History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

Three Case Studies Of National Narratives In Central American Art, Gustavo Larach

Art & Art History ETDs

This thesis explores the ways in which two Central American artists of the 20th century conceived of their own emerging nations through works of art that present national narratives. The first artist discussed is the Nicaraguan Armando Morales (b. 1927). This discussion centers on Moraless lithographic portfolio of seven images titled La saga de Sandino, which recounts the rebellion led by Augusto César Sandino (1895-1934) between 1926 and 1933. The second artist discussed is the Honduran Arturo López Rodezno (1908-75), who set out to produce, between the 1940's and 1960's, murals that focused on the figures of ancient Maya rulers …

The Reception Of Autos-De-Fe In 18th Century New Spain: Image, Text And Practice, Emmanuel Ortega

Art & Art History ETDs

In 18th century New Spain, autos-de-fé were publicly performed as a way to openly confront the sins of heretics and to announce their penance. Paintings of these events are among the rarest scenes ever depicted on both sides of the Atlantic. Paintings, such as Un auto de f\xe8 en el pueblo de San Bartolomé Otzolotepec ca.1716, emphasize the impressive display of power enacted by the inquisition through autos-de-fé. However, they downplay the presence of the indigenous spectator-participant in lieu of the organizers and elite invitees. In terms of content, however, this painting represents a unique example of auto images since …

Reflections Of Navajo Culture And Educational Philosophy In Two Fourth-Grade Art Education Classrooms In The Gallup-Mckinley School System, Mara K. Pierce

Art & Art History ETDs

This project takes a look at the content and the context that is presented to children in two fourth grade public school art classrooms (Gallup-McKinley County Schools district) that primarily serve Dine children. The purpose of this study is to examine the existence and relevancy of the materials delivered in those classrooms, examining how they serve the best interest of those children with respect to their cultural learning philosophies, academic success, and self-awareness as members of the Dine Nation. The project also takes a look at how the children respond to the lessons delivered in those classrooms, particularly how the …

The Once And Future King: A New Approach To Ancient Maya Mortuary Monuments From Palenque, Tikal, And Copan, Elizabeth Drake Olton

Art & Art History ETDs

This dissertation examines the Temple of the Inscriptions, Temple I, and Temple 26 and explores what could have motivated the Maya to construct these large monuments and how they might have been meaningful. Traditional art historical methods of comparative and formal analyses are employed as tools for discussing patterns of meaning among these temples. The structural and decorative programs shared by all three temples signal that they are part of a separate genre of architecture that is specifically mortuary and interactive. Furthermore, these features are also a mode of communication. Messages depicted in the offerings, sculpture, and spaces of the …

The Interrelationship Of Identities: How Artistic Practice Informs Teaching In The Visual Arts, Karen G. Adams Edwards

Art & Art History ETDs

This research is an investigation into the relationship between artistic practice and art teaching in secondary art teachers. After an examination of various perspectives on this relationship that have appeared in scholarly journals over the last several decades, some of which argue that artistic practice is essential to the quality of an art teacher's teaching, and some of which regard the two practices as separate, I interviewed five secondary art teachers to find out more about this relationship. I conducted the interviews in a semi open-ended fashion, asking questions that invited participants to discuss teaching preferences and priorities as well …

Imagining The Noble And Loyal City: An Introduction To The Biombo Franz Mayer, Madalena Consuelo Salazar

Art & Art History ETDs

The decorative arts of New Spain had, until recently, been peripheral in art historical discourse. Current scholars have begun to widen the lens of interpretation to include new spheres of influence and objects that defy traditional disciplinary classifications. One such object is the Biombo Franz Mayer, a viceregal biombo, or folding screen. Although useful for elucidating larger themes, recent studies have de-contextualized the Biombo by regarding the object in terms of group identity or as a representation of colonized spaces. Building on previous scholarship, this thesis will reintroduce the object's context, and through formal and iconographic analyses, study the screen …

'Bajo Su Sombra': The Narration And Reception Of Colonial Urban Space In Early Nineteenth-Century Havana, Cuba, Paul Barrett Niell

Art & Art History ETDs

In early nineteenth-century Havana, Cuba, a small commemorative monument was erected on the Plaza de Armas to honor the site of the city's founding. Through academic history painting, Neoclassical architecture, and the appropriation of symbolic urban space, this memorial reconstructed the sixteenth-century history of the city for nineteenth-century audiences. This addition to the plaza could be seen as an extension of the Bourbon Reforms, which aimed to modernize the city by introducing public works and pedagogical methods that would make this Cuban colony function more efficiently in the insterests of Spain. However, upon closer examination, the memorial for the plaza …

