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- All Subjects: Art criticism
- Creators: Gil-Osle, Juan Pablo
- Creators: Stokrocki, Mary
- Member of: ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Description
I conducted this qualitative research including data collection, data analysis and comparison analysis in a Casting and Jewelry Techniques course at Arizona State University for a whole semester. The purpose of this research was to explore the symbolic interactive meaning of metalworking to university students in metal courses, and if they had various learning needs to improve and enhance their metal art making by seeking their responses to the relationship between technical issues and concepts of their own artworks. The study results showed that the meanings of metalworking to students were craftsmanship, and a sense of accomplishment, and it related to their daily lives in career and presentation. Most of them focused on the degree of technical completion and forms of work rather than expressive concepts, and techniques were important in their works. I compared my findings in this study with my pilot study and James's study in a sculpture studio class, and found some similarities in teacher's philosophy and students' metalwork meanings that included career aspirations, some peer interaction, technical concerns rather than concept formation, and process as serious play or the exploration of materials.
ContributorsHsu, Kai-Hsuan (Author) / Stokrocki, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Young, Bernard (Committee member) / Margolis, Eric (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the materiality of a unique text, Random House and The Illustrated Modern Library’s 1946 Don Quixote, illustrated by Catalonian painter Salvador Dalí. It analyzes Dalí’s classical trajectory, how Dalí and the text were received in mid-twentieth century North America, and how they both fit into the print history of illustrated editions of Don Quixote. Each is revealed to be unique in comparison with the history of the genre due to the publishing house’s utilization of Dalí’s high-quality illustrations in a small-sized text. Lavish illustrations traditionally have been reserved for larger, collectible editions. The contemporary material significance of the 1946 edition is revealed by examining organizations, people, and circumstances that were necessary for its production in the United States, and by contextualizing the text’s reception by North American popular culture, high art echelons, and art critics.
The overarching history of illustrated editions of Don Quixote is examined, comparing Dalí and his illustrations with important thematic and methodological benchmarks set by illustrators within this 400-year period, especially regarding renderings of reality and fantasy. Analyses of the first three watercolor illustrations of Dalí’s 1946 Don Quixote reveal how the painter forms mythological imagery and composes the quixotic dichotomy of reality and fantasy through the metaphoric gaze of an inanimate figure representing the protagonist. Dalí at times renders the “real” Don Quixote as incapacitated, omitting from his illustrations universalized iconography utilized in previous centuries achieved by rendering Don Quixote’s perspective, gaze, and heroic interpretation of events. In these three illustrations, Dalí forms Don Quixote as a deflated figure based in burla (mockery) and engaño (self-deception) by negating Don Quixote’s gaze within the compositions, without compromising the painter’s trademark surrealist style.
The text therefore challenges the genre’s print history while Dalí challenges French and German Romantic illustrators’ universalized iconography that traditionally highlights the nobility of the knight errant. By focalizing fantastic madness as interacting with burlesque reality, Dalí creates a new episteme within the genre of illustrated editions of Don Quixote, establishing his unique niche as an illustrator in this genre.
The overarching history of illustrated editions of Don Quixote is examined, comparing Dalí and his illustrations with important thematic and methodological benchmarks set by illustrators within this 400-year period, especially regarding renderings of reality and fantasy. Analyses of the first three watercolor illustrations of Dalí’s 1946 Don Quixote reveal how the painter forms mythological imagery and composes the quixotic dichotomy of reality and fantasy through the metaphoric gaze of an inanimate figure representing the protagonist. Dalí at times renders the “real” Don Quixote as incapacitated, omitting from his illustrations universalized iconography utilized in previous centuries achieved by rendering Don Quixote’s perspective, gaze, and heroic interpretation of events. In these three illustrations, Dalí forms Don Quixote as a deflated figure based in burla (mockery) and engaño (self-deception) by negating Don Quixote’s gaze within the compositions, without compromising the painter’s trademark surrealist style.
The text therefore challenges the genre’s print history while Dalí challenges French and German Romantic illustrators’ universalized iconography that traditionally highlights the nobility of the knight errant. By focalizing fantastic madness as interacting with burlesque reality, Dalí creates a new episteme within the genre of illustrated editions of Don Quixote, establishing his unique niche as an illustrator in this genre.
