Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Lords From The Desert, Caroline Mercado

Capstones

Lords from the Desert

This work explores a reality that is little talked about: how the most prestigious pre-Columbian art exhibits in the United States hide a murky origin. From looting of temples to illicit art trafficking, to smuggling and collectors’ affairs, the pieces gain value in proportion to the social prestige of their owner. Along the way, the most important is lost: research that provides context and allows us to know history. The First World wins a seductive, but simplistic story. The Third World, from which all these cultures emerge, loses patrimony and possibilities of understanding themselves. A pair …

Community, Preservation, And Street Art: A Proposal For San Francisco’S Mission District, Marissa Nadeau

Master's Projects and Capstones

The Latinx community is an integral part of San Francisco’s rich history. From Mexican missions in the late 1700s to an influx of immigrants from various Latin countries starting in the early 1900s, the Mission District (‘the Mission’) of San Francisco has served as a hub for this mix of residents, fondly called “Raza,” emphasizing the people of a community rather than the country they have come from. Wars and issues dealt in their homelands were close to the hearts of the entirety of the Latinx population of the Mission, and their voices and opinions were heard through a type …

Asian America And Empathy: Understanding The Chinese American Experience Through The Art Of Flo Oy Wong, Brienne Wong

Master's Projects and Capstones

This capstone examines how the work of Chinese American artist Flo Oy Wong could be an impetus for dialogue for creating empathy for the Asian American experience. The capstone briefly discusses Chinese American history as the Chinese are one of the earliest immigrant groups to the United States and Asian American art history which demonstrates the role of art for Asian Americans. It also describes the importance of empathy in society and how some museums today are trying to apply empathy to serve their communities. Within this framework, I discuss artist Flo Oy Wong whose ability to tell stories about …

The Sea Ranch: Unforeseen Failures And Statewide Successes Of An Ecologically Conscious Coastal Community, Robert Daley

Senior Theses

The term “residential development” or “planned community” brings to mind images of a stereotypical suburbia. The planned community of The Sea Ranch, along the Sonoma County coast in Northern California is a direct challenge to the suburban ideal. Construction of the nearly 1500 homes began in the late 1960s and continues to present day. All of the homes must meet specific design requirements including being ecologically sound and they must fit within the landscape. The strict architectural elements is what provides the distinct look of the community. The construction of a housing development along a ten-mile strip of untouched and …

The Aesthetics Of Frank Lloyd Wright’S Organic Architecture: Hegel, Japanese Art, And Modernism, Kenneth Charles Dahlin

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

THE AESTHETICS OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE: HEGEL, JAPANESE ART, AND MODERNISM

by

Kenneth C Dahlin

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2018

Under the Supervision of Professor Robert Greenstreet, PhD

The goal of this dissertation is to write the theory of organic architecture which Wright himself did not write. This is done through a comparison with GWF Hegel’s philosophy of art to help position Wright’s theory of organic architecture and clarify his architectural aesthetic. Contemporary theories of organicism do not address the aesthetic basis of organic architecture as theorized and practiced by Wright, and the focus of this dissertation …

Common Ground, Diverging Paths: Eighteenth-Century English And French Landscape Painting., Jessica Robins Schumacher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the early eighteenth century, both English and French artists traveled to Rome to study the great seventeenth-century landscape artists --Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin in particular—at the source. The English were motivated by a combination of reverence for the ancient, classical world, an associative imagination and a burgeoning competitive art market. The French, by an equal regard for antiquity and the pragmatic desire to complete the requirements of the monopolistic French Academy. While English landscape painting evolved away from the idealism of Claude to a modern naturalism imbued with the artist’s subjective response to a visual experience, French landscape …

Humor And Quiet Resistance: The Graphic Work Of Wilhelm Höpfner, Kelsey Jean Mccarey Soya

