The American poet Susan Howe (1937-present) began her career as a visual artist, but owing to a dearth of information about her early collages it has been difficult to say anything substantive about how they might have shaped her poetic practice. In 2010, she placed her collages on archive. Along with a number of personal interviews with Howe, this heretofore unavailable material has enabled me to consider Howe's subsequent work in a new light and to establish significant links between her early visual aesthetics and the poetics of bibliography, historiography, and elegy for which she is now known. Howe's collages, like her poetry, focus on details that are at risk of vanishing from cultural memory and printed record. For this reason, I argue that her work evinces an 'elegaic materialism', or a way of reading, viewing, and thinking about texts that is attuned to loss. If “history is the record of the winners,” as Howe says, then one way of rescuing marginalized perspectives is by regarding manuscripts as drawings, thereby rescuing the concrete particulars deemed irrelevant by editors and historians. As Howe's late work turned increasingly toward elegy, her early aesthetic contributed to a nuanced poetics of personal loss and to a series of astonishing new formal tropes. The Introduction to this thesis discusses Howe's materialism in the context of current literary theory and textual scholarship. Chapter 1 concerns itself with Howe's art historical context. Chapter 2 analyses a selection of her word-drawings. Chapter 3 considers Howe's transition to poetry. Chapter 4 addresses her turn to archival documents in her middle period. Chapter 5 looks at the influence on Howe of documentary film, especially in connection with the task of representing a lost loved one, and Chapter 6 discusses her two most recent elegies, The Midnight and THAT THIS. A Coda completes the circle by once more considering Howe in the context of the visual arts at the moment she was selected to exhibit at the 2014 Whitney Biennial.

[pt] Essa pesquisa tem como objetivo analisar como as imagens foram empregadas, desde o início da Idade Média até os tempos do capitalismo tardio, por diferentes instâncias de poder com a intenção de atender a fins de caráter propriamente político, e consequentemente ideológico. Nossa intenção é mostrar em que medida as imagens foram pensadas para serem implementadas em diferentes épocas como se pudessem supor uma neutralidade visual acerca da realidade, sem que fossem notadas como uma das formas de ferramenta de controle. Isto é, uma ferramenta de controle político pelo qual uma cultura dominante representa o mundo, torna-o presente e age sobre ele. Da crítica a respeito da construção do mito sobre a imagem na história, compreendemos que ela tendeu a negar sua origem real e sua natureza de objeto fabricado para se afirmar como um artefato quase consubstancial a seu protótipo sagrado. Longe de uma neutralidade, é preciso afirmar a noção de que as imagens exercem um controle social sofisticado a partir de seu uso em razão de uma política voltada para um posicionamento ideológico específico da cultura dominante de uma determinada época. Por esse motivo acreditamos que as imagens foram e continuam a ser utilizadas como arma propagandística na legitimação da cultura hegemônica. Lembramos que a luta política é uma luta pelo poder de representação, pelo reconhecimento das formas de representação legítima e pelo controle simbólico. E o poder simbólico é o poder econômico, político e cultural que está em condição de se fazer reconhecer e de obter reconhecimento. Portanto, nossa proposição se localiza na discussão do sentido simbólico da imagem gráfica enquanto código fundamental, que é operado pelas instâncias de dominação para o controle das massas em função da ideologia particular de seu tempo histórico. E por instâncias de dominação supomos o Campo do Design, que através de princípios e esquemas específicos consagram as imagens que atendem a sociedade como um todo. Nesse sentido, a pesquisa chama atenção para a forma como se organizam as representações de conhecimento sobre a sociedade, mostrando que isso implica em incorporar à análise todos os aspectos das organizações das quais elas são feitas, incluindo: estruturas burocráticas, poder financeiro, a cultura visual, os códigos profissionais, enfim, todas as condições econômicas, culturais e políticas de desenvolvimento e acesso que determinam o que, e de que maneira uma imagem será representada para a sociedade. / [en] This research is aimed at analyzing how images have been used by different instances of power with the intention of attending purposes of political and, consequently, ideological character since the beginning of the Middle Ages until the times of late capitalism. Our intention is to show to what extent images have been planned to be implemented at different moments as if they could assume a visual impartiality on reality, without them being noticed as instruments of control. That is, an instrument of political control through which a dominant culture represents the world, makes it present and acts upon it. From the critics on the construction of the myth about image in history we understand that the image has tended to deny its real inception and its nature as an object which has been fabricated to affirm itself almost as an artifact which is consubstantial to its sacred prototype. Far from what we may call impartiality, we must take into consideration that images exercise a sophisticated form of social control from its usage on account of politics directed to a particular ideological stance of the dominant culture in a certain time. For this reason we believe that images have been and continue to be used as a propagandistic tool in the process of legitimating the hegemonic culture. We point out that the political struggle is an effort over the power of representation, over the acknowledgement of the forms of legitimate representation and symbolic control. Symbolic power is the economic, political, and cultural power that is in position of making itself recognized and obtaining recognition. Therefore, our proposition stands on the discussion of the symbolic meaning of the graphic image as a fundamental code that is run by the domination instances aimed at controlling the masses according to the particular ideology of their historical time. By domination instances we suppose the Field of Design, which, through principles and specific patterns, consolidates images that attend society as a whole. In this sense, our research highlights the manner through which representations of knowledge are organized on society,demonstrating that this implies incorporating to our analysis all aspects of the organizations of which they are made including bureaucratic structures, financial power, visual culture, and professional codes: that is, all economical, cultural and political conditions of development and access which determine what and in which manner an image will be represented to society.

