History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

Women Of Pop., Jourdan Cunningham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The hegemonic values that were represented in 1960s mass media were heavily reinforced by the Pop Art movement. Male Pop artists have often been viewed as genius, while the women were pushed aside to reside within the margins of the Pop canon. This thesis emphasizes the work of four female artists who participated in the Pop Art movement and were largely overlooked throughout Pop’s discourse. By analyzing their “popness” and Feminist viewpoints, it allows for the imbalance that has resulted from women Pop artists neglect throughout Pop’s discourse to be readdressed. In the Introduction I analyze the background of the …

Talk This Way: A Look At The Historical Conversation Between Hip-Hop And Christianity, Joshua Swanson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Christianity and Hip-Hop culture are often said to be at odds with one another. One is said to promote a lifestyle of righteousness and love, while the other is said to promote drugs, violence, and pride. As a result, the public has portrayed these two institutions as conflicting with no willingness to resolve their perceived differences. This paper will argue that there has always been a healthy conversation between Hip-Hop and Christianity since Hip-Hop’s inception. Using sources like Hip-Hop lyrics, theologians, historians, autobiographies, sermons, and articles that range from Ma$e to Tipper Gore, this paper will look at the conversation …

An Exploration Of Provenance And Ownership History And The Critique Of Curatorial Practice., Sacra J. Fallen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the art world, the artwork is under evaluation to determine its worth from its historic value to its monetary value. One of the primary strategies used to evaluate the artwork is the work's provenance which can be broken down into the work's collector history and the authenticity of its authorship. The first question to be addressed is: does knowing an artwork's collector history and provenance add to its historic value? The second question to be addressed is: does knowing an artwork's collector history and provenance add to its monetary value? These questions will be supported by two case studies …

Digitizing The Aura: A Systems Update For The Contemporary Art World, Emilie Trice

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

During the digital tide of the last several decades, the material, metaphysical and economic properties of art have evolved in response to the ever-accelerating growth of cybernetics. The contemporary art ecosystem (CAE) has long been considered “the last unregulated financial market”; then cryptocurrency was invented. Now, blockchain technology has entered the cultural zeitgeist and could radically innovate numerous industries, including the art market. The CAE itself is a network, a system that operates within fundamental parameters and, in that sense, it shares much in common with the philosophies underlying computation, such as systems theory, complexity theory and emergent consensus mechanisms. …

From Field To Museum: Intergenerational Education In Public Archaeology, Nicholas Daniel Dungey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Archaeologists have developed different curricula and methods within museums, classrooms, and field settings that engage the public in learning about the past. One realm of public archaeology that has received little research is studying how intergenerational education impacts engaging learners of varying ages with the past. Community collaboration and place-based education (PBE) have served as relevant topics of research for intergenerational educators. I incorporated intergenerational education methods at an archaeology summer camp at Highlands Micro School and at a temporary interactive exhibit at the History Colorado Center. I utilized surveys to determine changes in perception of archaeology that occurred between …

It's A Mad World After All: The Influence Of Stoic Thought In Goya's Los Caprichos., Jennifer Anne Steward

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a study of use of the principles of Stoic rhetoric and moral psychology in Goya’s print series, Los Caprichos. The relationship between Stoic thought and the technical aspects will be explored with regard to the effects used to support the visual conceptualizations. The function of the Caprichos as a book with chapters or parts relating particular modes of perception will be addressed. The technique of aquatint employed by Goya will also be explored. The predominance of geometric forms within the composition that reflect inter-personal relationships is also presented for consideration.

Leonora Carrington : A Bestiary., Stephanie Wise

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Similar to the painted creatures that dwell within the illuminated manuscripts of ancient and medieval bestiaries, the beasts in Leonora Carrington’s early work are used metaphorically. She was deeply influenced in her formative years by mythology and animals; tales with heraldic characters, obscure adventures, and symbolic meanings were foundational to her works. World War II and a subsequent internment in a sanitorium initiated Carrington to wrestle with an existential crisis. Her capacity and appetite for sources of inspiration and knowledge was boundless; infinite symbolic references were readily available for her artistic executions. The metaphors adapted or created by Carrington enabled …

Thinging : Powerful Objects., Tammy M. Burke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The works in "Thinging” are inspired by desire, the genuine and the false, systems of real and perceived values, the quest for immortality, the allure of things, our use of them to make ourselves, and imagining pasts and futures via objects. The following concepts are threaded through the work: cathexis, ritual as a value builder, collections, hoarding, display, object history, exchange, use, and sign values, and vibrant materiality. At the heart of my investigation is the quest to examine the origins of object power, and by what measures it can be evaluated: value from belief, market value, and something perhaps …

