History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

The Right To The City: San Francisco's Chinatown Before And After The 1906 Earthquake, Alexandra Hsu

Scripps Senior Theses

The development of San Francisco, much like many American cities, is deeply entwined with the spatial process of settler-colonialism. Fueled by White supremacist processes of appropriation, dispossession and exclusion, city officials and White San Franciscans legally, financially, and socially segregated Chinese immigrants who entered into the U.S. context to a dense and degraded ethnic enclave. Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey theorize on The Right to the City, the social production of space and the ways in which social processes can be concretized by space. This thesis applies these concepts to the racialized space of San Francisco’s Chinatown. An examination of …

Capacity, Rachel Baydian

CGU MFA Theses

This Master of Fine Arts Thesis Exhibition by Rachel Baydian is an installation of ceramic sculptures that function as a stand-in for the human body, touching on relationship, interconnectivity, and imperfection. Using abstracted forms that derive from the earth, these art objects are sculpted to mimic nature and its processes. The work highlights our human connection to nature as integrative and vital. Through experience and tactility, there is more of an awareness of space and heightened senses. The work taps into the awe and seduction of the mystery of nature through seemingly ordinary elements of the physical world.

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 …

Foster Rhodes Jackson And The Visual Conquest Of The West, Eve Kaufman

Scripps Senior Theses

Colonizers settled the Los Angeles and the Southern California region in part by using Modernism’s visual rhetoric and propagandic implications during the time of suburban sprawl. Suburban sprawl refers to the mass single family home development which took place from the 1920^[1]s until now but peaked from the 1970s to the 1990s. Los Angeles sprawl grew particularly in the 1950^[2]s as soldiers returned from WWII. It was a way for middle class white families to accrue generational wealth and follow through on the American Dream^[3].

The primary result however disenfranchised already marginalized groups. This …

The Business Of 19th Century American Landscape Paintings: A Case Study Of The Connection Between Art History And Economics, Claire Di Meglio

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis explores the economic incentives of both businessmen and artists who shared a mutual interest in the business of producing 19th century American landscapes paintings.

Sacred Flame: Meditative Mysticism In The Works Of Georges De La Tour, Elizabeth Carleton

Scripps Senior Theses

Georges de La Tour is famous for his Mary Magdalene paintings, but he remains one of the most mysterious figures in 17th Century French art. In my thesis, I elaborate the ways in which La Tour's unique painting style was impacted by Counter-Reformation meditation theology and contemporary French mystical literature. While La Tour's artistic inspirations include Caravaggio, the Caravaggisti, and French and Lorrainese Mannerists, his late-career nocturne style is a striking departure from his early career, demonstrating an intense, reflective spirituality. In his use of light and flame to symbolize holiness, La Tour positions himself as spiritual intercessor to the …

Woven By The Grandmothers: The Development Of The National Museum Of The American Indian Throughout The 1990s, Lucy Winokur

Scripps Senior Theses

In 1994, the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) opened the George Gustav Heye Center in New York City, the first of what would be three campuses. Ten years later, in 2004, the NMAI opened its main campus in Washington, D.C., already having cemented their place as leaders in a movement to center indigenous voices within museums housing indigenous material culture. By examining the history of the NMAI from the first acquisition of George Gustav Heye to its earliest approaches to exhibition design and collections management policy in the 1990s, it is possible to track the development of the …

Indominable, Kathleen A. Fox

CGU MFA Theses

INDOMINABLE, Kathleen A Fox

The reformation of the feminine portrait from that of idealistic sexual beauty into a portrait of strength, community, longevity, transformation, and inane human foundational essence of societal value. This collection of portraits illustrates the uniqueness that is often overlooked for the fast, idealistic and instantly read images of women hailed as beautiful. These women contain a space they have earned with their strength of character, spirit, and unwillingness to be moved from their places of significance. Created with an expressive abstractive edge to traditional portraiture, these female portraits refuse to be easily glossed over, for their …

Visual Teaching Of Geometry And The Origins Of 20th Century Abstract Art, Stephen Luecking

