History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

Because I Must, Debra M. Sachs

Art & Art History ETDs

Things that make sense don’t necessarily work. Those that are nonsense often do.

The Creation Of Abstract Forms In Metal, Lynn Ellen Peters

Art & Art History ETDs

The purpose of this thesis is to explain the creation and the reasoning behind a group of jewelry pieces which was begun in August, 1974. The following discussion of my work covers a range of topics related to my jewelry and how they reflect my philosophical outlook. In my efforts to create abstract forms derived from nature, I work with two mental processes which deal with my intuitions and intellect and they help me to make use of my creative abilities. Much can happen from these processes, and I hope to justify my jewelry making not only on these terms, …

Predicting The Unpredictable, Elizabeth A. Kay

Art & Art History ETDs

My work is an attempt to create a visual metaphor for my personal attitude towards life which stems not only from intuition, but also from my continued interest in literature, history, and philosophy. I have tried to clarify my intuitive feelings by drawing upon other points of view which seem to resemble my own and to question personal opinions when others seem more reasonable. Consequently, my work is the visual product of a great deal of mental speculation and the imagery often has a close relationship with the thinking that inspires it.

Maps And Space: Notes On Organization, Michael Christopher Stousland

Art & Art History ETDs

This thesis will begin with a brief introduction to work which was begun in 1975. I will then discuss the use of maps in my work, first as metaphor, in relation to recent drawings, and second, concerning the symbolic sense in which they are used in my paintings. Finally, I will discuss the use of various map projections in the most recent work, concluding with observations on the nature of geometry and organization.

I Want To Say Something About All That Noise, Stacy Louise Mann

Art & Art History ETDs

When I paint, I often feel as though I am casting characters for an episode. The characters come from the world around me. They are arranged diagrammatically or physically with other images. The characters are talking their places for a ritual. Through rituals we can transcend our surroundings or pass through gates and extend our aesthetic limits. It is fantasy.

European Influences In Early Colonial Descriptions And Illustrations Of The Mexica Monthly Calendar, Betty Ann Brown

Art & Art History ETDs

Titanium dioxide (Ti02) has been studied to determine the feasibility of using this dielectric material in Metal-Insulator-Semiconductor (MIS) structures. MIS structures utilizing various dielectric materials have received considerable attention in recent years. Materials such as titanium dioxide which exhibit a high permittivity are attractive as insulators in MIS devices because of high capacitive density, good surface control for thick films, large power handling capability, and reduction in device size.

The Cliché-Verre In The Nineteenth Century, Elizabeth J. Glassman

Art & Art History ETDs

The cliché-verre process is a photographic technique; an image is made on a glass plate which is then employed as a negative for contact printing on a light-sensitive sheet of paper. The cliché-verre method for creating prints was developed in the mid-nineteenth century, a period of intense technical experimentation in photography and of revived interest in the graphic process of etching. As the cliché-verre incorporates elements of both printmaking (a drawn matrix through a prepared ground) and photography (the presence of a photographic negative), the technique has occupied a middle ground between the two arts. The process has been explored …

The Kilburn Brothers Stereoscopic View Company, Thomas W. Southall

Art & Art History ETDs

In 1865 in the small northern New Hampshire town of Littleton, Edward and Benjamin West Kilburn founded the Kilburn Brothers Stereoscopic View Company. Stereoscopic photography is the process whereby mounted pairs of slightly different photographs give the illusion of three dimensionality when viewed through a stereoscope. Stereography had been introduced to America over ten years before the Kilburns began publishing views, but it became an especially popular form of parlor entertainment in the decade following the Civil War.

