History Commons^™

Off The Press: Exploring Reproducible War Art, Emily Rose Hankins

Theses and Dissertations

Aspects of modernity, such as the news cycle and ever-changing technologies, have played large roles in the construction of the history of wars through the power of reproducible war art imagery as seen in various public spheres and contexts. These include engravings and photographs of the war in news publications, propaganda posters promoting patriotism, protest posters pleading for peace, and prints and books made by artists for display in galleries. The inundation of these images become ubiquitous with the conflict, and the artists who have a hand in creating these images also have the power to construct and reconstruct histories, …

The Morgan Group Of Bestiaries: An Analysis, Claire Frances Kittell

Theses and Dissertations

Trying to figure out where and when a medieval manuscript was made is one of the most contentious topics in book scholarship. Instead of limiting scholarship to textual contents, new work looks at manuscripts, including bestiaries, with a multifaceted and interdisciplinary approach, which leads to exciting new ideas. Bestiaries were among the most popular texts in medieval England and have consistently been viewed as only their textual contents. Starting in the 1980’s, bestiary scholarship expanded beyond text, but a textually and iconographically similar group of bestiaries had not yet received the same holistic treatment. The Morgan Group is the British …

Power Through Patronage: Examining Margaret Of Navarre's Political Influence Through Sicily's Cathedral Of Monreale, Emmaleigh Anita Huston

Theses and Dissertations

This paper considers evidence for Queen Margaret of Sicily’s role in the construction and decoration of the Cathedral of Monreale, a royal foundation initiated c. 1172. For Margaret, support of Monreale was a means to counter the political ambitions of Walter Ophamil, Archbishop of Palermo. Medieval chroniclers name Margaret’s son, William II, as primary patron, and afford her only a minor role in the building campaign. However, the furnishing and decoration of the cathedral’s northern transept—a privileged space typically reserved for kings in royal Sicilian cathedrals and chapels yet at Monreale serves as the site of Margaret’s tomb—points to the …

Sara Rahbar And The Art Of Loving Otherwise, Michael Scott Lahti

Theses and Dissertations

Born in Iran and currently working in New York City, Sara Rahbar is a contemporary multimedia artist who gained some acclaim with her Flag series (2006-present), which was inspired by her experiences in the aftermath of 9/11. Many of these works merge Persian fabrics onto the American flag thus expressing her lived history and political views. To shed light on the political nature of Rahbar’s works writ large, I examine a textile from her War series (2009-2013), titled I Want to Shelter You (2013). Against a flat canvas bag, Rahbar attaches large-caliber bullet casings into a heart-shape to point out …

Performance, Representation, Reception, And The Lost Cause: Re-Framing The History Of Confederate Monuments Through Embodied Assemblies, Joshua Adam Rutherford

Theses and Dissertations

Discussion of Confederate monuments has been invigorated in academic, social, and political debates during the twenty-first century. As these monuments became entangled with police brutality following the George Floyd protests, scholars have tried to understand how this history connects with the systemic injustices faced by black Americans. Because financial inequities limited the ability of black Americans to erect monuments and photograph demonstrations during Reconstruction the archive is riddled with gaps in representation, which I close by following Diana Taylor’s suggestion that we turn to the “repertoire” of performance. My thesis turns away the monuments themselves by investigating the forms of …

Coffin Soul Portals Of The Female Xunren In Tomb Of Marquis Yi Of Zeng, Mary E. Blum

Theses and Dissertations

There is a significant void in scholarship concerning the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng’s (Zeng Hou Yi), Leigudun M1, Suizhou, Hubei Province, dated to 433 BCE during the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770-256 BCE) of Bronze Age China, specifically on the lacquer coffins of the female xunren. There is extensive research dedicated to its well-preserved ritual bronze vessels, lacquer wares, and musical instruments, but this tomb is not known for the lacquer designs of portals present on twelve of the twenty-one female companion’s coffins. In this paper, I argue the xunren coffin designs in tomb Leigudun M1 of Zeng Hou …

Ethiopian Art: Christian Narratives From The Kebra Nagast, Morgan Ellsworth

Theses and Dissertations

King Ezana declared Christianity as Ethiopia’s state religion in 330 C.E. Ethiopia was the first country to mint a coin with the symbol of a cross. The Christian religion was established as a political move to strengthen economic ties with the Mediterranean world. Christianity has been used to keep Ethiopia independent. The Ethiopian artworks discussed here depict themes based on Christian narratives with multiple groupings of similar motifs and identical religious iconography. The Ethiopian art market still creates these motifs today to spread a repeated political message of the country’s pride, history, and represent their rulers’ legitimacy. I explore these …