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

As a group, the artists educated near the turn of the 19^th and 20^th centuries possessed greater mathematical knowledge than expected of artists today, especially regarding constructive skills in Euclidean geometry. Educational theory of the time stressed such skills for students in general, who needed these to enter the workplace of the time. Mathematics teaching then stressed the use of manipulatives, i.e., visual and interactive aids thought to better fix the student’s acquisition of mathematical skills. This visual training, especially in geometry, significantly affected the early development of abstraction in art. This paper presents examples of this visual …

On The Use Of Geometric Elements In The Works Of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy And Piet Mondrian, Kimberly Spayd, Molly Reynolds, Christian Lansinger

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Working in overlapping artistic circles in the first half of the twentieth century, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Piet Mondrian had very different intentions for how their pieces would affect viewers. But while their aims differed dramatically, the individual techniques they employed were both rooted in a mathematical foundation. Moholy-Nagy used simple two-dimensional shapes, scaled repetition of those shapes, and variations in perspective to illustrate the potential benefits of machine technology to the common person. Mondrian, alternatively, limited the elements in his work to perpendicular lines, asymmetry, and a dedicated adherence to the plane in order to align his viewer's metaphysical state …

"The More They’Re Beaten The Better They Be": Gendered Violence And Abuse In Victorian Laws And Literature, Danielle T. Dominguez

CMC Senior Theses

During the Victorian age, the law and society were in conversation with each other, and the law reflected Victorian gender norms. Nineteenth-century gender attitudes intersected with the law, medical discourse, and social customs in a multitude of ways. Abuse and gender violence occurred beneath the veneer of Victorian respectability. The models of nineteenth-century social conduct were highly gendered and placed men and women in separate social spheres. As this research indicates, the lived practices of Victorians, across social and economic strata, deviated from these accepted models of behavior. This thesis explores the ways that accepted and unaccepted standards of female …

The Claremont Colleges Asian Studies Faculty Research Practices, Xiuying Zou, Carrie Marsh

Library Staff Publications and Research

A study on research practice and needs for library resource and service support of Asian studies faculty at The Claremont Colleges.

Syncretic Souvenirs: An Investigation Of Two Modern Indian Manuscripts, Madeline Helland

Scripps Senior Theses

The objective of this project was to establish a provenance for two Indian manuscripts that were recently discovered in the collections at Scripps College. Based on their illuminations, script, and binding structure, I was able to conclude that these two manuscripts are Hindu religious texts created around the 19^th or 20^th century. To determine an approximate origin and the significance of these volumes, my research focused on the syncretism of religion, material history, and power dynamics in India. Their context was specifically framed within the history of manuscript construction and conservation.

Photography And Mourning: Excavating Memories Of My Great-Grandmother, Eva Weiner

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper explores how photographs have affected mourning processes in the past and how photo-technology may be able to change the way in which we mourn in the future. It includes an overview of the history of post-mortem photography and discusses the perspectives of well-known media theorists such as Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag. It engages with psychologists by including their perspectives on the effect that photographs have on the mourning process. A project was created to investigate how photo-technology can affect the bereaved. The project places photographs of a mother into pictures of her children taken after she had …

Aesthetic Survival, Adrienne Devine

CGU MFA Theses

I am a mixed media artist and my creative process is guided by cultural memory, the materials I use, and the pleasure I find in the activity of making. My compulsion to make things is accompanied by a propensity for scholarship, hence, my thesis exhibition incorporates Index Obscura; a growing visual and text-based corpus of research into the history and presence of African American artists in the tapestry of American art and culture. I work with a variety of materials and techniques, and consider wide-ranging themes, connected by recurring motifs, gestures, and attributes. Abstraction creates space wherein viewers can …

The "Postmodern Geographies" Of Frank Gehry's Los Angeles, Katherine Shearer

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the ways in which Frank Gehry’s architectural contributions to Los Angeles’ social and built environment have shaped the region’s “postmodern geographies” throughout the 20^th and 21^st century. Through a focused exploration of three of Gehry’s postmodernist structures in Greater Los Angeles—a house, a library, and a concert hall—this thesis analyses how Gehry and his designs reflected and affected the artistic and socio-spatial development of Los Angeles’ “decidedly postmodern landscape.”

