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- Creators: Barrett, The Honors College
- Status: Published
Description
This Master's thesis locates four works by William Dyce inspired by Dante Alighieri's Commedia: Francesca da Rimini (1837), Design for the Reverse of the Turner Medal (1858), Beatrice (1859), and Dante and Beatrice (date unknown) in the context of their literary, artistic and personal influences. It will be shown that, far from assimilating the poet to a pantheon of important worthies, Dyce found in Dante contradictions and challenges to his Victorian, Anglican way of thinking. In this thesis these contradictions and challenges are explicated in each of the four works.
ContributorsTiffany, Kristopher (Author) / Serwint, Nancy (Thesis advisor) / Gully, Anthony (Committee member) / Codell, Julie (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This study examines transnational connections between art as advertising and the tourism industry. The development of railroads, and later airlines, played a crucial role in the growth of travel. Art posters supported this expansion. By the mid-twentieth century, art posters gained wide acceptance for encouraging leisure travel. Posters and paintings were constructed by artists to visualize destinations, underscoring the social status and modern convenience of tourism. This thesis describes how advertising, as an aspect of popular visual culture, offered compelling parallels to stylistic developments in modern art.
ContributorsO'Dowd, Sarah (Author) / Sweeney, J Gray (Thesis advisor) / Serwint, Nancy (Committee member) / Cruse, Markus (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Western landscape photography helped to create an imaginative perception of a new nation for Americans. Early nineteenth-century photographers captured a vision of uncharted terrain that metaphorically fulfilled a two-fold illusion: an untouched Eden and a land ready and waiting for white settlement. The sublime and picturesque experiences of the West provided artists a concept that could be capitalized upon by employing various forms of manipulation. In the twentieth-century, the role of landscape photography evolved as did the advancement of the West. Images of wilderness became art and photographers chose to view the western landscape differently. Some focused more sharply and critically on the relationship between the land and the people who lived on it. The influential exhibition in 1975, New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape presented work that showed a landscape altered, marked by power lines, houses, and fences. The West as Eden no longer existed. Today, photographers continue to examine, image, and experience western land anew. In this thesis I examine the relationship of contemporary landscape photography and the role of the West, guided by an analysis that traces the history of American ideologies and attitudes toward natural land. The artists I have chosen recognize landscape not as scenery but as the spaces and systems people inhabit, and use manipulative strategies that emphasize an artificial character of the West. Their work elicits antecedent mythologies, pictorial models, and American ideologies that continue to perpetuate internationally.
ContributorsHerden, Nicole (Author) / Fahlman, Betsy (Thesis advisor) / Serwint, Nancy (Committee member) / Klett, Mark (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
This thesis discusses the significance of the casta naming process depicted in pinturas de casta or casta paintings created in eighteenth-century colonial New Spain. These paintings depicted family units, each member named by a racial label designated by the sistema de castas, the Imperial Spanish code of law associated with these paintings. In the genre, the labeled subjects were hierarchically ordered by racial lineage with pure Spanish genealogies ranked highest and all other racial categories following on a sliding scale of racial subjectivity. This study focuses on casta paintings' label coyote, which referred to colonial subjects of mestizo and indigenous heritage. Policies of the casta system, when matched with casta paintings' animal label created a framing of indigenous colonial subjectivity; those labeled coyote were visually positioned as one of the lowest members of the casta and of questionable quality as humans, given their comparison to wild canines. Beyond the general discussion of racial hegemony at work in these paintings this thesis exploration individually questions the meaning of the casta label coyote by analyzing how the colonial namer and the named colonial subject related to this word and title. Deep-seated beliefs about the undomesticated canine were at work in the imaginations of both the Imperial Spanish namer and the named colonial subject, evidenced in European/Spanish renderings of wolves and indigenous art depicting coyotes in Mesoamerica. To uncover the imaginations that informed the creation and reception of the coyote label this study examines the visual development of wolf as a symbol of wildness, evil, and racial impurity used to hail the human Other in both peninsular and New Spanish colonial arts. Additionally, images of coyotes will be considered from the position of the colonial named, vis à vis indigenous arts and beliefs that coyote acted as a sacred symbol of power through centuries of human development in the Mesoamerican world. Varied understandings of coyote were at work in the New Spanish colony, evidenced in eighteenth-century paintings of mestizo artist Miguel Cabrera. Analysis of his paintings of the La Divina Pastora and of his casta painting De mestizo y india nace coyote reveal the instability of coyote as symbol and human label amid the mestizaje mechanisms of New Spain.
ContributorsDashnaw, Mary (Author) / Malagamba, Amelia (Thesis advisor) / Schleif, Corine (Committee member) / Serwint, Nancy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
The history of jade in many ways reflects the evolution of Chinese civilization, encompassing its entire history and geographical extent and the many cultural traditions associated with the various regions that have finally been brought together in the unity of present-day China. The archaic jade collections investigated in this thesis, from an archaeological point of view, primarily consist of pieces from the late Neolithic through early historic era, named the "Jade Age" by academics. Although well-researched museum catalogues of archaic Chinese jades have been widely published by major museums in the United States, they are mostly single collection oriented. It is, then, necessary to conduct research examining the overall picture of collecting practices in the U.S. Given the proliferation of fake early jades, this study will provide an essential academic reference for researchers, students, and the present art market. This thesis seeks to explore how shifting tastes, political climates, and personal ambitions, as well as various opportunities and personalities, were instrumental factors in shaping these important collections of archaic Chinese jades in the U.S. today.