“Noah Fires An Arrow!” The Rise Of Narrative Mechanics In Tabletop Role-Playing Games 1979-1989 And The Importance Of Archiving The Human Element, Cameron Jp Fontaine

Theses and Dissertations

Tabletop role-playing games (TRPG) emerged out of the war gaming and science fiction subcultures in the mid-1970s. During the latter half of the 1970s these games shifted away from their combat focused wargaming roots to forge their own identity separate from miniature wargaming. In the 1980s the industry expanded rapidly and many of the new games focused their efforts on crafting narrative rather than combat based mechanics. It was this focus on narrative mechanics and unique settings which enabled the industry to both directly and indirectly engage with the socio political and cultural movements of the 1980s in Reagan’s America. …

Adolf Wissel: Compliant Dissidence, A Nonbinary Reading Of Work Executed From 1933 – 1941, Jeremy Lyn Schrupp

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the vast amount of scholarship devoted to the Nazi era, there is very little dedicated to the analysis of its works of art. This paper aims to rectify that, by analyzing the work of Adolf Wissel. Aside from its didactic use amongst academia, there is only one academic analysis of his work. The intent of the present analysis is to build from that foundation and provide an additional layer of contextualization to an era that is relatively unexplored within our field. This analysis will establish that Adolf Wissel maintained specific subject, compositional, and stylistic choices that subtly opposed NSDAP …

Alexandre Cabanel's St. Monica In A Landscape: A Departure From Iconographic Traditions, Rebecca Ann Kidd

Theses and Dissertations

The iconography employed by Alexandre Cabanel in the 1845 work St. Monica in a Landscape drastically deviates from the established artistic tradition utilized in other depictions of St. Monica in Christian art. Cabanel’s work depicts a female saint accompanied by a derelict young child. This thesis considers an alternative identity for this female saint, proposing that St. Elizabeth may be the definite subject of the work, accompanied by a young St. John the Baptist. The visual content of St. Monica in a Landscape is analyzed in conjunction with other works depicting St. Monica, as well as St. Elizabeth with a …

Humor And Quiet Resistance: The Graphic Work Of Wilhelm Höpfner, Kelsey Jean Mccarey Soya

Theses and Dissertations

Humor and Quiet Resistance: The Graphic Work of Wilhelm Höpfner is an exhibition that was on display at the Emile Mathis II Art Gallery at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee November 15–December 20, 2018. The works consist of fine art prints produced Wilhelm Höpfner between 1921 and 1939 in Berlin and the smaller city of Magdeburg. The exhibition and this accompanying catalogue seek to introduce the reader to his work and to provide the cultural context for its interpretation. When discussing the artistic movements of Europe in the early twentieth century, there is a tendency to discuss them as discrete, contained …

Newberry Library Ms 53: Unlocking The Secrets Of A Late Medieval Book Of Hours, Marianna Cecere

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates a manuscript in the Newberry Library collection, Newberry Library MS 53, a Book of Hours for the Use of Rome made around 1470 in Bruges, Flanders, and thought to be connected to the circle of Willem Vrelant (d. 1481), one of the most prolific Flemish illuminators of his time. The manuscript itself has received little scholarly attention, and the present study reconstructs its history by identifying elements within the manuscripts that demonstrate a connection to Vrelant and his associates, describing the production process used for smaller, less expensive Books of Hours, identifying its likely audience, and comparing …

Jeanne Of Flanders And The Patronage Of The Chapel Of Saint Elizabeth Of Hungary In Laon Cathedral, Abby Rose Armstrong

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis provides a new argument concerning the patronage of the little-known chapel of St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Laon Cathedral. I examine unpublished documentary evidence that identifies the noblewoman responsible for the financing and construction of the chapel in the early fourteenth century. Circumstantial evidence indicates Jeanne of Flanders, a noble widow, also ordered the carving of relief sculpture of the Crucifixion and St. Elizabeth of Hungary along the chapel’s north wall. In this thesis, I argue that Jeanne’s actions fit the prescribed behavior for wealthy medieval widows, in that she expresses newfound authority and power in the wake …

Gender Politics, Presence And Erasure: Tattoo In In Pursuit Of Venus [Infected] And Les Sauvages De La Mer Pacifique, Emily Cornish

