History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

The Politics And Aesthetics Of American Art During The Cold War: Commissions For Philip Johnson’S New York State Pavilion At The 1964-1965 World’S Fair, Alexandria Valera

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the social and cultural climate surrounding the art commissions for Philip Johnson's New York State Pavilion at the 1964-65 World's Fair. The research presented herein examines how the economic and cultural climate of 1960's America affected the architectural landscape at the World's Fair and how Johnson's Pavilion was integrated into it. Finally, this thesis examines how artworks by John Chamberlain, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and others responded to the commercial premise of the fair itself. This thesis argues that ultimately the artworks presented used the language of commercial art to critique the Fair and the …

Archival Enactment, Retelling 'The Big Book': Alison Knowles, Something Else Press And Fluxus, Meghan A. Dellacrosse

Theses and Dissertations

"Archival Enactment, Retelling 'The Big Book': Alison Knowles, Something Else Press and Fluxus," positions Knowles’ Big Book (1966) as a case study of historical methodology and interdisciplinary artistic practice in the post-war period. This comprehensive analysis of Big Book, a work of art no longer extant, contextualizes its publisher, Something Else Press through Dick Higgins’ concept of “intermedia,” and important lesser-known junctures relevant to Fluxus and the group’s leader George Maciunas are illuminated. Knowles' early and lesser-known silkscreen paintings are also examined.

How To Look At Monsters: Staging Female Bodies From The Periphery Of The Seventeenth-Century Spanish World In Baroque Portraiture And Hapsburg Collections, Risa A. Puleo

Theses and Dissertations

This inquiry examines portraits of “monsters”—an early modern term describing those whose bodies challenged socially-constructed categories by deviating from the social norm through differences of race, gender and physical or mental capacity, painted for Hapsburg royals across Europe, who collected specimens, including people, representing the scope of their territories.

Resistance, The Church, And A Comparison Of Ceramics From Sixteenth-Century Caluco, El Salvador, Alison Denise Hodges

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines ceramics from the church of San Pedro y San Pablo, Caluco, El Salvador, to investigate the pressures of Spanish evangelization during the Colonial Period. It compares the church's ceramic assemblage to two privately-owned houses, also within Caluco. Examining choices in ceramic styles for serving food and drink is one way to examine the colonial policies of reducción, which were to instill a regular, commonplace Christian order in everyday life. The materials in question were a large number of Spanish majolicas, as well as 300 locally-made vessels, and form, decoration, and ware was noted for each. The relative …

The Visual Poetry Of Marc Chagall's White Crucifixion, Janis Stair

Theses and Dissertations

Marc Chagall (1887-1985), was a Russian-Jewish artist who created a prolific body of work during the tumultuous era of the twentieth-century. While his artwork came under the influence of modernist trends, Chagall developed his own unique style that has often been described in terms of its "visual poetry." This paper examines how this term applies to one of his most important works of art, the 1938 painting White Crucifixion. Four key ways in which the various forms of art and poetry intersect in this painting are discussed in the context of the historical and cultural conditions that had a profound …

Frontier Respectability To Gilded Age Splendor: Women And Consumerism In The Cultural Development Of Bloomington, Illinois, 1839-1900, Kera B. Storrs

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the importance of late nineteenth century gender ideals and consumer practices in the development of the city of Bloomington in McLean County, Illinois. Most histories of not only Bloomington, but the greater Midwest, have focused on the rise of industry and business, and their effect on the development of the region. This study instead places women's social and cultural activities at the center of the story, and explains the significance of feminine consumption to the community's growth from a small frontier village to a Gilded Age city. While all of Bloomington's classes played a role in this …

Subsistence Strategies In The Upper Illinois River Valley: The Kuhne Site Case Study, Autumn Beyer