Syftet med den här avhandlingen är att studera de roller bilder har i skapandet av dominerande föreställningar om en plats. Exemplen är hämtade från Visby, en stad med välkända medeltida lämningar på ön Gotland i Östersjön. Teoretiska verktyg kommer från kulturarvspolitik, som belyser kulturarv som konstruktioner med objekt värdeladdade av specifika aktörer i särskilda syften och från visuella kulturstudier som fokuserar hur vi betraktar vår omvärld. Bilder och berättelser skapar socialt konstruerade seenden och bortseenden. Dessa seenden, skapar i sin tur mindscapes tillsammans med upplevelser, drömmar, minnen, medierade budskap och ”före-bilder”. Det är Visbys mindscapes som fokuseras här. Med utgångspunkt i Visbys tio-i-topp-motiv diskuteras bilder hämtade från tre grupper av aktörer, kulturarvsbilder, konstbilder och turismbilder. Begrepp som autenticitet, tilltal och modus är viktiga i förståelsen av hur Visbys ikoner tillkommer bland annat genom upprepning av ett litet antal bildmotiv. Då medeltida lämningar och Visbys guldålder som Hansestad ofta ingår i människors mindscapes döljs och överskuggas andra tidsperioder, sociala kontexter och miljöer i Visby. Fotografier, målningar, teckningar, tryck och souvenirer är kraftfulla redskap i den processen. Detta resulterar i att 9/10 av Visby hamnar i skymundan genom stadens status som en medeltida ikon. Den historiska innerstaden har också fått anpassa sig efter föreställningarna om densamma. / This thesis deals with the roles pictures play when collective imaginations of a city are constructed. The examples comes from Visby, a city with famous medieval remains, on the island Gotland in the Baltic. Cultural heritage politics points out heritage as a mode of cultural production. Heritage is constructed when values are added to specific objects by specific actors for specific purposes. Visual cultural studies underline the practices of looking. We are always looking from specific positions. Images and narratives create socially constructed gazes. Gazes together with experiences, dreams, memories, mediated messages and “fore-sights” creates mindscapes. The urban mindscapes of Visby are at focus here. Starting in a Visby top-ten-image-list, images produced and frequently used within the three domains; heritage and tourist industries and the art world are discussed. The images characteristic marks are defined and discussed in terms of authenticity, emotive modes and ways of address. This study also deals with four socially emergent Visby icons and the consequences of the mono-thematic in Visby. When the medieval remains and Hanseatic traders are dominating people’s mindscapes, other periods, social contexts and Visby settings are hidden or overshadowed. The agency of display, a few repeated views in all sorts of media, produces gazes, ways of seeing and unseeing. Photographs, paintings, drawings, prints and souvenirs with Visby motifs are powerful tools in this process. The result is hierarchical orders hard to change. It has not only had the effect that 9/10 of the contemporary city of Visby is being shaded by its status as a medieval icon. The historical centre has also been adjusted in order to fit with the conceptions of the place.

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There is an ongoing fascination with the Victorian era as well as the genre of horror, and the characters originating from the first 18th century Gothic tales still appear in our Western popular culture today. The Victorian Gothic novels contain elements of romanticism and violence which often results in strong undertones of heated sexuality. I argue that it is one of the reasons for the genre’s wide popularity. This thesis examines the representation of femininity and female sexuality within a Victorian horror context by a comparative analyse of illustrations from British 19th century Penny Blood publications with contemporary fashion photographs. The images are analysed by applying Erwin Panofsky’s method of Iconography and with the theoretical framework of feminist visual culture, and historical theories on sexuality, biology and violence. The thesis shows how Gothic visualisations are interpreted and appropriated photographically today, where the latter is darker and more exaggerated than the former. Symbols of sexuality, female agency, dominance and submission are equally found in the Victorian and the contemporary material. However, the Victorian aesthetic has become a platform where a nude, sexual female body in a S&M situation can offer a spectrum of meanings and even symbols of feminism. It is a visual culture where women can fight back, taking revenge on their oppressor and looking fierce when doing so.

The thesis, entitled "What I like to watch?" is aimed at inquiry of preschool age children's visual preferences. Whole work purpose is to realize a didactical project in the kindergarden and find out preschool children's visual preferences through art activites and artefiletics. Parents' information are also very important contribution because it contains important facts about preschool children's visual preferences.