Theses and Dissertations

This paper utilizes tattoo as a means for exploring the dialogue between contemporary Maori artist Lisa Reihana’s In Pursuit of Venus [infected] and Joseph Dufour’s nineteenth-century decorative wallpaper Les Sauvages de la Mer Pacifique. I argue that the tattooed body constitutes a re-insertion or re-infection within the pictorial program of In Pursuit of Venus [infected]. As such, tattoo becomes one focal point which allows us to work through four themes investigated by these two artworks: gender identity and ambiguity vis a vis practices that concern bodily adornment, the mutability of looking practices from one culture to another, encounters between different …

Comic Cuts: The Satirical Prints Of Warrington Colescott, Nicholas William Pipho

Theses and Dissertations

In this paper I examine the work of prominent Wisconsin printmaker Warrington Colescott, based on the social and political context he was working in during the second half of the twentieth century. Colescott is known for his satirical intaglio prints that address a wide range of topics including American history, contemporary politics, and the history of art. In this paper I focus specifically on three topics that he addressed in his prints: protest, war and the military, and the environment. My study relies heavily on archival interviews with the artist, as well as research undertaken for exhibitions of Colescott’s work, …

Reflections On A Collection: Revisiting The Uwm Icons Fifty Years Later, Laura Jean Louise Sims

Theses and Dissertations

The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Art Collection is home to a sizable donation of Byzantine and post-medieval icons and liturgical objects. Central to this thesis exhibition catalogue are the thirty-two Greek and Russian icons from this collection and their history with collector Charles Bolles Bolles-Rogers. Reflections on a Collection: Revisiting the UWM Icons Collection Fifty Years Later contextualizes the history of icon collecting in the United States and examines the collecting history of these icons.

By first focusing on icon collecting and scholarship in Greece and Russia towards the end of the nineteenth and into the twentieth centuries, this catalogue traces …

The Heraldic Casket Of Saint Louis In The Louvre, Audrey L. Jacobs

Theses and Dissertations

The Casket of Saint Louis, a small coffer, decorated with enamel medallions and heraldic shields, includes the arms of Louis IX of France and his mother Blanche of Castile among 21 members of the French nobility from the early thirteenth century. It holds special significance for the understanding of medieval France's political landscape. Ensembles of heraldry that appear on objects and monuments of the thirteenth century reveal more than individual identities: they define relationships and illuminate political events. The Casket of Saint Louis invokes political and social networks and events relating to the Capetian dynasty in the years before Louis …

Elevating The Wood Engraved Landscape: The Work Of Elbridge Kingsley, Elizabeth Anne Siercks

Theses and Dissertations

This is a graduate thesis catalog exploring the work of 19th wood engraver Elbridge Kingsley. Kingsley's contemporary influences are traced using primary sources and visual analysis. Kingsley's stylistic tendencies, in both his original and interpretive engravings, are linked to other 19th century American artists. A brief discussion of the history of wood engraving and its technique are included as it relates to the evolution of Kingsley's style, as evidenced in his published work and his prints for collectors.

Painting Lucretia: Fear And Desire : A Feminist Discourse On Representations By Artemisia Gentileschi And Tintoretto, Amy Lynne Endres

Theses and Dissertations

The myth of the Roman heroine, Lucretia, celebrates feminine ideals of virtue and chastity and is considered pivotal to the establishment of the Roman Republic. Yet, her rape and suicide is also the fulcrum of uncomfortable tension about notions of female sexuality, morality, patriotism and heroism.

My thesis is a comparative discussion of two intriguing and radically dissimilar paintings of Lucretia: Tarquin and Lucretia by Tintoretto and Lucretia by Artemisia Gentileschi. These paintings function as visual counterpoints that reflect the diverse literary and historical interpretations of her legend.

Tintoretto and Gentileschi depict two different, yet pivotal and dramatic moments in …

Sedimenting Solidarity: Signs From The Madison Protest, Melissa Deann Seifert

Theses and Dissertations

The 2011 Wisconsin protest inspired the wide ranging production of handmade and commercially-produced signage. Five hundred signs were collected and preserved by the Wisconsin State Historical Society and others were obtained by the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Art historians and prominent art institutes have dismissed the aesthetic qualities of handmade signs, instead cataloging them as ephemeral historical artifacts. I argue that signs work similarly to other art forms in the modern era, such as advertisements and poster art, which have gained scholarly attention. This project uses the Madison protest as a case study in order to track the often …