El Cómic Y Lo Cómico: Cómo Pablo Picasso Denuncia A Francisco Franco Con 18 Imágenes, Sydney Sibelius

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis analyzes the 18 etchings made by Pablo Picasso in his folio titled Sueño y mentira de Franco created in 1937. It examines their role in condemning Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War and how Picasso used his art to make a political statement. Additionally, the roles that humor and satire, gender, the comic strip style, and language play in the piece are discussed in regards to the effectiveness of the overall work.

Trauma And Recovery: A Confessional Process, Mia Siracusa

Scripps Senior Theses

This paper is about a confessional painting series, which appropriates Abstract Expressionist techniques, and is on geometric canvas reliefs. The main focus through out the series is the process of my recovery from a traumatic event and the process of the creation of a language through abstraction.

The Cultural Mosaic Under The Tesserae: Local Identity In The Iconography And Compositions Of Roman Floor Mosaics, Taylor Carr-Howard

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the way the medium of mosaics was adapted locally by the cities of Antioch (modern Antakya, Turkey) and Thysdrus (modern El Djem, Tunisia) during the second and third centuries CE. Compositional differences indicate different conceptions of the medium and locally specific iconography draws on viewers’ local knowledge and experience to situate the city and its inhabitants within the broader context of the Roman empire.

Fashion And Court-Building In The Sixteenth-Century Florentine Ducal Court: Politics, Agency, And Paleopathology In The Wardrobes Of Eleonora Di Toledo And Giovanna D'Austria, Leah Rachel Jeffers

Scripps Senior Theses

Fashion in the Renaissance became intensely political, highly gendered, and anatomized (i.e. emphasizing human anatomy rather than masking it). Court culture placed a particular emphasis on the body of the courtier, as skills such as dancing and dressing fashionably became crucial to political success in states throughout Europe. In sixteenth-century Florence, the Medici attempted to install a duchy in what was at the time a republican city (with strong republican heritage). Florentine fears of foreign domination and resentment towards non-republican forms of government made the Medici’s task nearly impossible. Fashion became a primary pillar of the Medicean political agenda, as …

Body, Blood, And Flood: The Ripple Of Kinesics Through Nature In Leonardo Da Vinci's Art, Rachael Herrera

Scripps Senior Theses

Leonardo da Vinci's art and science have a dynamic relationship that can be used to better understand the role of the individual and the human body within his art. Leonardo believed that movements of the body were expressions of the soul. He also thought that the body was as a microcosm of the physical world. The theories, based in ancient tradition, would be challenged by his work with the human anatomy. By studying his notebooks it becomes evident that Leonardo held nature to be the highest creator of the world but as he worked to understand the human body and …

Spreading Seeds: Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds And His Performative Personality Received In The West, Wei Wu

Scripps Senior Theses

In 2010, Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds made its debut in Tate Modern, which promoted Ai to be one of the most famous and respected contemporary Chinese artists. This Conceptual art work has multiple layers of meanings, which all corresponds to the Western expectations for a successful contemporary Chinese artist. In fact, the Western art world has long held bias and stereotypes towards international artists. Ai chose to perform his personality to conform to the expectations and Western ideologies, which brought him international fame. On the other hand, other Chinese artists, including Cai Guo-Qiang and Zhou Chunya, don't totally agree with …

Voices Of Ancient Women: Stories And Essays On Persephone And Medusa, Isabelle George Rosett

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis combines art historical analysis and creative writing in a collection of essays and short stories centered on the myths of Persephone and Medusa. Ancient art, text, and context is considered in the essays, while the stories approach these subjects on a more contemporary and personal level.

