History of Art and Architecture Theses and Dissertations

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https://hdl.handle.net/1794/6006

For more information about the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, visit the web site at: https://design.uoregon.edu/arthistory

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Open Access
A Garden Among the Flames: Stylistic Changes in the Osma and Facundus Beatus Manuscripts as Reflections of Medieval Iberian Socio-Political Change
(University of Oregon, 2021-09-13) Kambour, Zoey; Hutterer, Maile
Scholars universally acknowledge the eleventh century as the turning point in medieval Iberian history. Léon-Castile did not ally with the papacy until 1080 at the Council of Burgos when their liturgical practices were forcefully changed from the Visigothic to Roman rite. The illumination style, controversially referred to as “Mozarabic,” emerged alongside this multi-century old Visigothic religious tradition. Therefore, this forced change resulted in the imposition of a new, foreign style found in Rome. Before the style was fully assimilated into the northern Iberian manuscripts, I argue that two eleventh-century Beatus manuscripts, the Facundus (1047) and Osma (1086), reflect the socio-political transitionary period in their use of local and foreign styles. Through stylistic analysis, I demonstrate that the instances of religious involvement — the introduction of the order of Cluny and the papal intervention regarding the Visigothic rite —catalyzed a stylistic progression out of the local style and into the foreign.
Open Access
A Genuine Dilemma: The Piombino Apollo and Fraud in the First and Second Century Greco-Roman Art Market
(University of Oregon, 2016-10-27) Garvin, Kaitlyn; Hurwit, Jeffrey
In 1832, fishermen pulled a full-body bronze sculpture of a youth, now called the Piombino Apollo, from the sea near ancient Populonia. Under life-size, the piece resembles an Archaic kouros, though it has some notable unusual features including an inscription dedicating the supposed image of Apollo to Athena and the signatures of two artists found on a lead tablet hidden within the hollow bronze. These unusual features led scholars to eventually reclassify the piece from an Archaic work of the fifth century to an Archaistic forgery of the second or first century. Few have challenged this reclassification, but this thesis attempts to complicate the application of the word forgery to the Piombino Apollo. Further, it examines whether a contemporary buyer would have been fooled by the sculpture’s “deceptive” traits and offers alternative possibilities to account for the artists’ choices of style, pose, and inscriptions.
Open Access
A World in Print; Foreigners in Japan's Early Modern Bankoku Jinbutsu-Zu
(University of Oregon, 2016-10-27) Parman, Alison; Walley, Akiko
Japanese woodblock prints featuring foreigners that appeared after the opening of ports such as Yokohama to international trade in the mid-nineteenth century are broadly referred to as Yokohama-e (or “Yokohama Pictures”). While there are already seminal studies that document the representation of Western peoples in Yokohama-e, those of Asian peoples have not yet received equal attention. This thesis focuses on a group of prints that include the word “all nations” (bankoku) in their titles, particularly those of Utagawa Yoshiiku. Although these prints are currently considered a type of Yokohama-e, they are distinctively different from typical Yokohama-e in their scope, particularly in its inclusion of many Asian and mythical peoples. This study investigates how this group of “pictures of the peoples of all nations” (bankoku jinbutsu-zu) functioned as popular guides to the nations of the world and reflected the domestic new awareness for Japan’s role within it.
Open Access
Antony Gormley: Contemporizing the Index
(University of Oregon, 2014-09-29) Phillips, Maddelaine; Lin, Jenny
This thesis aims to reexamine the index as a sign that generates meaning in the sculptural oeuvre of contemporary British artist Antony Gormley. The artist has consistently proclaimed his work to be indexical but has never offered clarification of the term. Rather, he adheres to the definition developed in the late nineteenth century by the term's originator, Charles Sanders Peirce. This is problematic because it gives false meaning to the indexical sign in a contemporary context. By comparing Gormley's use of the term in his sculptural practice to Peirce's theories and those of art historian Rosalind Krauss, who was the first to significantly and convincingly relate the index to art, this study will attempt to provide a contemporized definition of the index. This thesis aims to offer a clarification in the meaning of Antony Gormley's sculpture and demonstrate the index's ability to offer resolution to what is contemporary about contemporary art.
Open Access
Art Beyond the Generic City: Yang Yongliang’s Photo Composites 2007-2012
(University of Oregon, 2016-10-27) Mickle, Alexandra; Lin, Jenny
This thesis examines the digital photo composites of Chinese artist Yang Yongliang (b. 1980, Shanghai) from 2007-2012 by selecting three distinct series that focus on three cities. This thesis approaches Yang’s Shanghai-based digital landscape prints (shuma shanshui), his 2012 series A Bowl of Taipei, and his 2010 series Greece, Greece and investigates how they relate to Asian art history, contemporary art discourse, and urban theories, including Rem Koolhaas’s 1995 essay “The Generic City.” This thesis moves beyond the simple binaries with which Yang’s works are often described – past versus present, nature versus city, tradition versus modernity – dichotomies similar to those used to characterize recent urbanization in most major cities, as observed in Koolhaas’s writing. This thesis argues that Yang’s works inhabit multiple positions simultaneously and offer new potentials for expanding beyond the generic city.
