History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons^™

An Archaeological And Historical Search For German Ethnicity At The Janis-Ziegler Site ( 23 Sg 272 ), Lisa Marie Dretske

Theses and Dissertations

Ste. Genevieve, Missouri is a small town south of St. Louis, settled by the French and home to the Janis-Ziegler site (23SG272). However, the German Ziegler family along with other German families resided in the town beginning in the early nineteenth century. The Ziegler family used the Janis-Ziegler site as a home and a tobacco shop. Beginning in 2006, archaeological investigations went underway on the Janis-Ziegler site. The purpose of this research is to figure out to what degree the Ziegler family showed their ethnicity while living at the Janis-Ziegler house. The second purpose of the research is to figure …

Identifying With The Help: An Examination Of Class, Ethnicity And Gender On A Post-Colonial French Houselot, Erin Nicole Whitson

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to attempt to analyze and interpret an outbuilding located in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, a town established by French settlers in the 1780s. First the functional activities associated with the outbuilding will be determined and examined to best understand where and how the structure fit within the larger property. The activities taking place within/outside the outbuilding--especially those linked to domestic chores--will theoretically paint a clearer picture of who was living and/or working within the structure and who was not. Since little work has been done within the French Mississippi River valley on outbuildings in general, …

Eagerly Patient, Erin Elizabeth

Theses and Dissertations

Are banal and routine experiences in life less important or memory-worthy than celebratory moments that require preparation and planning, the anticipation of which is akin to emotional foreplay? What is the purpose of celebration? Is it empty, bound to disappoint, or is it ritualistic punctuation of the mundane, providing balance for the sublimity of suffering? These questions are addressed in the thesis exhibition, Eagerly Patient. The exhibition includes carriers of celebration such as cake, confetti, banners, and gifts in an attempt to understand the paradoxical hierarchy of experiential value.

Alexander Volkov And The Dancing Bacha: Uzbek Motifs In Motion, Rachel S. Golden

Theses and Dissertations

Alexander Volkov (1886-1957), an Uzbek artist identified by his expressive style, vibrant palette, and devotion to folk subjects, was a leading figure in the movement known as the Uzbek avant-garde. Volkov's influence is still at work among artists in Uzbekistan, though his legacy remains largely unexplored by Western scholars. The Arkansas Arts Center owns one drawing by Volkov depicting the tradition of dancing boys or bachas, a subject the artist also painted among his reflections on Uzbek culture. Work from the same period by fellow artist Alexander Nikolaev (Usto Mumin, 1897-1957), who was better known for his attachment to bachas, …

John White Alexander And The Feminine Aesthetic: A Discussion Of The Artist's Late Works (1901-1915), Jeanne-Marie Adelle Meyer

Theses and Dissertations

Upon his death in 1915, John White Alexander was recognized as a popular portrait painter, muralist, and genre painter in America. Scholarship on Alexander is limited and, in many instances, his later works are overlooked suggesting that Alexander's late paintings suffered due to the focus on of his artistic philanthropy to American art schools. His style, at the end of his life, is believed to have decreased from a strong Art Nouveau style seen in his earlier works. It is the intent of this thesis to show that Alexander's late works did not decline from his earlier style, but displayed …

Agency At Hacienda Pancota: Early Colonial Daily Consumption Of A Contested Age And Material Culture, Collin Roderick Gillenwater

Theses and Dissertations

The artifact assemblage of indigenous, imported, and contraband material goods at use in the Izalcos region of western El Salvador's early colonial period were analyzed to determine material agency. The archaeological remains of a specific hacienda and its residents' daily consumption were analyzed spatially and typologically. The resulting data concluded in the interpretation of Hacienda Pancota residents' adapting their lives with remarkable versatility during Spanish occupation. Specialization of place becomes more heavily emphasized with the incorporation of European goods, an important factor defining agency at Hacienda Pancota.

Standing Nude: The Academic Influence In Figural Works By Henri-Edmond Cross, Callie Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

The available scholarship on Henri-Edmond Cross (1856-1910) focuses on his later Divisionist landscape paintings, giving little attention to his academic years and figural works. This study reviews the artist's formative years by looking at an academic figure study held in the Arkansas Arts Center collection entitled Standing Nude. To attribute a date to the sketch, it will be considered three ways: the figure, the cross-hatching technique and role of the model in the oeuvre of Cross. The suggested date will illustrate that Cross was not only working within the non-traditional movement of Neo-Impressionism, but that he also possessed academic training.