Arthur Shilling: Anishinaabemowin-MazinibiiʼIgewinini, Suzanne Rita Mcleod

Art & Art History ETDs

Arthur Shilling, Anishinaabe artist from Mnjikaning First Nation in southern Ontario, was one of the first generation, contemporary Native painters who emerged in the early years in the formation of a "Canadian Native" art. Born in 1941, Shilling was, first, an artist who wrestled with the creation of a dignified expression of a people struggling to place themselves within the general population, and second, a man whose principles demanded the preservation of cultural and personal integrity. Shilling's "people-portraits" transcended the narrow definitions of "Native" or "Indian" art, with his artistry too close to Western styles to be comfortably catalogued as …

Syncretic Topographies: The Portraits Of Seydou Keïta, Sara L. Marion

Art & Art History ETDs

This thesis examines the writing, exhibitions, and discourses that have accompanied the translocation of Seydou Keïta's photographs from the center of the French Sudan to the core of the New York art world. Between 1948 and 1962. this Malian photographer established a commercial portrait studio in the city of Bamako, then the capital of the French Sudan and now the capital of Mali. He produced a body of portraits that catered to the aesthetics of a West African clientele on the verge of colonial independence. Nearly forty years later. these photographs resurfaced in the exhibition Africa Explores: 20th Century African …

Types And Markets: Photography And Masks Among The Nuxalk In The Twentieth Century, Joanne P. Carrubba

Art & Art History ETDs

Nuxalk mask making styles changed throughout the twentieth century for various reasons. The ideas of transition, transformation, and the market are central to the establishment of these alterations. Mask making is one response to acculturation and one means of cultural survival; masks are an outward form of cultural pride.

The nineteenth century brought increased contact and trade between Native groups and Euro-Americans. Missionaries, more settlers, and tourists came to the Northwest Coast, all of whom wanted to see and experience the authentic Natives of the region before they disappeared. These groups were quickly followed by anthropologists who wanted to study …

Prints And Printmakers In Viceregal Mexico City, 1600-1800, Kelly Donahue-Wallace

Art & Art History ETDs

Although woodcuts and engravings documented viceregal life and reflected Mexican artistic achievement, they are generally absent from colonial art historiography. This lacuna is the result of persistent biases affecting print scholarship worldwide against art tainted by multiplicity, mechanical interference, labor divisions, and popular audiences. The near total lack of published information concerning the artists and their efforts has also discouraged research on Mexican prints. This dissertation is, therefore, a documentary study of the printmaking profession in the viceregal capital between 1600 and 1800. Its goal is to examine how colonial block-cutters and engravers trained, worked, and understood their art.

Documentary …

The Slide: Image And Object, Cindy D. Abel Morris

Art & Art History ETDs

Through an extensive review of the literature of the history and methodology of art history and visual resources, this thesis charts the effect of the use of slides for the discipline of art history.

The three chapters examine the conjunction between slides and art history. Chapter one gives an account of the pedagogical and practical reasons for the current predominance of the slide as the reproduction of choice in art history, concluding with a discussion of the relative importance of the text and image for art history. The second chapter briefly traces the evolution of magic lantern to 35mm format …

Rethinking Martín Chambi, Michele M. Penhall

Art & Art History ETDs

This dissertation examines the photographs of Peruvian photographer Martín Chambi. A successful photographer and celebrated artist during much of his life, Chambi and his work was largely forgotten about since the 1950s and unknown outside of South America. During the 1970s he was rediscovered and his photographs made known to audiences around the world. As a result, new interpretations of him as an artist have emerged which are different from those during his life. The photographs he is known for today are not those he considered his artistic work.

Giving Birth To Onions, Stefanie London Feld-Galbraith

Art & Art History ETDs

I have always questioned the authority of Art History. I was taught that the historians gave a true, unbiased examination of art, while the critics and the artists created works wrought with subjectivity. But experience has taught me that nothing can be looked upon objectively. Even as we look, we are changing what we see.