Exploring Place As A Producer Of Localized Art Styles And Its Role In A Contemporary Global Art World., Alexis Doerr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Place as influencing the production of local art idioms is examined. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of habitus and Michael Baxandall’s concept of visual capacity explain the social, economic, and physical structures that comprise place and affect how people perceive and evaluate the world around them. Art education, professional development opportunities, and local arts spending are discussed as the main structures of place that shape local art idioms and art making processes. South Dakota artists Harvey Dunn, Terry Redlin, and Dorothy Morgan are used as a case study. The writer argues that due to globalization the long-standing structure of art center and …

Trace., Kcj Szwedzinski

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Trace utilizes autoethnography to investigate aspects of Judaism to discover how one decides what to embrace, embody, or deny from inherited legacies. Autoethnography attempts to combine quantitative and qualitative data in order to systematically analyze and describe personal experience. The artist acting as Ba’alei Kushiah, or question bearer, uses Talmudic philosophy as a methodology and approach to art making. This research is self-referential; using Jewish thought to ask questions about Judaism. Judaism, often existing in an in between place with outward characteristics that reflect regional influences, facilitates a dialogue about whether there are relative or absolute delineations within and between …

Buffering..., Nicholas B. Vialpando

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Buffering… focuses on scenes from everyday life such as cooking breakfast or a day at the office which are presented in a half-rendered frozen form. The works are partially pixilated in certain areas to create a sense of perpetual buffering illustrating a never-ending frustration between advancement and expectation. This body of work is meant to create an opportunity for viewer to experience a sensation of tension while information perpetually buffers. This sensation reflects how society has been conditioned by its technological devices and their implied promises of instant gratification. This body of work aims to shed light on the frustration …

The History And Signification Of The Navicella Mosaic At St. Peter's Basilica, Rome., Eston Dillon Adams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Navicella mosaic is most famously an artwork created by Giotto di Bondone. Evidence for the appearance and dating of this giant mural is discussed in this dissertation with the conclusion that it was made in 1298 and its composition is best recorded in a Parri Spinelli drawing preserved in the Musée Condé in Chantilly, France. It was admired by untold numbers of worshipers who visited the grand Constantinian basilica of Old St. Peter’s in the Vatican in Rome. The Navicella was located on the façade of Santa Maria in the Towers, an important chapel as well as the gatehouse …

North American Indigenous Collection And Curation And Its Impact On Market Arts., Adelaide Mccomb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the history of two North American Indigenous groups, those belonging to the Great Plains and the Arctic, and observes how settler-colonial influence determined the collection and curation of arts and artifacts in these areas. This art includes a mention of pre-Colombian works, but focuses predominantly on works being made after “first-contact” through the contemporary ear. The paper addresses the effect imperialist history has had on the development of Indigenous art markets, and how institutions such as museums may address them through ethical practices, and efforts to decolonize museum spaces.

Common Ground, Diverging Paths: Eighteenth-Century English And French Landscape Painting., Jessica Robins Schumacher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the early eighteenth century, both English and French artists traveled to Rome to study the great seventeenth-century landscape artists --Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin in particular—at the source. The English were motivated by a combination of reverence for the ancient, classical world, an associative imagination and a burgeoning competitive art market. The French, by an equal regard for antiquity and the pragmatic desire to complete the requirements of the monopolistic French Academy. While English landscape painting evolved away from the idealism of Claude to a modern naturalism imbued with the artist’s subjective response to a visual experience, French landscape …

Design Guidelines: A Practical Guide To Preserving The Historic, Cultural, And Architectural Heritage Of Gladewater, Texas, Conor Herterich

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In October of 1930, Columbus Marion Joiner’s oil rig, “Daisy Bradford No. 3,” blew a gusher of oil high into the East Texas sky. The subsequent storm of economic activity that resulted from the discovery of the East Texas oilfield irrevocably changed the built environment of many small towns in the region, including Gladewater, Texas. Oil money that flowed into the city funded a flurry of building projects in the 1930s and 1940s that left an indelible mark on the landscape of Gladewater’s downtown area. Unfortunately, a lack of oversight, planning, and guidance has since led to the deterioration of …

The Disjointed Moment : Marking, Mapping, And Making The Real In William Eggleston's Election Eve (1976)., Joel Darland

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes the photographic book Election Eve (1976) produced by photographer William Eggleston. Eggleston’s photographs represent a complex network of connections between material objects and the potential truth of depiction. The often-nondescript locations that Eggleston photographed in Sumter County, GA in October 1976 appear specific at the outset, but quickly lose their adherence to the supposed realities that they depict. Since his first major exhibition in the mid 1970s, Eggleston’s photographs have presented difficulty because they from often-disparate material sources. Despite of the complexity of Eggleston’s engagement with both art and non-art photography, scholarship continues describe Eggleston’s “snapshot aesthetic” …