ContributorsWang, Yijing (Author) / Brown, Claudia (Thesis advisor) / Fahlman, Betsy (Committee member) / Baker, Janet (Committee member) / Schleif, Corine (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
Ancient Mediterranean cultures incorporated equine iconography into their artistic repertoires, demonstrating the horse's importance not only as a beast of burden and war, but also as a visual symbol of wealth and prestige. Interaction between man and horse appears in clay as early as the third millennium BC, along with the early development of ancient Near Eastern cultures. Tactical evolution in Near Eastern warfare, particularly the eclipse of chariot forces by the rise of cavalry, coincided with the emergence of equestrian terracotta figurines and facilitated the popularity of horse and rider imagery. Cyprus' many city-kingdoms have yielded a vast, coroplastic corpus in both votive and mortuary contexts, including figurines of equestrian type. These terracottas are an important contribution to the understanding of ancient Cypriote cultures, cities and their coroplastic oeuvre.
While many studies of excavated terracottas include horse and rider figurines, only a limited number of these publications dedicate adequate analysis and interpretation. Ancient Marion is one of the Cypriote city-kingdoms producing a number of equestrian terracottas that are in need of further examination. By focusing on the unpublished horse and rider figurines from Marion, this paper will add to the conversation of Cyprus' inclusion of equestrian iconography in coroplastic production. Through thorough analysis of the horse and rider terracottas, specifically their plastic and stylistic components, this thesis establishes typologies, makes visual comparisons and demonstrates Marion's awareness of an equine vogue both in contemporary Cyprus and abroad. The horse and rider figurines of Marion are an important contribution to the better understanding of the city-kingdom and exemplify the inclusion of equestrian imagery within the context of ancient societies.
While many studies of excavated terracottas include horse and rider figurines, only a limited number of these publications dedicate adequate analysis and interpretation. Ancient Marion is one of the Cypriote city-kingdoms producing a number of equestrian terracottas that are in need of further examination. By focusing on the unpublished horse and rider figurines from Marion, this paper will add to the conversation of Cyprus' inclusion of equestrian iconography in coroplastic production. Through thorough analysis of the horse and rider terracottas, specifically their plastic and stylistic components, this thesis establishes typologies, makes visual comparisons and demonstrates Marion's awareness of an equine vogue both in contemporary Cyprus and abroad. The horse and rider figurines of Marion are an important contribution to the better understanding of the city-kingdom and exemplify the inclusion of equestrian imagery within the context of ancient societies.
ContributorsWalter, Chelsea (Author) / Serwint, Nancy (Thesis advisor) / Sweeney, Gray (Committee member) / Baldasso, Renzo (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
In this thesis, I investigate the anatomical excesses represented in the works of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. In recent years, art historical scholarship on Ingres has multiplied after being quiescent for much of the twentieth century, as contemporary scholars perceive the unusual contradictions in his works. I introduce the concepts of pathological versus imaginary distortions. Pathological distortions are distortions that represent diseased bodies, such as the goiters in many of Ingres's female figures, whereas imaginary distortions are not anatomically possible, such as the five extra vertebrae in the Grande Odalisque. Ingres employed both of these types of these distortions in his bodies, and I discuss how these two types of distortions can be read differently.
My thesis is that Ingres employed extended anatomical variations-in his paintings, most notably in his female figures, for several reasons: to reconcile his anxiety about originality while remaining within the tradition of Classicism and "disegno," to pay homage to his predecessors who were also the masters of line, and to highlight his command of line and drawing. Though Ingres has never been a strictly Neoclassical artist in the Davidian tradition, the Romantic elements of his work are underlined further by these anatomical variations.
My thesis is that Ingres employed extended anatomical variations-in his paintings, most notably in his female figures, for several reasons: to reconcile his anxiety about originality while remaining within the tradition of Classicism and "disegno," to pay homage to his predecessors who were also the masters of line, and to highlight his command of line and drawing. Though Ingres has never been a strictly Neoclassical artist in the Davidian tradition, the Romantic elements of his work are underlined further by these anatomical variations.
ContributorsEpstein, Danya (Author) / Codell, Julie F. (Thesis advisor) / Gully, Anthony (Committee member) / Fahlman, Betsy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
The turmoil that China endured during the twentieth century triggered a series of social and political revolutions. As China struggled to resolve domestic questions of dynasticism or democracy and nationalism or communism, Western industrialization and imperialism dragged China rapidly into the globalizing world. Likewise, Chinese painting had to confront the West, as Chinese artists dealt with the twentieth-century version of the recurring question of modernizing Chinese painting for its times: how does one reconcile an ancient painting tradition with all the possibilities Western interactions introduced? This dissertation focuses on one artist's lifelong struggle, often overlooked, to answer this question. By examining C. C. Wang (1907-2003) and his life in art, this case study reveals broader truths about how twentieth century Chinese diaspora painters, such as Wang, modernized the tradition of Chinese ink painting.