Theses and Dissertations

Humor and Quiet Resistance: The Graphic Work of Wilhelm Höpfner is an exhibition that was on display at the Emile Mathis II Art Gallery at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee November 15–December 20, 2018. The works consist of fine art prints produced Wilhelm Höpfner between 1921 and 1939 in Berlin and the smaller city of Magdeburg. The exhibition and this accompanying catalogue seek to introduce the reader to his work and to provide the cultural context for its interpretation. When discussing the artistic movements of Europe in the early twentieth century, there is a tendency to discuss them as discrete, contained …

The History And Signification Of The Navicella Mosaic At St. Peter's Basilica, Rome., Eston Dillon Adams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Navicella mosaic is most famously an artwork created by Giotto di Bondone. Evidence for the appearance and dating of this giant mural is discussed in this dissertation with the conclusion that it was made in 1298 and its composition is best recorded in a Parri Spinelli drawing preserved in the Musée Condé in Chantilly, France. It was admired by untold numbers of worshipers who visited the grand Constantinian basilica of Old St. Peter’s in the Vatican in Rome. The Navicella was located on the façade of Santa Maria in the Towers, an important chapel as well as the gatehouse …

The Study Of Culturally Relevant Visual Imagery And Student Interest In Contemporary Secondary Art Classrooms, Carly Marie Anderson

MSU Graduate Theses

Contemporary art pedagogy indicates some educators are using visual cultural exemplars that contain little cultural relevance to many students in their secondary art classrooms. The purpose of this study was to investigate students’ preferences and interests concerning visual imagery as the focus of curricular content in current secondary art classrooms in Southwest Missouri. This investigation began with a review of visual imagery within traditional fine art academies and what role this imagery plays in contemporary art rooms. The research question included: Were current secondary art students more interested in contemporary, culturally relevant imagery or traditional Eurocentric Western fine art imagery? …

North American Indigenous Collection And Curation And Its Impact On Market Arts., Adelaide Mccomb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the history of two North American Indigenous groups, those belonging to the Great Plains and the Arctic, and observes how settler-colonial influence determined the collection and curation of arts and artifacts in these areas. This art includes a mention of pre-Colombian works, but focuses predominantly on works being made after “first-contact” through the contemporary ear. The paper addresses the effect imperialist history has had on the development of Indigenous art markets, and how institutions such as museums may address them through ethical practices, and efforts to decolonize museum spaces.

Mirror Images: Penelope Umbrico’S Mirrors (From Home Décor Catalogs And Websites), Jeanie Ambrosio

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

As the artwork’s title suggests, Penelope Umbrico’s "Mirrors (from Home Décor Catalogs and Websites)" (2001-2011), are photographs of mirrors that Umbrico has appropriated from print and web based home décor advertisements like those from Pottery Barn or West Elm. The mirrors in these advertisements reflect the photo shoot constructed for the ad, often showing plants or light filled windows empty of people. To print the "Mirrors," Umbrico first applies a layer of white-out to everything in the advertisement except for the mirror and then scans the home décor catalog. In the case of the web-based portion of the series, she …

Construction Of Reality: Symbolic And Social Practice Of Michael Kurzwelly’S Słubfurt And Nowa Amerika, Olga Kostyrko

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis is concerned with the analysis of two long-term community-based socially engaged art projects of German artist Michal Kurzwelly: “Słubfurt” (1999-2018) and “Nowa Amerika” (2010-2018). The research methodology for the analysis is drawn from the fields of art theory and criticism, and sociology. More specifically, in order to evaluate the social impact of long-term social art practices on the local community I borrow the criteria from the sociological discourse of bottom-up community development, while simultaneously, combining it with the insights from art criticism to discuss aesthetic dimensions of the work. I am arguing that Michael Kurzwelly’s projects are good …

Arts Of Resistance: Ecologic History And Contemporary Interventions In The Valley Of Mexico, Chloë L. Courtney