Open Access
Art, Devotion, and the Utility of Sight in the Carolingian Church
(University of Oregon, 2014-09-29) Koel, Jordan; Lachman, Charles
This thesis is an exploration of Carolingian art within the context of religious devotion. The second chapter investigates the theoretical aspects related to the use of images by examining historical sources. These texts offer insight both into the types of anxieties images raised as well as contemporary attempts to reconcile these concerns. In order to determine how these theories were put into practice, the third chapter considers the manners in which the visual experience was orchestrated. To do so, shrines and reliquaries, as well as textual accounts describing encounters with them, are used to explore the messages that religious art conveyed and the means by which they did so. The fouirth chapter focuses on the figure of the maker of sacred art. The theories of religious art and implementation of them, as discussed in Chapters II and III, fundamentally relied on the craftsman who fashioned them.
Open Access
“Back to Zero:” The Artistic and Pedagogical Philosophy of Anni Albers
(University of Oregon, 2017-09-06) Kochman, Sloane; Lin, Jenny
This thesis investigates Anni Albers’s development from a student at the Bauhaus to a teacher at Black Mountain College, focusing on her unique pedagogical practice that was informed by what she called a “back to zero” approach. My study analyzes the parallels between Albers’s art and teaching by looking at her experience as a student, teacher and artist. Albers’s “back to zero” philosophy frames the narrative of each chapter. In the first chapter, I examine her time as a student at the Bauhaus, exploring precisely which aspects of her Bauhaus education she continued to reference in her own teaching career. The second chapter focuses on Albers’s role as a teacher at Black Mountain College, especially how she viewed self-referential aesthetics (where the surface appearance references internal structure and production methods), the process of haptic creation by which objects signaled their intrinsic connection to the essence of weaving, and the influence of ancient textiles, especially ancient Andean weavings. The third chapter explores the teaching environment that Albers created for her students, ultimately asserting this to be an expression of the same “back to zero” philosophy that she embodied in her artistic practice.
Open Access
Between Indoor and Outdoor: The Graffiti and Installations of Barry McGee ("Twist")
(University of Oregon, 2015-01-14) Hwang, Sarah; Howell, Ocean
This thesis traces the transformation of graffiti as it travels from the street to the art institution by closely examining the graffiti and installations of Barry McGee ("Twist"). As a graffitist-turned-artist, McGee looked to his environment and experiences for his art, incorporating the language of graffiti into his installations. They exhibit what I describe as his ethnography of graffiti because he creates them from his unique position as a graffiti writer, representing graffiti as both an aesthetic expression and established youth culture. In order to explain this re-mediation of graffiti, the thesis aligns McGee's works with the sculptural tableaus of Edward Kienholz to emphasize his use of the narrative to bring the audience into both the aesthetic and the social world of graffiti.
Open Access
Beyond Fabric: The Early Barrel Works of Christo and Jeanne-Claude, 1958-1962
(University of Oregon, 2014-10-17) Cekander, Megan; Narath, Albert
My thesis examines how artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude appropriated the oil drum as a charged medium when considering this object's various cultural connotations. As most scholarship have focused on the husband-and-wife team's artwork involving fabric, this project provides an alternate discourse by analyzing their early barrel works from 1958-1962. During these years, Christo's artistic development established his interest in using the barrel as reoccurring medium throughout his oeuvre as well as his desire to create large-scale works of public art with his partner, Jeanne-Claude. While in Paris, Christo found the oil drum to be a cheap and accessible working material for many of his wrapped sculptures. Yet its inherent volume and ability to stack led to his experimentations with installation, cumulating in he and Jeanne-Claude's first collaboration. Beyond the barrel's economic associations, together they began to examine how it could take on larger cultural contexts, especially the political.
Open Access
Bridging Heaven and Spain: The Virgin of Mercy from the Late Medieval Period to the Age of Exploration
(University of Oregon, 2013-10-03) Kugler, Katrena; Camerlenghi, Nicola
The Virgin of Mercy is a Marian devotional image type recognizable by its portrayal of Mary protecting the faithful with her cloak. This thesis situates the iconography of painted panels within their historical and cultural context in Spain from the late medieval period to the Age of Exploration. I explain the image's origins and introduce its various versions, focusing on three major frequently commissioned subtypes: the Sponsorship of the Virgin, plague commissions, and the Mercedarian's Virgin of Mercy. I present a case study of one famous version of the type, the Virgin of the Navigators, and focus on the Spaniards and Amerindians beneath the cloak, situating them in relation to the historic debate that called into question the very humanity of the peoples of the Americas. The thesis explores the painting's possible statement the patrons may have been making through the artistic treatment of both groups.
