History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

Society And Style: Prints From The Sheldon Museum Of Art, Alison G. Stewart, Paul Royster

Zea E-Books Collection

This collection of works explores how Societies and Styles changed over the course of Early Modern Europe (1500-1800) from the time of the advent of printing on paper to the Industrial Revolution and beyond through little-seen printed masterpieces from the Sheldon Museum of Art’s collection. Today, “print” continues to endure even as new forms of digital publications transform our world in previously unimaginable ways, just as printing did centuries ago.

This exhibition offers a view into the ways printed works of art on paper (mostly woodcuts, engravings, and etchings) showcase society and its various aspects, ranging from one Christian martyrdom …

A Fragmented Treasure On Display: The Turfan Textile Collection And The Humboldt Forum, Mariachiara Gasparini

Textile Society of America: Symposium Proceedings

In the summer 2012, thanks to the Department of Central Asian Art of the museum and the International Dunhuang Project (IDP) at the British Library in London, UK, the so-called Turfan textile collection--gathered during the last century Prussian Turfan Royal Expeditions in the Tarim Basin--held in the Museum of Asian Art in Berlin, Germany, was finally microscopically analyzed and digitized. Except for a couple of pieces taken into account in previous studies as examples of comparison, the collection as a whole (ca. 350 pieces) has not enjoyed particular attention from scholars in the fields of Chinese or Central Asian art …

Man’S Best Friend? Dogs And Pigs In Early Modern Germany, Alison Stewart

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Faculty Publications and Creative Activity

When Jacob Seisenegger and Titian painted individual portraits of Emperor Charles V around 1532, a dog replaced such traditional accouterments of imperial power as crown, scepter, and orb.3 Charles placed one hand on the dog’s collar, a gesture indicating his companion’s noble qualities including faithfulness.4 At the same time, another more down-to-earth meaning for the dog had become prominent in the decades before the imperial portraits: the interest in and ability to eat anything in sight. This pig-like ability resulted in dogs, alongside pigs, becoming emblems of indiscriminate and gluttonous eating and drinking during the early sixteenth century when humanists, …

The Mayaarch3d Project: A 3d Webgis For Analyzing Ancient Architecture And Landscapes, Jennifer Von Schwerin, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Fabio Remondino, Giorgio Agugario, Gabrio Girardi

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

There is a need in the humanities for a 3D WebGIS with analytical tools that allow researchers to analyze 3D models linked to spatially referenced data. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) allow for complex spatial analysis of 2.5D data. For example, they offer bird’s eye views of landscapes with extruded building footprints, but one cannot ‘get on the ground’ and interact with true 3D models from a pedestrian perspective. Meanwhile, 3D models and virtual environments visualize data in 3D space, but analytical tools are simple rotation or lighting effects. The MayaArch3D Project is developing a 3D WebGIS—called QueryArch3D—to allow these two …

Science Fictional Transcendentalism In The Work Of Robert Smithson, Eric Saxon

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

In studies of American artist Robert Smithson (1938-1973), scholars often set the artist’s early abstract expressionist and Christian iconographical paintings apart from the rest of his body of work, characterizing this early phase as a youthful encounter with the enduring legacy of abstract expressionism in the late 1950s to early 1960s as well as a temporary preoccupation with ritualized Catholic imagery. This thesis argues for the inclusion of this early phase into Smithson’s career as a foundational period in which he established the set of problems that artistically engaged him throughout his life: issues of temporality, materiality, and universal entropy. …

Many Worlds Converge Here: Vision And Identity In American Indian Photography, Alicia L. Harris

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

Photographs of Native Americans taken by Frank A. Rinehart at the Trans-Mississippi and International Exposition in 1898 were then and continue to be part of the construction of indigenous identities, both by Anglo-Americans and Natives. This thesis analyzes the ramifications of Rinehart’s portraits and those of his peers as well as Native American artists in the 20^th and 21^st centuries who have sought to re-appropriate these images to make them empowering icons of individual or tribal identity rather than erasure of culture.