Particularly noted for their stereographs of the White Mountains, the Kilburn Company also published quantities of views of national and international subjects. …

On My Development As A Painter Since 1971, David Glenn Hines

Art & Art History ETDs

By painting in a representational style, I have become more aware of the way in which I relate visually to the world around me. Exploring this relationship has provided me with a physical and mental activity by which I can establish a self-identity compatible with my personality and intellectual capacities. It also gives me the means to provide worthwhile experience for many other people. I have explored these interests through a style which is traditional yet still seems to me to offer contemporary challenges. By taking attention away from the painting as art object and putting it on the world …

Nonverbal Communication, Mary Deborah Britton

Art & Art History ETDs

'Speechless complainer, I will learn thy thought; In thy dumb action will I be as perfect As begging Hermits in their holy prayers: Thou shalt not sigh, nor hold thy stumps to heaven, Nor wink, nor nod, nor kneel nor make a sign, But I of these will wrest an alphabet, And by still practice learn to know thy meaning.’ –Anonymous

My Work As The Visible Revelations Of My Private World, Susan Louise Ricker

Art & Art History ETDs

Seeing the subtleties of one’s own aging is difficult. The body changes slowly; the maturing process is accepted without surprise. The method by which a person gains understanding of that self-growth is by retrospective reflection not only through memory, but through an assessment of the physical by-products of one’s own life. My art is the direct link to reviewing my growth process. In this paper I will discuss the changes that have taken place in my art, how these changes are always in agreement with my personal changes, and how the two are inseparable so what either change can cause …

The Reciprocal Influence Of Georgia O'Keeffe And Alfred Stieglitz, Meridel Rubenstein

Art & Art History ETDs

This dissertation will prove that Georgia O'Keeffe, painter, and her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, photographer, had a strong influence on each other's work. This paper compares O'Keeffe and Stieglitz as working artists and traces chronologically their growth in relation to one another.

The method of comparison is used to prove their reciprocal influence. The dissertation is divided into seven different time periods in chronological order.

The first chapter examines their individual histories prior to their meeting in 1916 to prove their need for one another in terms of their images as well as the circumstances in their particular lives at the …

The Iconography Of Mesoamerican Stone Yokes, Laurie Castro

Art & Art History ETDs

In the past hundred years the significance and function of the pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican stone yoke have been widely discussed. Although it is now generally believed that the stone yoke is related in some way to the Mesoamerican ball­game, the precise role of the yoke is still not completely understood. In this study, the principle motifs of 53 stone yokes are examined and their iconography analyzed in an attempt to come to a better understanding of their relationship with and their use in the pre-Hispanic mesoamerican ballgame.

In attempting to interpret the various motifs characteristic of stone yokes from the Middle …

"Untitled", Sharret Rose

Art & Art History ETDs

In the past two years my work has gone through many changes. It has evolved from the naive belief that a piece of art could be meaningful to all people regardless of their background, to a personal understanding that art can not be that far reaching or controlled. I am now content to paint personal symbols that convey what is important to me. It is still my belief that understanding is available to all but not from pat formulas. This thesis describes the visual changes and the thoughts behind them.

An Analysis Of My Work, Michele Rockstroh

Art & Art History ETDs

The figure has long been a primary source of emotional, psychological and visual interest to me. I have been involved with the making of metalwork and drawings from and about different aspects of the figure for a few years now. The work done during my M.A. program at the University of New Mexico has clarified and identified the importance of the figure to my work, and helped in my recognition of vital, inherent qualities within the figure -- emotional, psychological and visual. This, then, is an analysis of the sources for the metalwork and drawings, and an explanation of what …

The Art Of Kiftlis Eg Marmae: An Interdisciplinary Work Exploring The Use Of Art History And Museology As Vehicles For Aesthetic Statements, Juan Manuel Cabrero-Oliver

Art & Art History ETDs

The Art of Kiftlis eg Marmae is a mixed-media, interdisciplinary work exploring the use of art history and museology as vehicles for aesthetic statements. Included in the exhibition are manuscripts and ceremonial objects from the ruins of Kiftlis eg Marmae, a Bronze-Age civilization in the Near East, discovered in 1827, by Sir Joshua Pennington. Kiftlis eg Marmae, its anthropology, mythology, language and iconography are all fictitious. The piece thus strives to present an ostensibly well researched show of antiquities supported by extensive research. A catalogue accompanies the show. The catalogue includes two articles written by pseudonyms of the artist, some …