Open Access
César Moro Between Indigenism and Surrealism
(University of Oregon, 2014-09-29) Beaver, Katlyn; Cheng, Joyce
Current scholarship too narrowly studies Peruvian surrealist César Moro's (1903-1956) graphic and poetic works as two equivalent mechanisms of expression and overemphasizes his rupture from surrealism in 1942. In this thesis, I integrate study of Moro's plastic and graphic works with his curatorial endeavors and revise common perception of his definitive break from surrealism, focusing instead on his turn to surrealism in 1927. Engaged in efforts to combat the repression of indigenous and pre-Columbian histories in Peru during the 1930s, I argue that Moro employed surrealist collage as a decolonial enterprise in order to oppose the entrenched nationalism of indigenismo artwork, the most important movement of Peruvian modernism. This thesis demonstrates that Moro's crticism of pictorial indigenismo artists like Peruvian José Sabogal (b. 1888-1956), leader of the movement, has its roots in his surrealist collage enterprise and continues even after his defect from surrealism in 1942.
Open Access
The Classical Trophy: From Ritual Offering to Regal Ornament
(University of Oregon, 2012) Osterkamp, Ellen; Osterkamp, Ellen; Harper, James
This thesis examines the transformations of meaning, function, and variations of anthropomorphic forms as the trophy evolves from its Greek origins on the battlefield to its broader use on numerous monuments, royal palaces, and civil buildings throughout Europe. The ephemeral nature of the materials used in its creation, the contingency of its location, and its ritualistic character are integral components of the trophy in ancient Greece. In its development over time, however, the use and meaning of the trophy became increasingly fluid, taking on a variety of forms that plot on a spectrum of meanings and functions that ranges from the specific to the generic. The anthropomorphic trophy, still a strong and prevailing symbol of victory today, eventually became a faint echo of what it once was, expanding far beyond the strictly defined votive of the past.
Open Access
Closure as Perception and Interpretation: Ikeda Manabu's Negative Space Through Comics Studies
(University of Oregon, 2021-09-13) Newell, Christin; Walley, Akiko
Ikeda Manabu (b. 1973) creates monumental images that emerge from an aggregate of unrelated miniature motifs. These small motifs are made from an accumulation of short, colorful lines drawn on paper canvases. Taking Buddha and Regeneration as case studies, this thesis investigates Ikeda’s effective use of the paper surfaces between his lines, focusing on the “silhouetted figures,” which are the undrawn spaces in the shapes of people and creatures. I employ the analytical frameworks of Comics Studies proposed by Will Eisner and Scott McCloud, such as non-frames, bleeds, and closure, to argue how Ikeda’s negative spaces create room for perception and interpretation for the viewers, like the paper surface between the comic panels (the gutter). This thesis helps us understand the post-Murakami Takashi (b. 1962) generation of Japanese artists and how their mode of production reemphasizes the use of one’s hands and impacts the audience’s engagement with their works.
Open Access
Collecting Memories: Rachel Whiteread’s House and Memory in Contemporary London
(University of Oregon, 2015-08-18) Dunn, Stephanie; Mondloch, Kate
Contemporary British artist Rachel Whiteread is celebrated for her ability to cast everyday objects that force the viewer to think about the spaces they typically ignore. House, one of Whiteread’s most well known and written about sculptures was created in 1993. House considered issues of memory in contemporary London, specifically parts of London that are experiencing drastic amounts of change. Current scholars understand House as a memorial, and while this thesis agrees with this interpretation, it also considers House as part of a group memorial with Whiteread’s other sculptural works created before and in 1993. This thesis begins by contextualizing Whiteread’s artistic practice in current scholarship and argues for further evaluation of House. After a thorough examination of the creation, destruction, and reception of House, I analyze current scholarship on the sculpture and consider the similar themes through Whiteread’s early work to prove their ability to act as a group memorial.
Open Access
Confronting Polish-Jewish Antagonism in a Post-Holocaust World: Yael Bartana's Film Trilogy "...And Europe Will Be Stunned"
(University of Oregon, 2020-02-27) Zamosc, Leanna; Lin, Jenny
At the 2011 Venice Biennale, the Israeli artist Yael Bartana represented Poland with “…And Europe Will Be Stunned”, a film trilogy that depicts the rise and evolution of the fictional movement JRMIP - Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland. The movement calls for the return of the Jews and the restoration of the Jewish presence in Poland. Bartana’s work includes photographs, films, and installations about the conflictive nature of contemporary identities and the politics of memory. Her films on the imagined return of the Jews to Poland focus on controversial themes related to Jewish and Israeli national consciousness and how the rise of a narrow-minded Polish nationalism has been stiffening anti-Semitic attitudes. This study interprets Bartana’s Polish trilogy as an attempt, through visual historical and cultural references and cues, to challenge intolerance, induce people to reconsider, and foster new conversations about how Poland should relate to its Jewish and other minorities.