Theses and Dissertations

Stuart Struever's excavation of the Kuhne site, located in the Upper Illinois River Valley occurred during the start of archaeological interest in the region. The faunal remains recovered during this excavation offer a unique opportunity to understand subsistence strategies in the area during the Middle Woodland period. Using standard zooarchaeological methods, these remains were analyzed to better understand which animal species were targeted by Middle Woodland people in this region, which season(s) the site was occupied, and how bones were modified for utilitarian and other purposes. These findings were then compared to faunal assemblages from Middle Woodland sites in the …

Bracquemond, Ruskin, The Haviland-Hayes Service, And Rookwood: Japonisme And Permanence In Art Pottery, Emily G. Campbell

Theses and Dissertations

There are two principle arguments in this thesis. First, this thesis will show that Félix Bracquemond had a profound impact on late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century ceramics in America. Second, this thesis will illustrate how John Ruskin’s principle that pottery is “more permanent than the Pyramids” encouraged reform of the ceramic arts and shaped the Art Pottery Movement of the late nineteenth century. After this thesis introduces Bracquemond as an innovator in ceramic decoration and the dissemination of Ruskin’s principle, the thesis will examine two instances in the American Art Pottery Movement in which Bracquemond’s and Ruskin’s influence can be detected. The …

'The Sancity Of Womanhood': John Ruskin And The Medieval Madonna, Katherine M. Hinzman

Theses and Dissertations

This essay examines how art and gender become one and the same for British art and social critic John Ruskin. His complexly layered rhetoric, most poignantly expressed through the sanctified image of the medieval Madonna, serve as one interesting and much-judged example of many reactions to the tumultuous new social conditions of industrial, imperial nineteenth-century Victorian Britain. Though Ruskin is often labeled by some scholars as a prime example of Victorian sexism, an analysis of his reverence for and encouragement of virtuous medieval qualities in art, society and womanhood will allow us to more fully, effectively and usefully understand Ruskin …

Speed And Resolution In The Age Of Technological Reproducibility, Shawn Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

The rate of acceleration of the biologic and synthetic world has for a while now, been in the process of exponentially speeding up, maxing out servers and landfills, merging with each other, destroying each other. The last prehistoric relics on Earth are absorbing the same oxygen, carbon dioxide and electronic waves in our biosphere as us. A degraded .jpeg enlarged to full screen on a Samsung 4K UHD HU8550 Series Smart TV - 85” Class (84.5” diag.). Within this composite ecology, the ancient limestone of the grand canyon competes with the iMax movie of itself, the production of Mac pros, …

K-12 Educational Programs In Contemporary Art Museums: An Examination Of University And Non-University Non-Collecting Institutions Of Contemporary Art, Susan Moser

Theses and Dissertations

This museum thesis project will provide an overview of kindergarten through 12^th-grade (K-12) educational programs at six non-collecting art institutions within the United States, contextualized within a selected historiography of art museum education. This project is designed to aid the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA). The ICA is a non-collecting institution that will be located on VCU’s Monroe Park campus. As the ICA staff sets out to articulate a vision and scope for its K-12 education programs, it will benefit from the information offered in this thesis project, especially given that there is no existing …

The Architecture Of Knowledge: The Jesuit College Of Oaxaca (Xvi-Xix Centuries)., Marina Mellado Corriente

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

THE ARCHITECTURE OF KNOWLEDGE: THE JESUIT COLLEGE OF OAXACA (XVI-XIX CENTURIES).

By Marina Mellado Corriente, MA.

A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Art Historical and Curatorial Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Virginia Commonwealth University, 2015

Major Director: Michael Schreffler, Associate Professor, Department of Art History

The educational endeavor that the Jesuits – members of the religious order known as the Society of Jesus – carried out in Mexico in the course of the colonial period, when this territory belonged to the Viceroyalty of New Spain (sixteenth to nineteenth …