This thesis comprises two sections. In the first section, the analysis is focused on the historical …

Baye Fadioul Niang: A Brief Biography Of An Ebeniste In Senegal, Katie Jo Niang

Interior Design Program: Student Creative Activity

Baye Fadioul Niang described himself as a traditional European designer of wood furniture, doors, and trim. In 1945, at age 22, Fadioul began designing furniture as an apprentice in the state labor department of Kaolack. He settled in Dakar, where Fadioul not only designed and constructed furniture, but was a popular informal educator in the business. His furniture shop became a center for education in Menuserie and Ebenisterie, which is the art of furniture making. In 2005 Fadioul retired from furniture making because of deteriorating eyesight. Includes photos taken in February 2013 in Dakar, Senegal.

The Ambiguous Graveyard: Religious Sympathy And Erotic Desire In Sir John Everett Millais's The Vale Of Rest, Greg W. Spangler

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

The Vale of Rest, 1859, despite or because of its oddities—two nuns digging a grave—was in its own day understood as a touchstone for Sir John Everett Millais and his career. Its critical reception in 1859 was hostile, with charges of “ugliness,” but by 1897, it was hanging in the Tate museum. Scholars and biographers have accordingly seen it as a turning point in Millais’s abandonment of Pre-Raphaelite realism for a more aestheticized and bourgeois style. The subject of nuns has led other scholars to investigate Millais’s sympathies with the Oxford Movement, the midcentury effort to reform the Anglican …

The Aesthetic Unconscious, Roland K. Végső

Department of English: Faculty Publications

Within the context of recent European history, examines the phrase "aesthetic ideology" and attendant conceptual considerations. Discusses Jacques Rancière’s work and his unequivocal rejection of what he calls “this great anti-aesthetic consensus,” and the central category of the “distribution of the sensible” (le partage du sensible). Rancière calls some level of political engagement “primary aesthetics” and opposes it to actual “aesthetic practices.”

Further, considers Alain Badiou’s critique of Rancière’s Disagreement. Badiou summarizes Rancière’s argument by calling it “a democratic anti-philosophy that identifies the axiom of equality, and is founded on a negative ontology of the collective that sublates the …

Zoomorphic Penannular Brooches In 6th And 7th Century Ireland, Esther G. Ward

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

In this thesis the author examines the evolution, manufacture, and societal significance of zoomorphic penannular brooches, a type of metal dress fastener used in early medieval Ireland that is often decorated. The brooches examined are dated to the 6^th and 7^th centuries, during which the Irish underwent a process of religious conversion from Celtic paganism to Christianity, and social rank was paramount. It is in this social context that the brooches are examined. Despite the significance of this time of social change, brooches from this period tend to be overlooked by scholarship in favor of the more ornate …

Framing Cultural Capitalism: William Wilson Corcoran And Alice Walton As Patrons Of The American Art Museum, Kelsey E. Tyler

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

In 2011, Alice Walton opened what is now considered to be among the most important American art collections in the country, in a museum called Crystal Bridges, in Bentonville, Arkansas. What is remarkable is not only the exorbitant amount of money spent to open the museum - over $800 million dollars - but also that she was the primary financier. William Wilson Corcoran, a mid-nineteenth-century banker, in many ways is a better comparison than Morgan or Gardner, as like Walton he intended to found a museum dedicated specifically to American art. His museum, which he hoped would become a national …

Media Revolution: Early Prints From The Sheldon Museum Of Art, Gregory Nosan, Alison G. Stewart

Zea E-Books Collection

In the digital age, when videos are streamed and books can be read electronically, it is hard to fathom the revolutionary impact that printed images had when they first appeared in Europe around 1400. Their introduction changed forever the traditional practice of manually crafting images one by one, creating a world in which pictures could be reproduced almost without limit on a new material called paper, expanding the possibilities and audiences for images and texts of all kinds. This publication, which brings to light little-seen masterpieces from the Sheldon Museum of Art’s collection, explores the three major print techniques of …

Sebald Beham: Entrepreneur, Printmaker, Painter, Alison Stewart

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Faculty Publications and Creative Activity

The prints of Sebald Beham and his brother Barthel were the subject of a recent exhibition titled Gottlosen Maler at the Albrecht-Dűrer-Haus in Nuremberg (March 3–July 3, 2011), where this essay was included in the exhibition catalogue in German. Revised and expanded for publication in this journal in English, the essay addresses Beham’s biography and historiography and argues that Beham should be viewed as a highly creative and productive entrepreneur and as one of the first “painters” (to use terminology of the time) to specialize in prints. Between 1520 and 1550, he produced a prodigious number of prints.