Open Access
Constructing a Modem Vienna: The Architecture and Cultural Criticism of Adolf Loos
(University of Oregon, 2010-06) Moss, Katie Nicole, 1982-
Adolf Loos is most widely known for his essay Ornament and Crime (Ornament und Verbrechen), in which he sarcastically compares architectural ornament to the tattoos of "savages." Loos sought to modernize Vienna through the introduction of American and British culture and was known as one of Austria's most notorious cultural critics. Celebrated for breaking with the historicist culture of the late nineteenth century, Loos is often heralded as the father of the Modem Movement, but many of his writings and designs contradict such a classification. This thesis will explore the origins and motives behind Loos' s conception of modernism to suggest a better understanding of his role as cultural critic and architect in Vienna as well as his relationship to the architects and architecture of the subsequent generation.
Open Access
Critiquing the French: The Satirical Monuments of James Gillray and George Cruikshank
(University of Oregon, 2016-11-21) Bounds, Chyna; Amstutz, Nina
In eighteenth-century England, general anxieties towards the unchecked and excessive British power and authority were caricaturized in images depicting France and its people. Extensive literature has been published on the representations of French individuals and symbols in satirical prints, yet scholars have neglected the role of monuments in satirical imagery. This thesis looks at James Gillray’s Siege de la Colonne de Pompée—Science in the Pillory (1799) and Design for Naval Pillar (1800) and George Cruikshank’s A view of the grand triumphal pillar (1801) to unveil how British printmakers utilized satirical monuments to warn viewers of both Napoléon Bonaparte’s threat to the European continent and the harmful actions of their own British governmental figures. The role of monument culture, victory culture, nationalism and print distribution is also analyzed to highlight the affect of these prints on the British, and larger European, publics.
Open Access
Curating Buddhism: Reimagining Buddhist Statues in a Museum and Temple Setting
(University of Oregon, 2016-02-23) Jameson, Derry; Lachman, Charles
This thesis considers whether a Buddhist statue in a museum context can be both aesthetic and devotional. By reexamining the relationship between a devotional object, its surrounding space, and its viewer, this thesis will suggest how a museum gallery, though not a consecrated ritual space, can still potentially be a place for spiritual engagement akin to a religious sanctuary. Through a comparison of Gallery 16 of the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco and Mengjia Longshan Temple, Taipei, Taiwan as a case study in terms of their spaces and the movement of people within the space in relation to the objects, this thesis will consider how Buddhist statues may continue to exist as spiritual objects and works of aesthetic appreciation without losing their past as devotional icons, and I will do this by applying Victor Turner’s concepts of liminality and the liminoid.
Open Access
Danger and Devotion: Hariti, Mother of Demons in the Stories and Stones of Gandhara, A Historiography and Catalogue of Images
(University of Oregon, 2002-06) Rowan, Jennifer Gilmanton
The sculptural images of Hariti document the synergistic character of Gandharan art, religion and society during the Kushan period (first to fifth centuries C. E.). This thesis establishes a comprehensive historical, religious and cultural context for sculptural representation in Gandhara and the emergence of a distinctive Gandharan style. It is designed to consolidate Hariti's extant images and to review and re-evaluate their iconography and historic identifications. It includes a Catalogue of images of Hariti and related Gandharan deities and provides translations of Buddhist texts relating the story of the Mother of Demons. In addition, Hariti's mythology is examined for evidence of the shifting dynamics of authority, orthodoxy and gender within the traditions of Brahmanism and early Buddhism.
Open Access
Departing from History: Sharon Hayes, Reenactment and Archival Practice in Contemporary Art
(University of Oregon, 2016-02-23) Denning, Catherine; Mondloch, Kate
This thesis addresses reenactment and archival practice in the work of Sharon Hayes, a mid-career multi-media artist renowned for her use of archival documents to pose questions about history, politics, and speech. I do this through analyses of two of Hayes’s projects: the series In the Near Future (2005-2009) and a series of projects the artist refers to as “love addresses.” While these projects appropriate and repeat historical documents, Hayes’s work is especially interesting for the way it emphasizes difference over authenticity and explores the ways meaning shifts across temporal, geographic, and social contexts. In contrast to scholars who argue that Hayes’s practice is nostalgic and serves to decontextualize and depoliticize history, my thesis argues that the pedagogical aspects of Hayes’s work and her performative engagements with historical material are deeply political and contextual. My thesis demonstrates that Hayes’s distinctive contribution is to model historical agency and imagine alternative futures.