ContributorsHolcombe, William Daniel (Author) / Gil-Osle, Juan Pablo (Thesis advisor) / Foster, David William (Committee member) / Urioste-Azcorra, Carmen (Committee member) / Baldasso, Renzo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
Description
Black Rock City is a temporary city existing for one week in the harsh desert of northern Nevada. It plays host to the Burning Man festival with over 300 large-scale art installations and is considered to be the largest interactive art festival in the world. Besides the main burn, smaller local regional events have developed. These regional events encompass many of the same tenets as Burning Man including the presentation of large-scale art. Burn2 is the regional event held on the virtual world, Second Life. In 2013, both events used the theme of Cargo Cult as a stepping off point for the artists. Through the lens of spectacle, I used art criticism as a way to gain understanding of the artworks.
Art criticism is a means of interpreting and appreciating artwork and is often used in the art classroom. Edmund Feldman's method promotes a deeper understanding of art and consists of four steps: description, formal analysis, interpretation and judgment. Using Feldman's method, I analyzed three artworks from the 2013 Burning Man festival and three works from Burn2. From interviews, photographs, and personal observations I analyzed the artworks. I used external analysis to compare the literature on similar festivals and the artworks with other events held in the real life and virtual world.
I found in both events very similar concepts and themes. Artists had specific subject matter in mind when designing their installations. Artists used the theme as a stepping off point for rationalizing their content. Art made to be displayed at Burning Man was expensive; funding was a concern for all the artists. Burn2 artists were free from funding concerns even though there were expenses to making art in Second Life. Emerging themes were use of building materials and color, use of electronics and computer technology, art installations in festivals, spectacle, collaboration, and interactivity. Further implications included teaching about the engineering of structures, critical thinking about festival themes and the individual art installations, visual culture, and art making with these emerging art forms.
Art criticism is a means of interpreting and appreciating artwork and is often used in the art classroom. Edmund Feldman's method promotes a deeper understanding of art and consists of four steps: description, formal analysis, interpretation and judgment. Using Feldman's method, I analyzed three artworks from the 2013 Burning Man festival and three works from Burn2. From interviews, photographs, and personal observations I analyzed the artworks. I used external analysis to compare the literature on similar festivals and the artworks with other events held in the real life and virtual world.
I found in both events very similar concepts and themes. Artists had specific subject matter in mind when designing their installations. Artists used the theme as a stepping off point for rationalizing their content. Art made to be displayed at Burning Man was expensive; funding was a concern for all the artists. Burn2 artists were free from funding concerns even though there were expenses to making art in Second Life. Emerging themes were use of building materials and color, use of electronics and computer technology, art installations in festivals, spectacle, collaboration, and interactivity. Further implications included teaching about the engineering of structures, critical thinking about festival themes and the individual art installations, visual culture, and art making with these emerging art forms.
ContributorsKrecker, Linda Susan (Author) / Stokrocki, Mary (Thesis advisor) / Young, Bernard (Committee member) / Margolis, Eric (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
This dissertation focuses on the study of Western esotericism in European culture and forms a method of discovering esoteric topics in cultural artifacts. Using the definition as a corpus of knowledge historically divided between esoteric, reserved for the intellectual and power elite, and exoteric, available for everybody, I argue that esotericism represents the knowledge that always accompanied the cultural production of the Mediterranean zone, adding a spiritual meaning to any visual or written work of art. The contemporary novels of the past decade by the Spanish author Javier Sierra are fully based on a historical investigation, in which esotericism appears as a nuclear topic, revealing the great interest of the public in the mysteries of the past. Through the postmodern cultural theories, together with sociological and historical methods, the dissertation explores the cultural processes that lead to the shift of esoteric knowledge in the 20th century from secretive to publically available. The study defines the purpose of recreating the European past and investigates the secrets of European cultural formation. Through an insider-outsider perspective, it analyzes the cultural artifacts, that appear in the novels in the form of reference or as a nuclear part of the plot. It presents the scope of esoteric currents, that are divided between the discipline of religion, science, and philosophy, which form the tetrahedron of knowledge as a theoretic model for this study. The constructed model reveals the interaction of the three disciplines throughout the history and examines the reasons for the religious disenchantment of the 20th century, proven through Digital Humanities’ research as the predominance of science over the Catholic Church, which allowed the esoteric knowledge to reappear. The study explores the affiliation of esotericism with science through the scientific-cultural inquiries between the ancient myths and reality, by showing that man’s consciousness had always been dependent on the scientific perception of the world. It explores the pagan symbolism that is mixed with Christian traditions and reveals the stories, hidden behind the representation of the greatest works of art, by combining and analyzing the wisdom of the past and the contemporary spiritual inquiries in their philosophical meaning.
ContributorsCordan, Elena (Author) / Urioste Azcorra, Carmen (Thesis advisor) / Tompkins, Cynthia (Committee member) / Gil-Osle, Juan Pablo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017