Feasting And Drinking: Proverbs In Early Sixteenth-Century Woodcut Illustrations, Alison G. Stewart

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Faculty Publications and Creative Activity

Der Artikel behandelt zwei Sprichwörter, die in der Nürnberger Druckgraphik zwischen den Jahren 1524 und 1535 veröffentlicht wurden. Die im Zentrum stehenden Drucke wurden von Hans Sebald Beham angefertigt, einem Schüler Dürers, der auch als ,gottloser Maler' bekannt war. Sowohl die Bedeutung der Wendungen durcheinander wie Kraut und Rüben und die trunken Metten werden anhand dieser Drucke erforscht, als auch die Quellen, die zur Identifikation vornehmlich des zweiten, heute nicht mehr gebräuchlichen Sprichwortes dienen. Weiterhin werden die weit verbreiteten Darstellungen von Trinkgelagen näher untersucht. Wichtige Quellen, die zur Identifikation dieser Sprichwörter führen, sind Titelblätter und Textillustrationen von gedruckten Flugblättern und …

Material And Motion: Phenomenology And The Early Work Of Carolee Schneemann 1957-1973, Regina M. Flowers

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

Carolee Schneemann is a multidisciplinary artist known for using her body in her artworks in order to engage with issues of sexuality, gender and identity. Best known for her 1975 performance Interior Scroll, Schneemann’s work is most often theorized in connection with the emergence of Feminist, Performance and Body Art, yet Schneemann has always considered herself primarily a painter. In this thesis I address the disconnect between Schneemann’s repeated insistence on her status as a painter and the scholarly discussion of her work solely in relation to the integration of her body in her performative works. The period covered …

Review Of Fauvel. The First Archaeologist In Athens And His Philhellenic Correspondents, By C. W. Clairmont, Effie Athanassopoulos

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Clairmont’s book is a selection of letters addressed to Louis-François-Sébastien Fauvel, the French Consul and antiquarian, who lived in Athens from 1803 to 1822. Fauvel came to Greece for the first time in 1780. He was sent to the Orient by Count Choiseul-Gouffier in order to study, draw and acquire antiquities for Choiseul’s collection. In 1784 Choiseul-Gouffier was appointed Ambassador in Constantinople and Fauvel continued his activities as a member of Choiseul’s retinue until 1792. Subsequently, Fauvel held the position of French Consul in Athens from 1802 until 1833. With the outbreak of the War of Independence, Fauvel left Athens …

A Model Of Human Scale Tested On Rural Landscape Scenes, Richard K. Sutton

Great Plains Research: A Journal of Natural and Social Sciences (through 2013)

Landscapes such as the Great Plains have been described as lacking human scale. This study developed a quantitative model of human scale and compared it with viewers' perceptions of visual structure. Visual structure was selected from the physical features of Otoe County, NE, forming boundaries, found as ground textures, vegetative screens, and topographic breaks and was depicted in photographs of landscape scenes. The model used and tested nine classes of scale based on grain and extent of the photos rated by viewers against those from the model. Viewers identified boundaries representing grain and extent that were synthesized into a viewer-perceived …

Measured Chance, Brian R. Kluge

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

In my practice I use clay to make enigmatic, non-representational sculptures that employ reductive geometry and archetypal forms. By pressing clay into a variety of molds, it is my intention to contrast a primal crudeness with a skilled precision in my handling of the material. I fabricate objects that range in scale from handheld to human- size. In this work, I combine references to the forms of manmade things with surfaces that allude to age and wear resulting from natural patinas that occur on stone, wood, or metal. This body of work shares qualities with the Minimalist and Earth Art …