Saturnine Melancholy In The Art Of Francisco De Goya, Alex Carraway

Theses and Dissertations

Within the art of the Spanish Romantic artist Francisco José de Goya (1746 - 1828), there exist specific iconographic motifs that exemplify the personality of a melancholic and Saturnine type. Goya depicts the contemplative melancholic motif in such works as Capricho 43 and the Portrait of Jovellanos, and shows the traditional attributes of Saturn in the drawings of A Melancholy Woman and Allegory on Philosophy. My contribution to the study of Goya is important because in addition to the traditional melancholic motif and the attributes associated with Saturn depicted in his art, my thesis serves to see Goya as an …

The Function Of A Middle Woodland Site In The Central Illinois Valley: A Ceramic Study Of Ogden-Fettie, Montana L. Martin

Theses and Dissertations

Ogden-Fettie is a Middle Woodland Havana-Hopewell mound group in the Central Illinois Valley. Fv196 is the midden area near the largest mound. The function of Fv196 was in question, because it does not conform to the settlement and function models that have been applied to other sites. The ceramic collection from Fv196 was typed and categorized into categories based on perceived function, either habitation or ceremonial. The majority of the pottery belonged to the Havana series, which is traditionally considered habitation pottery; however, many of the Havana sherds were decorated indicating a ceremonial function. The highly decorated pots showed the …

A Study Of A Thirteenth-Century Vernacular Moralized Bible: Vienna 2554 And Its Royal Audience, Jessica Wright

Theses and Dissertations

Codex Vindobonensis 2554, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (hereafter labeled Vienna 2554) is the only thirteenth-century moralized bible written in vernacular French and was intended for a royal audience. This bible provides a moralizing gloss on contemporary political and religious issues by juxtaposing scenes from the Old and New Testaments. Placing the manuscript in the historical context of Blanche of Castile's regency and her desire to instill devout faith in her young son, Louis IX of France, the manuscript serves as a mirror that reflects contemporary relations between church and state. Moreover, the illuminated depictions of kingship of this medieval bible are …

Corot's "Lyrical" Landscapes After 1850: Inspiration And Interpretation, Eileen Leila Turan

Theses and Dissertations

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot was a prolific painter of the French landscape in the nineteenth century. Corot's landscape style had two distinctive periods: a classically inspired period prior to 1850, and then the dramatically different style after 1850. Characterized by the emphasis on light and atmosphere through a painterly approach, Corot's late landscapes have been neglected by scholars who routinely emphasize the early landscapes and his role in the development of Impressionism. This research clearly defines the late landscape style, details the existing scholarship, and offers new interpretation of the landscape style of Corot after 1850. Considering the stylistic influence of …

The Rhetoric Of Picasso, Matthew R. Sharp

Theses and Dissertations

Pablo Picasso was arguably the most famous and controversial artist of the twentieth century, and some of his most famous pieces were created during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) in response to the horrible atrocities taking place in his homeland. "The Rhetoric of Picasso" by Matthew R. Sharp, filed December 2007, examines some of these works—including paintings such as Guernica and Weeping Woman —and theorizes their rhetorical force, using speech act theory as the theoretical lens. Based on common images and themes in Picasso's symbolism, it is determined that Picasso's works during the Spanish Civil War are expressive speech acts …

The Photographer's Wife: Emmet Gowin's Photographs Of Edith, Mikell Waters Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Exemplified in the oeuvres of photographers Alfred Stieglitz, Harry Callahan, Lee Friedlander, and Emmet Gowin, the photographer's wife is a distinctive subject in twentieth-century American fine-art photography that fuses the domains of public and private life through the conflation of art and marriage. The transgressive nature of this juncture can be located in a confluence of gazes - the artist's, the subject's, and the viewer's - that are embroiled in constructing subjectivities. The phrase "photographer's wife" underscores an assumed imbalance of power reflecting a binary of active/passive, artist/model, and husband/wife. It is this study's contention that the complexity of the …

The American Encaustic Tiling Company (1875-1937) And 'Art Tiles' In The West Franklin Street Historic District, Richmond, Virginia, Erika June Schmelzer

Theses and Dissertations

According to the tile historian Thomas Bruhn, the period between 1870 and 1930 was the only period when tiles had a significant role in American ceramics. One of the leading tile companies during this period was the American Encaustic Tiling Company of Zanesville, Ohio, which created high-quality art tile. Virginia Commonwealth University has a virtual gallery of American Encaustic tiles in a four-block range along West Franklin Street. In particular, Virginia Commonwealth University has embossed tile fireplace surrounds in three houses that can be matched up to the American Encaustic catalogue of ca. 1890. Two of these houses have tile …

Saint Barbara Of Nicomedia: A Model Of Devotion And Literacy For Noblewomen In Renaissance Flanders, Sandra Mccullough Cone

Theses and Dissertations

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, female saints, like St. Barbara of Nicomedia began to be represented with books or reading. The image of St. Barbara of Nicomedia reading was an addition to the traditional symbolic reference to the saint, the tower. Saint Barbara of Nicomedia: A Model of Devotion and Literacy for Noblewomen in Renaissance Flanders investigates the change in the iconography of St. Barbara and considers factors that may have influenced the change. St. Barbara was especially significant to Flanders and nearby regions. Incorporated in the images o f St. Barbara o f fifteenth-century Flanders is the expanded …

The Seated Cleopatra In Nineteenth Century American Sculpture, Kelly J. Gotschalk