Reconstructing Ancient Lives Using 3d Technology: A Case Study Of Pork And Doughboy Point, Belize, Jane Fiegel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

3D technology can preserve cultural heritage resources and enhance museum collections and exhibits. Through 3D scanning, an exact digital replica of an artifact is created, which can be printed out or used to create a digital display. For this project, 3D scanning was used to reconstruct ancient Maya lives at Pork and Doughboy Point, Belize. By studying and classifying an inventory of selected artifacts, we were able to determine what activities occurred at the site. goal of this project was to showcase the growing importance of 3D technology in cultural preservation and the variety of ways in which it can …

Farmscapes : Picturing Land Transformation In Nineteenth-Century America., Eileen L Yanoviak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines American farmstead imagery of the nineteenth-century and how those images reflect the environmental history of the North. In this study, images of farms illustrate, through the landscape, the transition from subsistence farming to agribusiness that fundamentally changed American life and the land over the century. By comparing the actual ecological and economic conditions of the farm and farmer to the images depicted by artists, it is possible to see both representations of change and the persistence of the agrarian myth in spite of dramatically different realities. This study focuses on the process of change in the American …

Traces Of The (Un)Familiar : Family, Identity, And The Return Of The Repressed In The Photographs Of Ralph Eugene Meatyard., Hunter Martin Kissel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the ways in which photographs by Ralph Eugene Meatyard provoke the uncanny—or Das unheimlich as Freud originally wrote in 1919—by breaking from conventions of mid-twentieth century family photography often utilized to establish and maintain genealogical unity. Meatyard’s photographs of his family and friends are accentuated by blurring techniques, prolonged exposures, and the incorporation of dime-store masks, and as a result depict moments when reality is disrupted by the return of repressed material from childhood. For a multitude of reasons, Meatyard’s photographs elicit comparisons to Surrealist photography as well as certain American modernists who also explored the notion …

Transversal Approaches And Ecological Artwork., Madison Deanna Sevilla

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work explores systematic ecology as it relates to sculpture and language. This project exists in two parts: a written thesis and a thesis exhibition. Although both works explore ecological systems, Unseen: Visualizing Ecological Systems investigates visualizations and concepts of the ecological, whereas this thesis continues the exploration into the ramifications of disruptions in systems. Ecological systems such as the environmental, social/mental, economic, and political define the foundations of our known world and encapsulate all regions of society. No single system can function independently of the rest and all systems contain some aspect of human-system involvement. By using the work …

Transmutations Of Ophelia's "Melodious Lay", Danielle Byington

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There are multiple ways in which language and image share one another’s aesthetic message, such as traditional ekphrasis, which uses language to describe a work of art, or notional ekphrasis, which involves literature describing something that can be considered a work of art but does not physically exist at the time the description is written. However, these two terms are not inclusive to all artworks depicting literature or literature depicting artworks. Several scenes and characters from literature have been appropriated in art and the numerous paintings of Ophelia’s death as described by Gertrude in Hamlet, specifically Millais’ Ophelia, …

Seeing The God Of New Mexico: Mary Austin's Starry Adventure And The Optic Of Enchantment, Olivia Jayne Mann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines 20th century American writer Mary Austin's last novel, Starry Adventure (1931), a work unjustly ignored by most Austin scholars, yet touted by the photographer Ansel Adams (in a letter to Austin) as "the greatest thing I have ever read." This thesis will be particularly concerned with the concept of vision in the novel and the connections between Austin's fiction and the New Mexican modernism/primitivism movement in the visual arts. I explore what I call Austin's "optic of enchantment," a visual experience of divinity that is uniquely tied to the New Mexican landscape. I break down this optic …

Central Sacrifice And The Sacrificial Other: A Thematic Comparison Of Anti-Judaic And Anti-Semitic Artwork Emerging In Germany, Madison Elizabeth Tarleton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study finds solace in image(s) more so than in written text(s) and the religious understanding of anti-Judaic and anti-Semitic distinction, rather than a historian's perspective. By utilizing both a religious and artistic lens, the images become the text from which the scholar(s) will study. Focusing exclusively on German image(s) and artwork, this study will span up to eight centuries, twelfth to nineteenth. A contemporary look at Medieval and later images will not explain the thoughts of those who originally saw them, but the images will raise their own set of emotions, understanding, and historical lineage, giving credence and validity …