Art & Art History ETDs

This thesis analyzes two contemporary artworks concerning Mexico City’s complex socio-ecologic history: the installation The Return of a Lake (2012), by Maria Thereza Alves, and the performance Plan Acalote (2015) by the collective Plan Acalli (Carlos Huitzil and Ehecatl Morales). Mexico City faces land subsidence, flooding, and water shortages. Systemic power imbalances and ongoing efforts to transform a wetland landscape to a city conforming to Eurocentric ideals concentrate these problems in marginal communities. Using strategies of eco-criticism, decolonial thought, and performance studies, I argue that The Return of a Lake and Plan Acalote link broad social and ecologic problems with …

Compositional Analysis And Cross-Cultural Examination Of Blue And Blue-Green Post-Fire Colorants On Tolita-Tumaco Ceramics, Breanna F. Reiss

Art & Art History ETDs

Blue and blue-green ceramic colorants are an uncommon occurrence in the ancient Americas. This paper explores blue and blue-green post-fire colorants used by the coastal Tolita-Tumaco culture of ancient coastal Ecuador and Colombia through compositional testing and cross-cultural comparison. Using X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive spectroscopy, one sample each of blue and blue-green colorants were tested to identify the mineral composition present. Though the colorants were thought to likely originate from copper carbonates like azurite or malachite, or perhaps even similar to other Mesoamerican pigments like Maya Blue, the blue-green pigment, collected at La Tolita, …

Chinese Government’S Inability To Use Film – One Of The Most Powerful Cultural Tools Of Soft Power Expansion – To Achieve Its Soft Power Expansion Goals: Lessons For China To Tackle Its Soft Power-Deficit Problem, Kyungin Kim

International Political Economy Theses

Many scholars of Chinese soft power commonly believe that despite the fact that China has been working hard to achieve successful soft power expansion, one of the biggest factors that leads to Chinese soft power deficit or failure of the Chinese government to effectively trump “China threat” is its inability to use its cultural industries as a tool to fulfill its soft power expansion goals. This is a major obstacle to China in achieving its goal of successful Chinese soft power expansion, as it is said that culture is the most traditional and powerful source of soft power expansion. This …

A Voyage Into The Abyss – A Look Into The First Year Of The Jamestown Settlement, Austin Valentine, Austin Valentine Jr.

Student Scholarship & Creative Works

A brief introduction into the first year at the Jamestown settlement and the troubles the settlers faced upon arrival to the New World.

A Comparative Analysis Of Non-Invasive Exploration Techniques Lidar Vs. Aerial Photography – Kincaid Mounds Archaeological Site, Austin Valentine, Austin Valentine Jr.

Student Scholarship & Creative Works

KINCAID MOUNDS - A Comparative Analysis of Non-invasive Exploration Techniques is a journal of my efforts to conduct non-invasive site investigations at the Kincaid Mounds Archaeological site in Southern Illinois. Through the utilization of tools such as; drones, photography, satellite imaging, light distance and ranging, and powerful analysis software, I will demonstrate a number of useful techniques which one can utilize to conduct independent site investigations without disturbing a sites landscape or structural integrity. Thus, illustrating differences between those techniques and pointing out their strengths and weaknesses in their various applications.

During this journey, I will also venture into the …

Zone-Decorated Pots At The Hatch Site (44pg51): A Late Woodland Manifestation Of An Ancient Tradition, Douglas Makin

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Excavated in the 1970s and 80s by Lefty Gregory, the Hatch site is arguably among the most significant precolonial archaeology sites in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Though the collection sat in storage for decades, it recently became accessible to researchers. The thorough excavation combined with abundant radiocarbon data allow the historical narrative of this magnificent site to come into focus. an unusual place, hidden in a remote location, the Hatch site witnessed at least 600 years of regularly occurring ritualized gatherings. These gatherings involved the sacrifice and internment of dogs as well as elaborate feasts on both estuarine and terrestrial …