Walking In The City: Koji Nakano’S Reimagining And Re-Sounding Of The Tale Of Genji, Isabella Ramos

Scripps Senior Theses

Imagined Sceneries is a work written by composer Dr. Koji Nakano of Burapha University, Thailand for two sopranos, koto, light percussion, narrations, soundscapes recorded in Kyoto, Japan in December 2015, and digital projections of Ebina Masao’s 1953 print series Tale of Genji. Imagined Sceneries’ reimagining and “re-sounding” of Heian Kyoto relies on a balance between what is imagined and what is experienced in performance. Its many elements collectively explore multiple layers of Japanese histories, soundscapes, environments, and sensibilities. Using Michel de Certeau’s concepts of the city, this thesis journeys through Nakano’s imagined spaces.

Iain Muirhead, Iain Muirhead

CGU MFA Theses

Artist IAIN MUIRHEAD seeks possibility in a world of massive change. His work cultivates instability and chases an ungrounded experience. Systemic complexity and creative destruction are characteristic. Muirhead uses paint, objects, photography, installation, and video to break apart and reconfigure form and space. Terror often looms. Entropy gives way to emergence.

Pineapple, 022, Conversation – Behind The Cover Art, Jesse W. Standlea

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

Many sources date the pit-firing process as a 30,000 plus years-old ceramic firing technique. Every year I take my AP 3D Design class to the beach to fire ceramic pieces using this method. Being a contemporary sculptor who shows in Los Angeles I have always appreciated pit-fired pieces but never used one in my own art practice until now. A connection between the first method of firing ceramics and my art practice seemed unrelated. The title for my piece might add to the disconnect; and yet these seemingly unrelated elements force the work into a place where the artistic process …

A Skin-Deep Analysis On Deconstruction: How Transforming The Modern Surface Transformed Notions On Gender, Elise K. Young

Scripps Senior Theses

While focusing on high fashion and architecture, this thesis explores an aesthetic transition between the early 20^th century’s “modern” style and the later 20^th century style of “deconstruction.” We believe the style of “deconstruction” revolutionized visual metaphors for modern gender identity through the manipulation and experimentation of surfaces. These metaphors were accomplished through transformation relationships between surface, structure, and ornament. This study exclusively uses examples from women’s fashion and building façades for its analysis

Women Surrealists: Muses Or Seekers?, Noor A. Asif

Scripps Senior Theses

Surrealism has often been labeled as a misogynistic movement that sought to provide man with an avenue into a higher reality at the expense of the humanity of women. By perceiving the opposite sex as their muses, Surrealist men rendered women as mysterious sources of the marvelous, the name given to the higher realm, which they desired to attain. I propose that Surrealist women were empowered by the fact that ‘woman’, as an abstract concept, and femininity were synonymous with the marvelous. This entailed that Surrealist women had the advantage of being “sources of revelation, as provokers of wonder, dreams, …

Old Masterpieces, New Mistress-Pieces: Cindy Sherman's Reinterpretations Of Renaissance Portraits Of Women, Caitlyn D. Marianacci

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines a selection of eight photographs in the History Portraits series by American photographer, Cindy Sherman, produced from 1989 to 1990. The photographs are based on Renaissance paintings of biblical and secular women painted by old master artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, and Raphael. Sherman focused on the female types of Biblical mother and femme fatale, as well as wives and models. These types are defined in their relation to men and are depicted by men. In Sherman’s reinterpretations of their portraits, she retells the stories of these women in ways that reaffirm their independence …

Gynecologists, Bureaucrats, And Stoners: The Rise Of Women In Television Comedies And Critiquing The Postfeminist Perspective, Victoria Montecillo

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis looks to explore the rise of women in television comedy and the accompanying implications of this phenomenon. Using a historical framework, this thesis looks at the progression of representations of women in television comedies beginning in the 1950s up to today. Considering factors such as the rise of social media, as well as online television streaming services such as Hulu and Netflix as more legitimate avenues to distribute content, this thesis traces women’s place within television comedy, and argues that shows such as Parks and Recreation, The Mindy Project, and Broad City serve as examples of the progress …