There is not just one truth, one voice; there are many, and this is mine. The stories you are about to see are real, except for the ones I made up, which are also real. I think the truth must be something that wraps around …

Egypt Recovered: The Photographic Surveys Of Maxime Du Camp, Félix Teynard, And John Beasley Greene, And The Development Of Egyptology, Kathleen Stewart Howe

Art & Art History ETDs

This dissertation examines the work of three photographers, Maxime Du Camp, Félix Teynard and John Beasley Greene, active in Egypt in the middle of the nineteenth century. In doing so, it relates the new technology of photography to the developing discipline of Egyptology in France. It proposes connections between the photographic oeuvres of Du Camp, Teynard, and Greene and contemporary trends in the study of Egyptian antiquity. It reveals the extent to which the personal circumstances of the three photographers mediated the influence of different sectors of the French academic and intellectual establishment.

The intent of this work is to …

Sculptors Of The Realm: Classic Maya Artists' Signatures And Sculptural Style During The Reign Of The Piedras Negras Ruler 7, John Ellis Montgomery

Art & Art History ETDs

The discovery of hieroglyphic artists' signatures on monuments of the Classic Maya represents a turning point for the study of Precolum­bian art. As key elements in the retrieval of artists from long-standing conditions of anonymity, artists' signatures theoretically afford the scholar an opportunity to follow the careers and sculptural repertoire of individual artists, allowing recognition of the artist's style over time and on unsigned monuments. However. while various studies have tried to identify individual sculptors solely on the basis of style, to date no pro­ject working in the medium of stone monuments has explored the rela­tionship between signatures and style, …

Lest She Speak, Lesley Krane

Art & Art History ETDs

From Chapter 1: In the late twentieth century, the struggle over women's reproductive rights informs Barbara Kruger's mural size, 1989 photographic screenprint, Your Body is a Battleground. Possibly appropriated from a post-World War

II women's magazine, the black and white photograph of an attractive woman's face stares out indifferently toward the viewer. The image has been vertically bisected; the left half of her face is rendered as a positive reproduction, whereas the right half is printed as a negative. The visible dot matrix and the overlay of red and white text imitate the structure of editorial layouts in (women's) magazines. …

The Linguistic Affiliation And Phoneticism Of Teotihuacan Iconography, David Brown

Art & Art History ETDs

This study examines one of the major issues of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican history--the identity of the Teotihuacan culture--through a correlation of figurative art and iconography with writing and language. An examination of the last century of Mesoamerican scholarship points out the inherent shortcomings of reconstructing pre-Conquest history from Nahua ethnohistorical documents in the early-Colonial period. A re-evaluation of methodological assumptions used in the reconstructions of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican history leads to the conclusion that the Teotihuacan culture should be studied as much as possible within its cosmopolitan context of the Early-Urban period. Further reassessment of previous iconographic studies reveals that many interpretations …

Anne Seymour Damer (1748-1828), Sculptor, Susan Benforado

Art & Art History ETDs

The Honourable Anne Seymour Darner (1748-1828), aristocrat, classical scholar, novelist and actress, was also that anomalous being, an amateur woman sculptor. By her own admission, she considered sculpture the chief business of her life, and the pursuit of the "true style," now known by its nineteenth-century name of neoclassicism, its focus. She studied sculpture privately, first with Giuseppe Ceracchi and then with John Bacon the Elder, in whose studio she may have worked for a short time; William Cumberland Cruikshank taught her anatomy. Her wealth and connections --her maternal grandfather was the fourth Duke of Argyll, the third Duke of …

The Fossil Records, Glenn Craig Cornwall

Art & Art History ETDs

This paper deals with how the traditional fossil record of the geological past with its scientific interpretations has influenced and affected my current work. It also deals with the more recent metaphoric explorations of Robert Rauschenberg with regard to the term "fossil" and their subsequent influence on my work. Comparisons between these different representations of fossils and my own work reveal similarities and parallels.

Stylistic And Iconographic Study Of Lower Central American Stone Sculpture, Joan Kathryn Lingen B.V.M.

Art & Art History ETDs

In this study of Pre-Columbian sculptures from Panama and Costa Rica, style and iconography were investigated with the purposes of determining relationships among the different archaeological regions of this area of Lower Central America, establishing geographic and time distributions of traits, and creating a relative chronology for both style and motif. Over 1400 volcanic stone sculptures were organized into the two primary categories of Ceremonial Objects and Figural Images. These were further divided on the basis of formal similarities.. The major emphasis of this study has been an analysis and seriation of effigy grinding stones and standing human images. Two …

Image And Ritual, Leslie Ann Wood

Art & Art History ETDs

Through the development of symbolic gesture and a selective personal iconography, my images have evolved as my primary source of understanding universal symbols revealed in the external world.

