal reality of experiencing and remembering trauma and how this relates to artistic strategies such as collage and maximalism. My personal struggles recovering …

(Re)Forming And (Re)Fusing The Sub-Divided Self, Laura Boban

Theses and Dissertations

The split between the individual and being part of a social body is addressed in this paper. I begin with my suburban upbringing; applying notions of separate and sub-divided to the construction of one’s aspirations, gender expression(s), and one’s ideological alignment. I contemplate the forces directing individual and shared desires and the persistent messaging of individual pursuits over efforts that benefit many. What does it mean to participate in a collective dreaming of one’s own wealth, happiness, and power? Can one cultivate an integrated art practice and sense of self? In the studio, I layer and abstract figures, stack household …

Institutional Effect: Consistency And Contingency In The Art & Pedagogy Of Josef Albers, Andrea Alvarez

Theses and Dissertations

Josef Albers (1888–1976) was an artist and educator best known for his teaching on color and for his painting series Homage to the Square, which he worked on from 1949 until his death. The symbiotic relationship between his teaching and artmaking practices, as well as the value Albers placed on the ongoing pursuit of knowledge, contributed to a lifelong commitment to teaching and learning whether he was at the Bauhaus, BMC, Yale, or in any other institutional context. This dissertation, in addition to offering a history that addresses the development of both Albers’ teaching methods and his artworks, …

How Contemporary Curatorial Practice Co-Opts Participatory Art, Caroline S. Eastburn

CMC Senior Theses

Instagram users post photos in art exhibitions all of the time. Contemporary art curators and museums have a role to play in this new phenomenon. Programming and curating participatory art exhibitions allows for the perfect art selfie which draws in visitors from around the world. But, how do curators and museums affect the significance of these artworks by placing them within the Instagram age? This thesis uses the three exhibitions as case studies: Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors at the Broad Museum in Los Angeles, Take Me (I'm Yours) at the Jewish Museum in New York, and "Hélio Oiticica: To Organize …

“Putting The Arts In Their Place”: A Case For Map-Making In Art History, Marco Jalla

Artl@s Bulletin

The use of cartography in art history is less than common. Because of its link to the old artistic geography (Kunstgeographie) once used to defend nationalist issues in Nazi Germany, it fell into disfavor until the 1960s and 1970s, when maps regained some attention from a new generation of art historians. Mapping arts indeed proves to be very useful to visualize and organize large dataset and to formulate new hypotheses, both as a descriptive and a prospective tool. The challenge we proposed to the authors was to use maps for questioning the territorial logics, the centers and peripheries of the …