Conjoined Lucuma Fruit Vessels: Evolution & Context In Nasca Art, Carley Elder

Theses and Dissertations

The function of a ceramic vessel is often evaluated in relation to its form. Vessels with complex forms can be challenging to analyze from this perspective and require a different approach. One such example is an overlooked yet long-lived specialized vessel type in the form of conjoined lúcuma fruits found throughout the ancient Andes. The main object of this study is a Nasca version of this vessel type in the Virginia Museum of Fine Art. This study explores the relationship between form and iconography, rather than function. It examines how Nasca potters adopted the conjoined lúcuma form vessel and adapted …

Thomas Jefferson’S Designs For The Federal District And The National Capitol, 1776-1826, Craig A. Reynolds

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines six major points: 1) it argues that Jefferson is an architect of the United States Capitol, having direct and final say over its design; 2) it asserts that Jefferson set two nationally influential models of architectural taste as part of his movement to reform American architecture, first in Richmond as the Virginia State Capitol and second in Washington as the United States Capitol; 3) it explores those models to define what Jefferson called “cubic” and “spherical” architecture; 4) it suggests that Jefferson used his political appointments to maximize his influence over the design of the United States …

G.A.M.E.: A Hypermedia Edition Of James Mcneill Whistler’S The Gentle Art Of Making Enemies, Amy Colombo

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation, G.A.M.E., refashions James McNeill Whistler’s book, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies, into a hypermediated facsimile text and archive. By remediating the text, the socio-historical context of the Victorian time period in which Whistler lived is reestablished, making his book more accessible to twenty-first century audiences. The era studied in this dissertation includes the expansion of the idea of celebrity, the power of the press, and the concept of art for art’s sake from 1863 through 1892. In order to showcase these concepts, archival materials, such as personal correspondence, newspaper clippings, and published pamphlets, from this period were …

Thomas Waterman Wood's Portrayal Of Black Citizens During The Early Reconstruction Era, Tessa Lynn Davidson

Theses and Dissertations

During his lifetime, Thomas Waterman Wood (1823-1903) was one of America's most beloved genre painters. Since his death, very little has been published to document his career and great achievements. Although the exemplary production of his rural genre subjects is enough to demand further attention, an additional oversight is Wood's unique treatment of African American subjects. Painting during the Reconstruction era when the discourse concerning black citizenship was at its height, Wood created a series of works which portrayed African Americans in a positive light, silently advocating for their rights as U. S. citizens. It is the intent of this …

Implications Of Vertebral Degenative Disease And Vertebral Ligamentous Ossification In Native Populations Of The Lower Tennessee River Valley, Sarah Ann Boncal

Theses and Dissertations

Cervical vertebrae are an effective biomechanical proxy for understanding physical activities of a populace due to the osteological reactivity of nuchal muscle use to extensive weight and pressure. Differentiation in the distribution of osteophytosis (OPL), osteoarthritis (OA), and ossification of the ligamentum flavum (OLF) along the cervical vertebrae may indicate particular biomechanical stresses and/or burden-bearing differences between subsistence strategies.

A collection of 287 pre-Columbian Native American individuals (N = 854 vertebrae) was analyzed for presence and severity of OPL, OA and OLF. The sample consists of remains from six archaeological sites located in the lower Tennessee River Valley: three sites …

The Effects Of Cold Adaptation On The Growth And Development Of The Neandertal Cranial Base, Sarah Caldwell

Theses and Dissertations

Neandertals and modern humans possess very different craniofacial shapes. Some recent work has attributed these contrasting shapes specifically to differences in brain development, which are extrapolated to mean differences in cognitive function. However, this may not necessarily be the case. In this paper, it is suggested that a size increase in the cranial base and rapid cranial growth are due not to cognitive differences, but environmental factors, specifically Neandertal adaptation to cold. Adaptation to cold would not only explain the more rapid growth of the Neandertal cranium, but also elongation of the cranial base via elongation of the nasopharynx for …

A Comparative Study Of Upper Limb Mechanical Stress In The Pre-Colombian Tennessee River Valley, Deborah Lyn Neidich

Theses and Dissertations

This investigation establishes the presence of rotator cuff disease (RCD) within human skeletal samples from a prehistoric North American context and evaluates the subsistence based (hunter-gatherer an agricultural) differences of the pathological and non-pathological osseous reactive change. The skeletal sample as recovered as a part of an archaeological salvage project from the western Tennessee River Valley prior to the 1944 completion of the Kentucky Lake Dam. The sites consist of three Middle and Late Archaic (4500-1000 BCCE) period hunter-gatherers and one Mississippian (1050-1450 CE) period agriculturalist sample. These sites are now submerged in the Kentucky Late Reservoir.