Wang's reputation as a connoisseur of ancient Chinese painting has overshadowed his own artwork, creating a dearth of research on his artistic development. Using public and private sources, this dissertation applied stylistic analysis to track this development. The analysis reveals an artist's lifelong endeavor to establish a style that would lift the Chinese painting tradition into a modern era, an endeavor inspired by modern Western art ideas and a desire to play a role in the larger movement of elevating Chinese painting. The argument is made that these efforts establish Wang as an influential twentieth century Chinese ink painter.
To clarify Wang's role within the broader movement of Chinese diaspora painters, this dissertation employs a comparison study of Wang with such established twentieth century ink painting artists as Zhang Daqian, Liu Guosong, and Yu Chengyao. It is
asserted that the 1949 diaspora forced this cohort of artists to adjust their style and to transcend traditional Chinese painting by integrating newly-salient ideas from Western art, particularly the abstract movement. Meanwhile, the essential Chinese identity in their art collectively became more significant. The solidarity of purpose and identity is a distinctive part of the answer this group of twentieth century Chinese diaspora painters proposed to their generation's inherited challenge of enriching the tradition.
Wang's reputation as a connoisseur of ancient Chinese painting has overshadowed his own artwork, creating a dearth of research on his artistic development. Using public and private sources, this dissertation applied stylistic analysis to track this development. The analysis reveals an artist's lifelong endeavor to establish a style that would lift the Chinese painting tradition into a modern era, an endeavor inspired by modern Western art ideas and a desire to play a role in the larger movement of elevating Chinese painting. The argument is made that these efforts establish Wang as an influential twentieth century Chinese ink painter.
To clarify Wang's role within the broader movement of Chinese diaspora painters, this dissertation employs a comparison study of Wang with such established twentieth century ink painting artists as Zhang Daqian, Liu Guosong, and Yu Chengyao. It is
asserted that the 1949 diaspora forced this cohort of artists to adjust their style and to transcend traditional Chinese painting by integrating newly-salient ideas from Western art, particularly the abstract movement. Meanwhile, the essential Chinese identity in their art collectively became more significant. The solidarity of purpose and identity is a distinctive part of the answer this group of twentieth century Chinese diaspora painters proposed to their generation's inherited challenge of enriching the tradition.
ContributorsHua, Ming (Author) / Brown, Claudia (Thesis advisor) / Baker, Janet (Committee member) / Fahlman, Betsy (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
Description
From inception, the earliest museums in Europe were a haven for artifacts, many of which represented world cultures within its walls. The tradition of encyclopedic collecting characterized European museums and U.S. institutions modeled themselves after this example. In the 20th century, defining cultural property, in the form of excavated objects, became a priority for many nations and resulted in the scrutiny of ancient artifacts, in particular. This led to the establishment of international protocols which sought to protect items during times of both peace and war. Despite international legislation, the trade of illicit antiquities continued. A major advocate for repatriation, the nation of Italy aggressively sought return of many objects from antiquity and recently approached the Metropolitan Museum of Art regarding several items whose provenance was suspect. Ultimately the conflict was resolved through The Metropolitan Museum of Art-Republic of Italy Agreement of February 21, 2006, which transferred the title of six antiquities to Italy in return for long term loans of equivalent objects to the museum. The landmark agreement represents a mutually profitable resolution to a situation potentially plaguing thousands of institutions worldwide. The implications of replication of the agreement can potentially change how museums, nations and the public understand concepts of ownership and may reduce the role of permanent collections in favor of sharing, rather than possessing, world heritage.
ContributorsFeller, Andrea (Author) / Serwint, Nancy (Thesis advisor) / Sweeney, J. Gray (Committee member) / Sealy Lineberry, Heather (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The Neue Galerie in New York City includes some of the most impressive and culturally-specific artwork from Ronald S. Lauder's private art collection. The Neue's permanent exhibitions showcase pieces from the Wiener Sezession (Vienna Secession) and Wiener Werkstätte (Applied Arts of Vienna) in an environment that also employs replicas and period specific motifs to evoke the interiors of the private homes in which affluent fin-de-siècle Viennese art patrons lived, displayed influential modernist work, and held culturally important salons. Gustav Klimt's celebrated Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907) is arguably the museum's most prized artwork. It serves as an icon that immortalizes Ronald Lauder as private collector. The figure of Adele Bloch-Bauer has also become an important emblem, whose story epitomizes the complexities of Jewish identity and its influence upon Viennese modern art. This thesis explores how the Neue Galerie's physical layout represents a specific model of modernism. By focusing on the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, I urge a rethinking of the museum's relationship to modern art as an interpretation of the past. The themes that surround Adele Bloch-Bauer I have shaped Lauder's agenda as the leading private collector of the art of fin-de-siècle Vienna.
ContributorsFindling, Heather (Author) / Mesch, Ulrike (Thesis advisor) / Fahlman, Betsy (Committee member) / Toon, Richard (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012