The Old Gods Of The Obverse Of Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I, Jill Leslie Furst

Art & Art History ETDs

Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I is a prehispanic Mixtec screenfold manuscript painted on deerhide. Examination of its fifty-two pages reveals it to be the only example of a pre-Conquest Mixtec "land document" in which dominion over a specific, although as yet unidentified, area of the Mixteca Alta in southern Mexico is pictorially validated through the actions of deities. One class of these deities, the so-called "old gods," identified by their common characteristic of a single tooth in the corner of the mouth, is singled out for examination, to determine their identities, functions and roles in Mixtec cosmology and in ordering the …

A Visual Exploration Of Life And Death, Susan Von Glahn

Art & Art History ETDs

Seeing that this same whole

is never again to take shape

in the world. Never again will

be heard exactly that note

of laughter, that intonation of voice, that quality of repartee.

Each individual is a miracle.

No wonder we go on speald.ng

of the dead for twenty years.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

This paper is an effort to present my ideas and my reasons for being an artist. My primary concern is human existence; life and death. In trying to comprehend this existence and its meaning, I view not only human interaction, but also that of nature, its creatures and …

Revolt Against The Mystical, Joel Peter Witkin

Art & Art History ETDs

My photography has evolved through three time periods which have determined the three divisions of this thesis. The first section, entitled "Initiation," shows the effects of my primary visual experience on my life and work. The second, entitled "Induction," traces relationships between my concept of existence and my concept of photography. The third division, called "Insurrection," explains work begun in 1970. The work from that period to the present represents my personal revolt against the mystical. This third section explains the philosophical and creative causes behind the visual work. The work objectifies what my mind sees and attempts to understand. …

Notes On The Formation Of A Photographic Aesthetic In Great Britain, 1839-1890, Philip R. Flower

Art & Art History ETDs

The thesis examines the development of a coherent photographic aesthetic in Great Britain during the 19th century. It proceeds from the idea that the history of photography during this period should be viewed as a series of formal approaches to the problem of how best to utilise the medium; both for the production of art and also for the dissemination of specific information. These two uses of the medium are not seen as being mutually exclusive of one another. The thesis advances the idea that both these genres of photography offer evidence of formal attitudes towards the medium itself, which …

The Contemporary Shaman, Harry Alvin Paynter Jr.

Art & Art History ETDs

Craft design and fine art have been considered unrelated fields since the Renaissance. In the ensuing four hundred years the field of craft design had been debased by commercialism to the extent that art or artistic expression were moot points to the craftsman. In the later half of the twentieth century, however, a new Renaissance is taking place in the field of crafts. As a jeweler and an artist my work is part of the Craft Renaissance movement. The body of work presented here is created in the style of mystical artifacts and its roots are in non-industrial, non-western primitive …

Francis Bedford, 1816-1894: English Landscape Photographer Of The Wet-Plate Period, Bill Jay

Art & Art History ETDs

This dissertation examines Francis Bedford's ancestry, his early careers in architecture and lithography, and the growth of his reputation as a landscape and architectural photographer; it explores his photographic techniques and concepts, reflected in the views of exhibition notices and society discussions; it reviews Bedford's photographs in the form of single prints, cartes-de-visite, stereographs and tipped-in book illustrations; it describes the circumstances and achievements of his Royal tour; it traces his influence through the work of his son, William, and his other known associates.

Surrealism As Propaganda: American Social Surrealist Painters, 1930-1945, Michael Regan

Art & Art History ETDs

The purpose of this thesis is to examine a number of American painters who combined surrealism and social consciousness in their paintings. These “social surrealists” attempted to join a modern style of art with political and social content in paintings done between the years 1930 and 1945, with a peak of activity from about 1934 to 1940. Peter Blume, James Guy, Walter Quirt, and O. Louis Guflielmi were the chief practitioners of social surrealism. There were a number of other artists whose paintings reflected similar concerns with surrealism and social consciousness, but neither as clearly nor as consistently as those …

Harvey Ellis As Architect And Draftsman: A Clarification And Re-Evaluation, Ellen Threinen