(ENG) This diploma thesis deals in a complex way with the theme of via crucis, from the kunsthistorical, social cultural and pedagogical point of view, therefore it is a connection of a theoretical study with an exploratory probe and also an art project. It analyses iconography and contexts of particular themes of passion cycle and it shows various appearance and current state of via crucis themselves in the Czech republic. At the same time this part aims to be an inspiration and a theoretical basis for teachers who would decide for the inclusion of a religious theme to the educational process. The thesis also indicates what pedagogical potential does a Christian theme imply in education and what educational aims stated in RVP could be achieved thanks to this theme. The thesis then deals with the theme of via crucis in the educational complex of art lessons and with the possibilities of didactic transformation of a passion story. The suggested and realized theme scheme maps the relationship and opinions of pupils and also the contribution and the difficulties of a religious theme used in educational process. The orientation in opinions, knowledge and experience of pupils concerning religious themes and the orientation in the current state of religiosity in the Czech republic is ensured thanks to...

Thesis Abstract The thesis deals with the visual content of the media of official memory, in particular the visual material of history textbooks and the exhibition of the National Museum. It examines the formal and content features of the representation of four key events of modern Czechoslovak and Czech history which entered the awareness of the general public as "eight" events: the founding of Czechoslovakia (1918), the signing of the Munich Agreement (1938), the communist coup (1948) and the invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies (1968). Moreover, it relates the modes of representation of these events to the issue of the political transition of 1989. By means of mixed methods research, it examines a sample of textbooks published during the communist era (1967, 1973, 1982, 1983, 1983), the post-communist era (1995, 1996, 1999, 1999, 2000, 2009, 2011) and the exhibits from the permanent exhibition Crossroads of Czech and Czechoslovak Statehood (opened in 2009). In its findings, the thesis presents 34 visual memory figures related to the representation of the selected historical events. It points out the circulation of these images between the medium of the textbook and the historical exposition, thus following the dynamic concept of memory discussed in the theoretical part of the thesis. It finds both...

The main aim of this thesis is to find out how the Christmas holidays are represented in products of Czech visual culture. This representation could have changed in times, based on cultural influences and ideologies and in terms of particular product where Christmas was represented. We'd like to evaluate if the constant representations of Christmas which are anchored in our culture still exist. In theoretical part of the thesis we focus on historical development of displaying Christmas in Czech region. The analytical part of thesis analyses television broadcast of four Czech area-wide channels during Christmas time in 2017 and observes which cultural influences are contained in. Other part of thesis looks into visual culture and pictures. For we mainly focus on television in analytical part, another part of thesis includes information about this media and about particularity of mass media in general. For analysis of media information we've chosen a combination of two type of research: quantitative content analysis and semiotic analysis.

La photographie numérique a transformé les comportements sociaux, en devenant un élément important de nos vies quotidiennes. Ne restant pas à l’écart, le milieu de l’art contemporain a suivi cette tendance. La fin des années 1960 marque l’apparition de l’art éphémère, y compris la performance. Сes courants artistiques au 20e siècle ont incité une documentation des œuvres qui est passée par la photographie. Progressivement, elle a pris une position plus forte, intervenant comme support majeur de la création artistique. En documentant ces œuvres, la dimension éphémère de la performance est remplacée par une certaine matérialité qui devient un moyen de posséder ces œuvres. Vanessa Beecroft, une artiste italienne-américaine, est un exemple parfait qui réunit ces tendances et ces paradoxes. Attaquée par les uns qui critiquent son approche qui « exploite » les femmes, elle est glorifiée comme « féministe » par les autres. Sa production artistique efface en effet les frontières entre le monde réel et l’imaginaire, ainsi qu’entre le monde de l’art légitime et celui de la culture populaire, du marché de l’art et du commerce. Dans notre mémoire, nous étudions les photographies prises pendant les performances de Beecroft en tant qu’objets indépendants, ce qui nous permet de pousser l’analyse sociologique de l’œuvre plus loin, démontrant une série de médiations qui sont au cœur de l’œuvre de l’artiste et qui créent la valeur de son œuvre. Enfin, cette analyse nous permet de placer l’œuvre de Beecroft dans un contexte du marché de l’art plus global. / Digital photography has transformed our social behaviour and has become an important part of our daily lives. The contemporary art scene also followed this trend. The late 1960s were marked by the emergence of ephemeral art practices, including performance. These twentieth-century artistic trends prompted an intensified usage of photographic documenting in art. The photographic medium has gradually become a major support for ephemeral artistic creation. The ephemeral dimension of photography has thus become more material, which has in turn allowed possessing these works of art. Vanessa Beecroft, an Italian American artist, is a perfect example of this phenomenon, as her art brings together these tendencies and paradoxes. She has been both criticized for her exploitative approach toward women who participate in her performances and glorified as a feminist artist. Her artistic production erases the boundaries between the real world and the imaginary, as well as between the world of legitimate art and that of popular culture, the art market, and commerce. In my thesis, I study the photographs taken during Beecroft’s performances as independent works of art. This allows me to push the sociological analysis further and to trace a series of mediations that are at the heart of her work and that create the value of these artworks. Lastly, this analysis places Beecroft’s work in the global context of the current art market.