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores Cleopatra as presented in the work of three nineteenth century American sculptors: Thomas Ridgeway Gould, Edmonia Lewis and William Wetmore Story. It illuminates their work in the context of the nineteenth century and within the history of Cleopatra's image. Victorian opinions of Cleopatra's nature are exposed by examining the Egyptian Queen in essays and literature of the period, including works by Anna Jameson, Emily Dickinson, Charlotte Bronte, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Theophile Gautier. By studying the role of Cleopatra in these literary examples, the notion of some recent scholars of Cleopatra as a feminist symbol is dispelled and …

Tiffany Windows In Richmond And Petersburg, Virginia, Rachel M. Bradshaw

Theses and Dissertations

Louis Comfort Tiffany began his career as a painter in the 1860's, illustrating his love of color and nature through genre scenes and landscapes. Unfulfilled as a painter he established a successful interior design firm, L. C. Tiffany and Associated Artists, designing interiors for America's rich and elite, all the while trying to bring his vision of beauty within their reach. He is greatest remembered by his contributions to the industry of colored glass and the development of Tiffany Studios. Inspired by the colors in the stained glass windows of the twelfth and thirteenth century and by the lack of …

Unraveling An Ancient Peruvian Tapestry Sampler: A Study Of Weaver Education In The Ica Valley, Peru, Elizabeth Sara Lewis

Theses and Dissertations

A tapestry from the Ica Valley of Peru (A.D. 900-1476), in the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, Virginia, is the subject of this study. This thesis is an attempt to demonstrate that the tapestry is an example of a textile form known as a "sampler." Woven as a learning tool and template by an apprentice and an expert weaver within the style and reflecting the iconography of Ica art.

A three-part approach is taken to examine the Ica tapestry. First, it is necessary to prove that the piece is a sampler, woven in an apprenticeship situation, …

Florine Stettheimer: A Re-Appraisal Of The Artist In Context, Melissa (Liles) Parris

Theses and Dissertations

Florine Stettheimer was an independent painter and eminent "art hostess" among the avant-garde in New York City during the years between the World Wars. In 1916, Stettheimer rather suddenly affected a naive or unschooled style that did not fit within any academic or vanguard movement. This new style, what I have termed conscious naiveté, can be considered the genesis of Stettheimer's mature works. Contemporaneous critical appraisals after the shift in style undervalued the inventive modernity of her work and unfairly “feminized” her style.

Divine Imagination: Correlations Between The Kabbalah And The Works Of William Blake, Mikell Waters Brown

Theses and Dissertations

The intention of this thesis is to investigate correspondences which exist between the Kabbalah and the recondite world of William Blake's imagery. Particular attention will be paid to the symbiotic relationship or word and image and the dialectical approach to salvation which is common to both Blake and the Kabbalah. The attempt will be made to locate correlations between depictions or several or Blake's characters and components or the kabbalistic Tree of Life. In doing so, this writer hopes to show that Blake's familiarity with the Kabbalah was instrumental in enabling him to give form to the visionary experience upon …

An Exhibition Of Recent Work By Robert Colescott, Susanne K. Arnold

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis project involved organizing, curating, designing and mounting a temporary traveling exhibition of recent work by Robert Colescott, a nationally-known black American artist. The Eye of the Beholder: Recent Work by Robert Colescott was installed at the Marsh Gallery of the University of Richmond September 7-28, 1988. It included 12 large-scale acrylic paintings on canvas and four framed drawings completed since 1981. Colescott's figurative paintings are known for their satirical commentary on society in America and on the history of Western art.

A Descriptive Survey Of Archaeological Sites Discovered During A 1984 Draw Down Of Lake Harding, Tom J. Meltzer

Theses and Dissertations

During the Fall of 1984, Lake Harding was drawn down thirty-three feet. A number of previously uninvestigated archaeological sites were exposed during this low water period.

Members of the Lower Chattahoochee Archaeological Society carried out a researcher designed survey of the exposed lake bottom. This survey revealed 131 distinct archaeological sites.

Identification of hundreds of artifacts recovered from the exposed sites has allowed this researcher to document evidence as to the presence of six Indian periods, Paleo, Paleotransitional, Archaic, Woodland, Mississippian, and Historic, during the past 10,000 years at Lake Harding.

Each site yielding identifiable artifacts, assignable to a period …

The Influence Of Children's Art On Joan Miró And Jean Dubuffet, Linda L. Ferrell

Theses and Dissertations

Children's art has been acknowledged as an important influence on twentieth-century art. Robert Goldwater states that the interest among artists in children's art during the early years of the Twentieth Century marked "a movement away from the exotic primitive toward indigenous sources of primitive inspiration." This new evaluation of children's art as a source of inspiration can be seen in the work of a number of artists including Joan Miró and Jean Dubuffet; their work, in particular, suggests the accent, freshness and energy inherent in the art of children.

The child’s way of making art, which is not based on …

Mural Of The Ground Breaking Ceremony For The St. George Latter-Day Saint Temple, J. Roman Andrus

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this work was to plan and execute a mural for the Latter Day Saint Temple at St. George, Utah, depicting the ground breaking ceremony for the building of the Temple. The picturization of the event should be historically true, so far as possible, without sacrificing quality of design. Value, pattern, color, and idea should conform to the character and design of the building, and to the ceremonies performed therein.