The bone elements …

In Search Of Ubuntu: An Examination Of Enslaved African Domestic And Labor Environments On St. Eustatius, Deanna Lynn Byrd

Theses and Dissertations

The discovery of dry stone rock features in the northern hills on the Dutch island of St. Eustatius presented a unique opportunity to investigate an enslaved African environment during the time of enslavement. Abandoned after emancipation, the area has remained virtually undisturbed by eco-tourism, making it an archaeological gem. The intact nature of the sites held potential to add significantly to our understanding of choices enslaved Africans made in slave village design, orientation, and the construction of their dwellings, as well as the labor activities of daily life. In doing so, this investigation attempted to detect whether higher levels of …

A Sequence Of French Vernacular Architectural Design And Construction Methods In Colonial North America, 1690 -- 1850, Wade Terrell Tharp

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines published and unpublished historical archaeological research, historical documents research, and datable extant buildings to develop a temporal and geographical sequence of French colonial architectural designs and construction methods, particularly the poteaux-en-terre (posts-in-ground) and poteaux-sur-solle (posts-on-sill) elements in vernacular buildings, from the Western Great Lakes region to Louisiana, dating from 1690 to 1850. Such a sequence is needed to provide a basis for scholarship, discovery, and hypotheses about prospective French colonial archaeological sites. The integration of architectural material culture data and the historical record could also further scholarship on subjects such as how the French in colonial North …

Identifying The Visible: A Look At How Economic Class And Ethnicity Influence Women's Visibility Within A Household, Cori Elise Rich

Theses and Dissertations

Archaeology has allowed for underrepresented, often invisible, groups of people within history to become visible and have their stories told. Minority groups such as women, African Americans, and those occupying the lower class are just some of these underrepresented groups who have been identified through cultural remains. Despite archaeologists' best efforts in identifying these groups; there is still much work yet to be conducted. There is a lack of information from the eighteenth-century, and even less work done on the way ethnicity and class impact women's visibility within the archaeological record.

This paper utilizes seven site reports, from households of …

All Systems Go, Harry William Sidebotham

Theses and Dissertations

Just like nature and life, my work is made up of many smaller parts working synergeticly in order to function properly. The systems I use are increasingly more complex, involving layers of interacting information competing for attention, giving rise to emergent qualities that could not

exist without the interaction. Paraxial imaging and emergent shapes could not exist without the systems or the chromophobic choices.

Tammy Rae Carland's Queer Riot Grrrl Zine"I ( Heart ) Amy Carter": A World Of Public Intimacy, Annah-Marie Rostowsky

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis analyzes Tammy Rae Carland's queer Riot Grrrl zine I (heart) Amy Carter as a counterpublic sphere engendered by acts of public intimacy that make visible the intersectional complexities of gender, sexuality, class, and race that insidious traumas continually work to conceal. It looks to Ann Cvetkovich's inquiries into the positive aspects of public cultures in the book An Archive of Feelings: Trauma, Sexuality, and Lesbian Public Cultures (2006) as well as Mimi Thi Nguyen's investigation of the Riot Grrrl race crisis in the article "Riot Grrrl, Race, and Revival" (2012) as frameworks to critique Carland's visual and textual …

The Triumphs Of Alexander Farnese: A Contextual Analysis Of The Series Of Paintings In Santiago, Chile, Michael J. Panbehchi