A Memory Forgotten: Representation Of Women And The Washington D.C. Arsenal Monument, Melissa Sheets

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

The Arsenal Monument in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington D.C. commemorates the twenty-one women who died while working as cartridge makers in the Washington Arsenal on June 17th, 1864. It utilizes both traditional and idealized memorial imagery, represented by an allegorical figure of Grief who stands atop the Monument’s shaft, as well as a realistic representation of the Arsenal explosion carved into the base. Erected only a year after the incident, the Monument can be interpreted as commemorating all twenty-one women by the inclusion of their names on the sides of the base. From this listing of names and the …

Sebald Beham (From The Exhibition Catalogue Die Gottlosen Maler Von Nürnberg, Alison Stewart

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Faculty Publications and Creative Activity

The prints of Sebald Beham, and his brother Barthel, were the subject of a recent exhibition titled Gottlosen Maler or Godless Painters at the Albrecht-Dürer-Haus in Nuremberg, Germany (March 3-July 3, 2011), where this essay was included in the exhibition’s catalogue in German. The essay addresses the biography and historiography of the “godless painter” Sebald Beham, a pupil of Albrecht Dürer, who received the nickname "godless painter" because of his radical pronouncements in Reformation Nuremberg when the town was on the eve of becoming Lutheran. The essay argues that Beham should be viewed as a highly creative and productive entrepreneur …

"Introduction" To Conjuring The Real: The Role Of Architecture In Eighteenth- And Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Rumiko Handa, James Potter

Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

Buildings give an immediate presence to the historical or fictional world, which otherwise is unknown or unfamiliar to the audience. The portrayal of a building’s concrete and specific substance makes the world come alive, although the building itself is a mere segment of the world that it represents. This book will trace the genealogy of this representational role of architecture, going back through the history of film and then further in literature, art, and theater, and identify its pedigree in the nineteenth century, where authors, artists, and stage managers used thorough depictions of buildings to effectively feed the audience’s historical …

Stealing Horses And Hostile Conflict: 1833-1834 Drawings Of Mato-Tope And Sih-Chida, Kimberly Minor

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

The first documented Native American art on paper includes the following drawings at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, Nebraska: In the Winter, 1833-1834 (two versions) by Sih-Chida (Yellow Feather) and Mato-Tope Battling a Cheyenne Chief with a Hatchet (1834) by Mato-Tope (Four Bears) as well as an untitled drawing not previously attributed to the latter. These images were produced and collected during the winter of 1833-1834 when the German Prince Maximilian of Wied and artist Karl Bodmer resided at Fort Clark in North Dakota. These drawings remained with Prince Maximilian’s estate until they were placed on long term loan …

Factors Controlling Pre-Columbian And Early Historic Maize Productivity In The American Southwest, Part 1: The Southern Colorado Plateau And Rio Grande Regions, Larry V. Benson

United States Geological Survey: Staff Publications

Maize is the New World’s preeminent grain crop and it provided the economic basis for human culture in many regions within the Americas. To flourish, maize needs water, sunlight (heat), and nutrients (e.g., nitrogen). In this paper, climate and soil chemistry data are used to evaluate the potential for dryland (rain-on- field) agriculture in the semiarid southeastern Colorado Plateau and Rio Grande regions. Processes that impact maize agriculture such as nitrogen mineralization, infiltration of precipitation, bare soil evaporation, and transpiration are discussed and evaluated. Most of the study area, excepting high-elevation regions, receives sufficient solar radiation to grow maize. The …

The William Suhr Papers At The Getty Research Institute, Alison G. Stewart

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Faculty Publications and Creative Activity

This article will describe the collection known as the William Suhr Papers in the Getty Research Institute and its contents, explain who Suhr was and when and where he was active, what his papers have to offer, and why consulting them should be considered by both researchers interested in twentieth-century paintings and painting restoration and by art historians and historians engaged with Germany and the vicissitudes of immigration between the two World Wars. I will also address my involvement with the Suhr Papers within the context of Pieter Bruegel’s Wedding Dance painting in the Detroit Institute of Arts and how …

