Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Speak Now To Forever Hold Your Piece: On Aesthetic Ownership And Interpretation, Spencer Heitman

Honors Theses

The primary objectives of this research are to describe ways in the interpretation of art-objects is shaped by their ownership and to endorse fan culture participation as a mechanism through which people might be led to aesthetic value. This analysis shall be grounded in an understanding of trust and shall point the reader toward care, noting that these phenomena positively correlate and help interpreters to receive meaning of more abundance and depth. It will be initially claimed that art interpretation is itself contribution to aesthetic dialogue with artists. This claim is grounded in an understanding of art’s communicative capacities and …

Art And Aids: Viral Strategies For Visibility, Stephen Baylor Pillow

Honors Theses

“Art & AIDS: Viral Strategies for Visibility” examines the complex relationships between social stigma, healthcare, homophobia, and mortality, and how these impacted the lives of Western artists and manifested in their works. Most of the art discussed in this thesis was produced during the height of the AIDS crisis (late-1980s to mid-1990s). During this period, gay artists and their allies employed new strategies in their work to inspire activism, and convey intense emotions –– predominantly frustration, grief, and anxiety –– associated with HIV/AIDS. In the U.S., the inaction of the Reagan administration was largely due to widespread homophobia kindled by …

Contemporary Handicraft, Textile Art, And Feminist Social Critique, Kaitlynn Blow

Honors Theses

My thesis looks at the work of female contemporary artists who use what has historically been considered “women’s craft” such as embroidery, knitting, stitching and other various textile arts. Since the Women’s Art Movement of the 1970s, women have used these creative outlets to express discontent and injustice in their lives revolving around gender and identity. In my research, three main themes emerged as addressed in each chapter. The first theme addresses the topic of domesticity and memory including unseen female labor, such as domestic chores and motherhood, and how fabric holds memories. Chapter two covers gender politics- specifically the …

Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling : A Portrait Of The Renaissance, Anne A. Ferris

Honors Theses

Because a single theological interpretation of the Sistine Ceiling cannot be made, the ceiling is a portrait of Renaissance concepts. Besides the personal struggles of the Pope and Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, the ceiling is representative of the whole century before its creation. Michelangelo has mingled both civic and religious sentiments into the ceiling. Michelangelo has combined his experiences in the Medici circle with his personal beliefs. The ceiling with its most basic depiction of the fundamental concept of man's aspiration of redemption becomes almost a chaotic representation of the history of man, but which contrasts with the beauty …

Vincent Van Gogh: How His Life Influenced His Works, Paula Herrin

Honors Theses

Expressionism is a seeking of the artist to express elemental feelings that are inherent in a real world. The artist sees the conflicts in nature an in the human being and tries to express this on canvas. Vincent Van Gogh, the forerunner of this movement, strove to paint what he felt and to feel what he painted. the Expressionists after him have branched out into all directions, but all of them expressed their feelings through their art.

Vincent, the greatest and most revolutionary Dutch painter after Rembrandt, was born in Groot Zundert in the province of Noord Brabant on March …