Putting Christians On The Map : Topographic Mosaics From Late Antique Jordan As Representations Of Authority And Status., Tracey Elizabeth Eckersley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I examine nine ecclesiastic floor mosaics from Late Antique Palaestina and Arabia that contain topographic motifs ­­˗ images of cities set in realistic or stylized landscapes. Previous interpretations of the pavements have been limited by two assumptions: that artists or bishops were solely responsible for determining the compositions, and that only religious interpretations were intended for church pavements. Inscriptions indicating that patrons were generally lay people and iconography that encourages secular interpretations complicates both assumptions. This study investigates the mosaics in light of Late Antique euergetism in order to determine why donors included architectonic elements in the …

Murakami-Ego : Collective Culpability And Selective Retention., Yun Kweon Jeong

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to argue that Murakami’s art expresses the Japanese’s psychological suffering by showing their struggle between remembering themselves as victims but forgetting themselves as aggressors. I apply the Mitscherlichs’ psychoanalisys of the Germans’s psyche to the Japanese because their people have had similar experiences. The first section examines the history of Japan surrounding WWII in order to demonstrate its effects on the Japanese people’s psyche. The second section introduces Otaku to better understand Murakami’s art. The third section examines how selective retention works on the Japanese’s psyche. The fourth section analyzes how Murakami’s art represents …

Let's Keep In Touch : Conversations About Access And Tactility., Whitney E. B. Mashburn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Let’s Keep in Touch: Conversations about Tactility, a project collaboratively organized by social practice artist Carmen Papalia and curator Whitney Mashburn, presents conversations between Papalia and artists selected by Mashburn, in regard to tactile access of the chosen artists’ works. The project aims to challenge visual biases in museum engagement, through dialogue with living artists.

Carmen Papalia takes social practice in a new direction as he applies it to the topic of accessibility. Using the tool of conversation, he creates strategic infrastructural activism and prompts exploration of non-visual perception.

In this thesis, Papalia’s work will be examined and discussed …

The Queer Child And Haut Bourgeois Domesticity : Berthe Morisot And Mary Cassatt., Jessica Cresseveur

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the 1970s, feminist art historians have extensively treated Mary Cassatt and Berthe Morisot. In particular, focusing on class-bound womanhood and domesticity, Griselda Pollock, Linda Nochlin, and Anne Higonnet have provided compelling psychoanalytic, Marxist, and semiotic analyses, seemingly exhausting all potentials for any further historical exploration of these artists. Yet, to date, investigations into the significance of the queer (deviations from normative sociocultural codes of gender identity, sexuality, and reproduction) in the works of Cassatt and Morisot have not been conducted. In this dissertation, queer theory complements the existing scholarship that has focused on the significance of women as mothers …

Elsewhere, Amber Law

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The photographer discusses the work in Elsewhere, her Master of Fine Arts exhibition held at East Tennessee State University in the Reece Museum, located in Johnson City, Tennessee. The exhibition is displayed from March 1 through March 31, 2016 and consists of 17 color photographs and 3 videos representing a body of work that visually communicates the photographer’s interest in transient lifestyles.

The influence and research regarding the concept is communicated by a focus on artists, literature and art historical knowledge that pertain to Law’s work. The artists included are Rineke Dijkstra, Jocelyn Lee, Lise Sarfati, Stephen Shore, Robert …

Claude Cahun, Marcel Moore, And The Collapse Of "Surrealist Photography"., Elizabeth Ann Driscoll Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis probes the photographic oeuvre of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore and their interpretation of Freudian fetishism. Cahun and Moore rework Freud’s theory to disrupt and invalidate various symbols conventionally associated with sexual difference, examining social, fictional, and historical dimensions of gendering and the shift that occurs when their parameters disintegrate. The first section examines the lovers’ portraiture and use of clothing—specifically the androgyny of early-twentieth century Paris fashion—in order to demarcate same-sex gaze, desire, and fetish. The second section covers the four years in which Cahun and Moore’s participation in the Paris Surrealist circles can be traced—from 1933 …

Site Responsibility : Eco-Art And Environmental Ethics In The Anthropocene., Nicholas Flint Collins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation proposes an interdisciplinary theory for examining the ethical dimensions of contemporary eco-art, based on the conceptual interplay between the art historical discourse of site specificity and philosophy of environmental ethics. It considers how eco-art redefines site specificity as eco-ethically-oriented site reform, and argues that eco-artists’ site-reformative actions are not only environmentally impactful and beneficial, but are also site-responsible because they realize humankinds’ moral obligations to respond to the human-caused ecological crises of the present by improving the degraded conditions of specific sites and amending site-destructive conduct. Site-reformative eco-artworks in turn yield variable propositional content that demonstrates site responsibility …