The Logic Of Objects, David B. Eichelberger

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

The human mind assimilates information and experiences quickly and constantly, and is aided by mental systems that we rely on to function. We classify the input of our lives with extreme efficiency. Our notions about the things we encounter in the world are learned from past experiences, and these expectations help us file the data of our lives. My work is composed to create pause. I am interested in slowing down the processes of assimilation by manipulating our expectations, and extending events measured in microseconds into saturated and engaging experiences. Functional qualities, visual rhythms, and exaggerated proportions are some of …

Terraria Gigantica: The World Under Glass, Dana Fritz

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Faculty Publications and Creative Activity

Photographs by Dana Fritz

Terraria Gigantica examines the world’s largest indoor landscape complexes: Biosphere 2 near Tucson, Arizona; the Desert Dome and Lied Jungle at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska; and the Eden Project near St. Austell, Cornwall, UK. The project’s title refers to these enclosed structures that permit near-total control of temperature, humidity, insects, weeds and irrigation to allow the cultivation of species and creation of a landscape that would otherwise be impossible in that particular climate. Each an architectural and engineering marvel when built, they continue to stand as working symbols of our current relationship with …

Easier Said Than Done--Returning Stolen Art To Its Owners: Review Of Michael J. Kurtz, America And The Return Of Nazi Contraband: The Recovery Of Europe's Cultural Treasures, Alison Stewart

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Faculty Publications and Creative Activity

The return of "cultural treasures" stolen by the National Socialists is the subject of a burgeoning field in print and film; Michael J. Kurtz's book of 1985 is here revised and updated to include the events of recent decades: the end of the Soviet Union and a divided Germany, along with the reemergence of looted art and lawsuits seeking to reclaim it. As Kurtz states in his introduction, "cultural restitution is an ongoing phenomenon" (p. x). This situation is all too clear from Kurtz's book and parallel developments in the last few years. This extremely rich work continues to be …

Woodcuts As Wallpaper: Sebald Beham And Large Prints From Nuremberg, Alison G. Stewart

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Faculty Publications and Creative Activity

Large works on paper, in particular ones that covered walls, were new in the realm of printed works of art during the early decades of the sixteenth century. Following in the footsteps of wall hangings and tapestries of the late medieval period, wallpaper became a new concept in the Renaissance. Although wallpaper has generally fallen in and out of favor in the past several decades, it recently has been experiencing its own renaissance with visual artists. At the Rhode Island School of Design, a 2003 exhibition entitled On the Wall: Wallpaper by Contemporary Artists featured wallpaper with a variety of …

Historic Resource Study: Agate Fossil Beds National Monument, Gail Evans-Hatch

United States National Park Service: Publications

As steward of many of the United States' most important cultural and natural resources, the National Park Service (NPS) is required to create background documents along with specific plans aimed at managing and protecting these resources for the enjoyment of present and future generations. An important aspect of managing cultural landscapes requires knowing the past of those landscapes. A historic resource study (HRS) project involves researching and presenting the history of a park. A HRS also attempts to identify and evaluate the importance of all cultural resources within that park. Researching and presenting the broader historical context of a park …

Expelling From Top And Bottom: The Changing Role Of Scatology In Images Of Peasant Festivals From Albrecht Dürer To Pieter Bruegel, Alison Stewart

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Faculty Publications and Creative Activity

During the first half of the sixteenth century, the earliest visual representations of peasant festivals in European art were produced in Germany. These works, all prints, showcase peasants expelling their drink with the result that art historians today, nearly 400 years later, have described these prints as gross and indecent. In their revulsion and distancing from sixteenth-century Germany’s insistently colorful visual and verbal vocabulary, art historians of Northern European art appear to have stressed both the values and preferences of their own twentieth-century culture and that of the sixteenth-century Netherlands rather than those of the society that produced them—sixteenth-century Germany. …