Art & Art History ETDs

Harvey Ellis as Architect and Draftsman is first and foremost an attempt to sort out the facts of Harvey Ellis' career. This is necessary because over the years authors have lost the proper perspective on his life and work. Ellis has become known as a genius-­has been regarded as the equal of Richardson, Sullivan, and Wright. This attitude has led to the exaggeration of possible events into actual events. Harvey Ellis having been an employee of Richardson and Sullivan is a case in point. Once the perspective of Ellis as a mediocre easily influenced designer, but an excellent draftsman is …

Apollonian And Dionysian Aspects Of Greek And Roman Antiquity In Pablo Picasso's Prints, Griffin Philip Gaddie

Art & Art History ETDs

Greco-Roman antiquity strongly influenced Picasso's work--particularly his prints. This influence extends beyond the "classical" aspect of antique culture--called by Nietzsche the Apollonian aspect after Apollo and his attributes of reason, balance, etc.--to include the emotional, bacchanalian aspect as well, which Nietzsche called the Dionysian, after Dionysus, the god most associated with these qualities. Picasso's early training included neo-classic exercises; drawings from plaster copies of antique sculpture, which were to form his first impression of antiquity, and remained an important influence throughout the history of his "antiquarianism," By 1907 however his exposure to non-classical art and to the revolutionary influence of …

Toward A New Definition Of Art, Glenna Boltuch

Art & Art History ETDs

This thesis is dealing with the redefinition of the idea of art. By working toward a new definition of art, the nature of art becomes widely expanded. This extends the possibilities of art ideas and activities. Art is no longer solely concerned with the art object but is increasingly involved with questioning the nature of art itself. Art is an informative and communicative process. The linguistic nature of art is used to further redefine what art is. I am interested in language as a primary means of conveying thoughts and communicating ideas in an art context. This thesis also deals …

Photography As Poetry, Kermit Noble Lee

Art & Art History ETDs

The similarities existing between poetry and photography originate in their efforts to express the ineffable nature of things. This begins in both media after 1900 with their denial of heroic subject matter, allegory and traditional concepts of structure. Poems and photographs began to make a turn inward. Their authors began to make inner maps upon which they place symbols and metaphors relating in an enigmatic sense to the exterior world. That is, poets and photographers began an exploration of their interior universe and attempted to find relationships between it and the exterior world. Interior space becomes superimposed upon exterior space. …

My Work As A Visual Exploration Of Human Conditions, Robert J. Sanchez

Art & Art History ETDs

In this thesis I discuss important goals that occupy my attention as a visual artist. Included with the written material are slides of creative work I have done this semester.

I characterize my work as a kind that exhibits intense human emotions (hatred, violence, depression, etc.), and I make reference to other artist such as Bosh, Beckmann, and various “primitives” who have had similar concerns. Through-out the paper I make clear that it is my intention to visualize various aspects of the human condition, through a personal, figurative art. The human figure is the fundamental subject around which the thematic …

The Published Writings Of Alfred Stieglitz, Sarah E. Greenough

Art & Art History ETDs

The life and art of Alfred Stieglitz, more than any other photographer in the short history of this medium, has been subjected to seemingly endless analysis. However, biographers, thus far, have relied on interpretations of the thoughts of Stieglitz rather than his own published articles. This thesis, therefore, is directed to an extensive analysis of the published writings of Stieglitz and the new insights they afford into the personality of this seminal figure in American art and the controversies surrounding him. Also included is a compilation of all known published works by Stieglitz which number over 260 articles and letters. …

Aspects Of Photography As A Means Of Growth, Bruce H. Patterson

Art & Art History ETDs

Photography is a mechanical process which produces a pictorial representation upon a two dimensional surface. In that it produces a particular kind of two dimensional representation photography can be associated with the traditional criteria of art appreciation as far as line, form, tone and subject are concenred. In this paper photography is considered as that and as it acts as a mediator between the photographer and the world in which he lives. Photography is considered as a real time function furnishing contemplative data for later involvement. The questions of our emotional involvement to the world and to that part of …