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines a series of nine paintings depicting the battles of Alexander Farnese in Flanders created by the Cuzco School of Painters in eighteenth-century Peru. This research asks why and how paintings depicting sixteenth-century European battles were meaningful in the eighteenth century. Due to an absence of archival documentation on the authorship, production and patronage of the series, the research method is contextual. Starting with a formal and iconographic analysis of the paintings centered on a comparison between the paintings and the engravings upon which they are based, differences in the use of space and the conspicuousness of individual …

Dīpaṅkara Buddha And The Patan Samyak Mahādāna In Nepal: Performing The Sacred In Newar Buddhist Art, Kerry Lucinda Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Every four years, in the middle of a cold winter night, devotees bearing images of 126 Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and other important deities assemble in the Nepalese city of Patan for an elaborate gift giving festival known as Samyak Mahādāna (“The Perfect Great Gift”). Celebrated by Nepal’s Newar Buddhist community, Samyak honors one of the Buddhas of the historical past called Dīpaṅkara. Dīpaṅkara’s importance in Buddhism is rooted in ancient textual and visual narratives that promote the cultivation of generosity through religious acts of giving (Skt. dāna). During Samyak, large images of Dīpaṅkara Buddha ceremoniously walk in procession to the …

Continuity And Change In A 19th Century Illustrated Devi Mahatmya Manuscript From Nepal, Katherine Smith

Theses and Dissertations

In the Hindu tradition of the Indian subcontinent, worship of the goddess has long been practiced as supreme embodiment of the divine. Around the second century, a Sanskrit Purana (ancient Hindu text that extols deities) titled the Markandeya Purana details the battles of the supreme Goddess Durga against the illusions and negative energy in the universe. This textual version of the Devi Mahatmya “Praise of the Goddess” serves as the foundation for the nineteenth century Nepalese illustrated Devi Mahatmya, commissioned by Tej Bahadur Rana from Pokhara district in Nepal. Because the folios closely follow the textual Devi Mahatmya, …

The Presentation Of Incorruptibility: The Praesentia Of The Female Saint, Kristina M. Keogh

Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation inserts the incorruptible body into the discussion of image devotion and relic veneration that followed the Council of Trent’s (1545-1563) decrees concerning the use of images, which affirmed Thomas Aquinas’s position that worship is passed from representation to archetype. This is addressed in terms of the image and the relic within the same sacred space, primarily in the context of the chapels of S. Caterina de’ Vigri (1413-1463; canonized 1712) in Bologna and S. Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi (1566-1607; canonized 1669) in Florence, where there were not only man-made representations of the saint, but also the whole and …

Fred Kabotie, Elizabeth Willis Dehuff, And The Genesis Of The Santa Fe Style, Jessica W. Welton

Theses and Dissertations

Those scholars who have overlooked the relevance of Fred Kabotie and the Santa Fe Style he developed have missed an important historical segment of early Native American painting. This dissertation underscores the convergence of diverse intellectual, artistic and cultural backgrounds, especially those of Kabotie and Elizabeth Willis DeHuff, his first art teacher, which led to the formation of the Santa Fe Style in 1918. This style was formative for Dorothy Dunn’s later Studio School at the Santa Fe Indian Boarding School.

This first generation of the Santa Fe Style of watercolor painting was empowered by highly educated men and women, …

Coalescence In Confinement: Cultural Synthesis And Identity In Michi Tanaka's Community Life, Kimberly L. Sanders

Theses and Dissertations

Community Life by Michi Tanaka was one of eight government commissioned murals created by students at Rohwer Relocation Center in 1944 illustrating the Japanese American evacuation and relocation. The final versions of these works no longer exist. The preparatory drafts, however, remain intact and provide valuable information regarding the artists' experiences at Rohwer. Through an iconographic analysis of Tanaka's mural draft and an exploration of themes and principal elements in her life at camp such as religion, fashion and socialization, this thesis suggests that Community Life illustrates a cultural synthesis between two disparate cultures. This synthesis influenced the development of …