Theatrically posed, figurative encounters are the basis with which I intentionally activate my private rituals. My images then become objects of power.

By creating images that bear power, I am provided clarity of thought, insight into the actual physical relationships in my life, health, protection and a general peace of mind.

The act of imagemaking is, for me, a continuous life ritual, intrinsic in the realization of my full potential as a …

Edward Weston's Early Photography, 1903-1926, Amy Conger

Art & Art History ETDs

The purpose of this study is to examine the early work of the photographer Edward Weston (1886-1958) and to investigate the nature and direction of his development as well as the social and cultural environment during the first half of his career, that is, from 1903 through 1926 when he returned definitively to the United States from Mexico. About 800 photographs made by Weston during this twenty three year period are illustrated and discussed in the catalogue. Because of the consistent quality and interest of his photographic work and because of the publication of his personal journals, the Daybooks as …

Architecture And Town Development In The Mining Camps Of Southwestern New Mexico, Carol L. Clark

Art & Art History ETDs

The architecture and town planning of the mining communities in Grant and Sierra Counties, New Mexico during the later nineteenth century are the focus of this study. The intent is to describe and illustrate the phases of development in these towns through three stages: The Initial Settlement, The Boomtown, and The Mature Town. The changing character of the architecture reflected the increasing stability, wealth, and sophistication in the camps. These towns were populated by Anglo-American immigrants and reflected the tastes and culture of America in the late 1800's. Popular architectural styles from the Midwestern and Eastern states were imitated in …

Restoring Soul With Art, Lawrence Michael Rutherford

Art & Art History ETDs

This thesis traces the roots of the rejection by technological man of soul and its accompanying workings through the intuitive, imaginal and irrational. This absence of credence in the workings of the soul or spirit has left the present age searching for meaning in life and desperate for justification of existence. Since art is by its very nature an expression of the imagination and fantasy, it has the capability to restore the soul and the truths of life that it expresses. The rejection of soul is a result of the dualistic theory of Descartes and the subsequent flowering of the …

Notes On Viewfinding, Anna Lynn Grimes

Art & Art History ETDs

My mixed media works on paper are a result of an exploration in the landscape that I call “viewfinding. '' This exploration involves looking at the surrounding physical environment from different perspectives, discovering features that are significant to me and producing evidence of these discoveries in my work. To expand my concept of the landscape I explore multiple ways of viewing, i.e. viewing from different positions in the landscape, through window frames and through secondary sources of information such as maps and scientific diagrams. Levels of information are collected and reassembled in my "view” drawings of the landscape. The resulting …

My Onepoint Plan For Saving The World Or Approaching The Goddess, Playfully, Jason Eric Jones

Art & Art History ETDs

This thesis discusses my primary motivations in making art, which center around a felt need to exercise the nonverbal, arational processes that seem inappropriate, or at least generally neglected, in our culture. The trend toward increasing intellectuality at the expense of emotionality is described as a prime cause of Western civilization's “spiritual bankruptcy," and various rebellious movements against this trend, such as the cult of the White Goddess, are mentioned, briefly. Bicameral mind theory is used as a convenient model for the duality of the rational and the intuitive. In the context of this model, my approach to photography, which …

Beyond Fascination, Robert C. Reck

Art & Art History ETDs

This thesis discusses the underlying concepts of my work. Part I reveals how intuition became an active part of my image-making process and chance assisted personal vision. Part II discusses the formal and stylistic means by which I address the relationships between my personal philosophy and the symbolic theory of the work.

Progress In Preparedness, Vahe Guzelimian

Art & Art History ETDs

The primary purpose of this thesis is to discuss the contribution made by these sources toward my "progress in preparedness." I will examine my current photographic work in an effort to show how this preparedness guides the synthetical nature of my creative process.

Alienation And Creativity: A Study In Twentieth Century American Art, Judi Church

Art & Art History ETDs

The society in which one lives conditions the creativity of the individual. To quote Herbert Read, alienation, "is the progressive divorce of human faculties from natural process.” A society in which alienation is pervasive will spawn types of artistic activity related to that phenomenon. The desire to create is a positive means of transcending the alienation of contemporary life. In attempting through art to unite self and world I have looked to the works and lives of other artists. These include Jasper Johns, Antonio Tapiès, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, and Richard Diebenkorn. The evolution of my work over the past …