Ancestral Landscapes: A Study Of Historical Black Cemeteries And Contemporary Practices Of Commemoration Among African Americans In Duval County, Jacksonville, Fl., Brittany Brown

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The end of slavery in North America presented an opportunity for African Americans in Jacksonville, Florida to reinvent themselves. The reconstruction era brought about new social, political, and economic opportunities for African Americans living in Jacksonville. Despite the failure of Reconstruction and the implementation of Jim Crow, Jacksonville gave birth to a vibrant African American aristocracy. Jacksonville's Black elite comprised of doctors, lawyers, morticians, religious leaders, business people and other professionals. Jacksonville's Black elite thrived in the early half of the twentieth century, many of them used their knowledge and skills to contribute to the social and economic development of …

Indigenous Political Organization In Huamachuco, Peru, In The Early Seventeenth Century., Carolina Delgado Domínguez

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis explores socio-political practices in the former Huamachuco province (upper Virú valley, northern Peru) through the analysis of a legal document from the first decade of the 17^th century. I analyze a litigation regarding indigenous political organization during the first centuries of the Colonial period. This case sheds light over the interaction between a cacicazgo (chiefdom) in the highlands of Huamachuco, and a cacicazgo in Simbal in the middle zone between the coast and the highlands (the chaupiyunga ecological zone), and on endurance of pre-Hispanic political practices during the early Colonial period in the Peruvian north. The 16 …

1981: One Or Several Aesthetics?, Jacob Norris

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Gilles Deleuze’s monograph on Francis Bacon, The Logic of Sensation (1981), proposes a theory of aesthetic experience that prioritizes the material depths of sensation over stable, identifiable forms. Deleuze’s key references in The Logic of Sensation to playwright Antonin Artaud arouse the suspicion that Artaud’s schizophrenic experience of language, wherein words are reduced to phonetic ramblings, illuminates how Deleuze interprets this chaos of sensation in Bacon’s art. My work therefore calls back to The Logic of Sense (1969) and the first section of his book on Masochism (1967) to explore the waves of consistency between Deleuze’s understanding of language and …

Visualizing Knowledge In The Illuminated Manuscripts Of The Breviari D’Amor, Joy Partridge

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Diagrams blur the line between text and image; they are both tools for communicating linguistic meaning and powerfully evocative visual forms. However, scholarship on medieval diagrams has focused primarily on their didactic functions, emphasizing the ways in which monks and other scholars used diagrams as tools for learning—about everything from Christian theology to ancient philosophy—and for developing modes of thought that support such learning. In the late Middle Ages, as education expanded beyond the realm of the intellectual elite, new book types emerged. One of which, the encyclopedia, endeavored to simultaneously instruct and delight a broader, non-monastic and non-scholastic audience, …

Writing With Light: Cameraless Photography And Its Narrative In The 1920s, Karen K. Barber

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Cameraless photography’s resurgence in the 1920s has long been discussed by art historians and critics as either a facet of modernist “new photography,” or as a specialized practice associated with prominent figures of the interwar avant-garde. In their discussions of the medium, scholars have aligned cameraless photography with specific movements, groups, schools, or individuals, as a means of situating its emergence and subsequent popularity in the 1920s. This dissertation broadens the understanding of cameraless photography (also referred to as photograms) and its narrative by shifting the focus to the publications responsible for the medium’s articulation and dissemination in the years …

The Labyrinth And The Cave: Archaic Forms In Art And Architecture Of Europe, 1952–1972, Paula Burleigh

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the prevalence of spatial archetypes as potent symbols that manifested in art, architecture, exhibition design, and urban planning in the aftermath of World War II and into the Cold War. Owing to the dual influence of structuralism and phenomenology in French intellectual culture, many examples discussed here were produced in France or made by artists who spent significant time there. These figures include Jacqueline de Jong, Paul Virilio, Claude Parent, André Bloc, and the Groupe de Recherche d’Art Visuel (GRAV), all of whom made projects evoking speculative realities that oscillated between utopian and dystopian.

Given their focus …

Animated Art History: A Look Into Disney’S Representation Of Artwork In Film, Brianna Lagacé

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis discusses the representation of artworks in Disney films. It is an innovative study of Disney’s films through an art historical lens. The first chapter considers how representations of art convey Disney’s messages, specifically through medieval art, architecture, and literature. The second chapter examines the art’s role in character development with respect to gender and sexuality. The last chapter criticizes the process by which Disney characters shift from childhood to adulthood. The entire thesis observes the relationship between the art and the characters, plot, and setting of the film. All in all, this thesis considers the implications of representing …

Un/Dead Animal Art: Ethical Encounters Through Rogue Taxidermy Sculpture, Miranda Niittynen

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Beginning in 2004, the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists began an art movement of taxidermied animal sculptures that challenged conventional forms of taxidermied objects massively produced and displayed on an international scale. In contrast to taxidermied ‘specimens’ found in museums, taxidermied ‘exotic’ wildlife decapitated and mounted on hunters' walls, or synthetic taxidermied heads bought in department stores, rogue taxidermy artists create unconventional sculptures that are arguably antithetical to the ideologies shaped by previous generations: realism, colonialism, masculinity. As a pop-surrealist art movement chiefly practiced among women artists, rogue taxidermy artists follow an ethical mandate to never kill animals for the …

Skim, Joy Wong

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis dossier provides the theoretical structure to my art production, and is presented alongside my thesis exhibition skim at McIntosh Gallery. This document is comprised of three parts: a comprehensive artist statement outlining the methodology and theory to my work, a case study of painter Cecily Brown, and photographic documentation of my studio practice. These components illustrate the research and material engagement about skin, corporeality, the abject, the grotesque, the formless, and purity.

Public Art And Patronage: A Collective Study Of Four Of Buffalo, New York's Early Monuments, 1882-1907, Drew C. Boyle

Museum Studies Theses

The goal of this paper is to investigate the motivations of the patrons behind four of Buffalo, New York’s early monuments. These are the Soldiers and Sailors Monument (1882), the Lincoln, The Emancipator Monument (1902), the Red Jacket Monument (1890), and the McKinley Monument (1907). Each section contains historical context regarding the time period, critical events that influenced the monument, comparisons to similar monuments in the United States, and the narratives of the monument’s dedication and ceremonies. When grouped together, the historical context provided for each monument essentially plays into the motivations behind why each monument was erected. Lastly, the …

Design Guidelines: A Practical Guide To Preserving The Historic, Cultural, And Architectural Heritage Of Gladewater, Texas, Conor Herterich

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In October of 1930, Columbus Marion Joiner’s oil rig, “Daisy Bradford No. 3,” blew a gusher of oil high into the East Texas sky. The subsequent storm of economic activity that resulted from the discovery of the East Texas oilfield irrevocably changed the built environment of many small towns in the region, including Gladewater, Texas. Oil money that flowed into the city funded a flurry of building projects in the 1930s and 1940s that left an indelible mark on the landscape of Gladewater’s downtown area. Unfortunately, a lack of oversight, planning, and guidance has since led to the deterioration of …

The Spatial Agency Of The Catacombs: An Analysis Of The Interventions Of Damasus I (305-384), Natalie A. Hall

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Damasus I (305-384) ascended to the office of the Bishop of Rome after a bitter and bloody battle with Ursinus in 366 CE. The violence was a culmination of doctrinal squabbles and power contests which erupted in the Roman church over the course of the fourth century. Damasus engaged in a substantial program of physical renovation and enlargement of martyr sites and personally penned numerous epigrams both extolling the virtue of the honored dead and the patronage of the bishopric. Scholarship related to Damasus and his works is typically narrowly focused, considering motive(s) for his actions, his use of specific …