This study considers the relief decoration of private tombs in Lower Egypt in the period 664-332 BC. The basis for analysis is a chronologically arranged descriptive catalogue, which includes both isolated blocks in museum collections and tombs whose location is known. The present condition of the relief and its content are described in detail there. Texts are considered where they provide infotmation on provenance and dating, and hand-copies are provided. Each piece is illustrated in the plate volume. Enough of the material can be dated by textual evidence to provide a solid framework for stylistic ordering of the remainder. The resulting chronology has important implications, dividing the period into two major phases, covering the seventh and sixth centuries, and the fourth century, separated by a hiatus in production of tomb reliefs. The chronology proposed eliminates the possibility that either Greeks or Persians exercised any significant influence on Egyptian art before the very end of the period. Instead, native tradition emerges as the primary inspiration for Late Period artists. Two sources stand out. The first is the Old-Middle Kingdom tomb repertory (archaism), the second is the New Kingdom tradition carried on in the minor arts, a source largely-ignored hitherto. These were not slavishly copied, but adapted and "modernized" to suit the taste of the time. The independence and creativity of Late Period artists is emphasized. A discussion of stylistic development in light of the dating system is given, and several themes are analyzed in detail as illustrations of the larger issues raised.

The Ordination Scroll of Empress Zhang (1493) in the San Diego Museum of Art, a highlight at the Taoism and the Arts of China exhibition in 2000, is an unusual object among surviving visual material from Ming dynasty China (1368 – 1644). At over twenty-seven metres long, the scroll contains meticulously painted images and a detailed inscription that records the Daoist ordination of Empress Zhang (1470 – 1541), consort of the Hongzhi emperor (r. 1488 – 1505) by the Orthodox Unity institution. The event it documents, which elevates the empress into the celestial realm, would be unknown to history if not for the survival of this scroll. This dissertation is an in-depth study of the Ordination Scroll that also considers its implications for understanding the activities of empresses and their representations during the Ming dynasty. The first three chapters of this dissertation closely examine the material, visual and textual aspects of the Ordination Scroll. The remaining two chapters situate the scroll within the broader activities of Ming empresses. A complete translation of the main inscription in the scroll is provided in the appendix.

O objetivo desta dissertação é analisar o processo de visualidade, quando da leitura de textos multimodais publicados em jornais brasileiros. A hipótese de nosso trabalho é que, contrário à maneira tradicional de abordar a imagem como documento, isto é, com seu significado estático e inerente a ela, acreditamos que a imagem é uma construção sócio histórica, carregando traços de seu contexto de produção; como tal a leitura e a interpretação dessa imagem serão influenciadas pelo contexto sócio histórico no qual se inserem seus intérpretes/produtores. O trabalho consistiu na contraposição entre análises de imagens jornalísticas e conceitos da Semiótica, Análise de Discurso, Antropologia Visual e Comunicação Visual. / The objective of this dissertation is to analyze visual multimodal texts published in Brazilian newspapers. The hypothesis is that, contrary to the traditional approach to the image as a document with a fixed static and inherent meaning, we believe that the image is a socio historic construction carrying traces of its context of production; as such the reading and interpretation of the image is influenced by the socio-historic context to which its interpreters/producers belong. Our methodology consisted of counterposing the analysis of journalistic images and concepts from Semiotics, Discourse Analysis, Visual Anthropology and Visual Communications.

O ambiente contemporâneo tem se tornado cada vez mais expandido ao abrigar dimensões virtuais e digitais. Olhar para o ambiente hoje é ver também através de interfaces tecnológicas e filtros culturais interdependentes; é ver imagens que fluem através da hipervisualidade das mídias e das redes sociais. Essa pesquisa explora a visualidade decorrente de processos tecnológicos de captação, processamento, reticularização e disseminação de informações e imagens que estão modificando nossa percepção do mundo. Estas transformações começam a ser avaliadas especialmente no que se refere à atuação artística e estética mediadas por tecnologias que possibilitam representações do espaço cada vez menos dependentes da intervenção humana e mais baseadas na \"visão\" tecnológica, modificando todo o repertório cultural de temas como paisagem, lugar e meioambiente. Assim, adentramos crescentemente um espaço informacional, digital, virtual e reticular. À maneira de um flâneur do ciberespaço, visualizamos o ambiente natural contemporâneo a partir de interfaces que exploram a terra de variadas maneiras: através do olhar vertical de drones, satélites, sondas e também da configuração caleidoscópica da ciberpercepção e tecnologias que geram, misturam e reinterpretam imagens. Realizamos nesta pesquisa, um estudo preliminar, essencialmente exploratório, que pretende estabelecer relações entre as artes e os estudos socioambientais, no contexto da Cultura Visual, refletindo sobre os efeitos que esta convergência possa ter sobre a cognição humana e visão do planeta. Através da intervisualidade, definida como exposição simultânea e interativa entre modos de visualidade1, propomos desenvolver um panorama inicial para analisar a apreensão do problema ambiental atual e indagar de uma futura percepção ampliada do planeta. / The contemporary environmental has become increasingly expanded to accommodate digital and virtual dimensions. Look at this today is to see through technological interfaces and interdependent cultural filters; is to see images through the hipervisuality of media and social networks. This research explores the visuality as result of technological processes of capture, processing, reticularization and dissemination of information and images that are changing our perception of the world. These changes begin to be assessed especially with regard to artistic work and aesthetics mediated technologies that enable less dependent space representations of human and more based on \"seeing\" technological intervention changing the entire culture repertoire of subjects as landscape, location, environmental issues. So, increasingly we enter an informational space, digital, virtual and reticular. In the manner of a cyberspace flâneur, we see the contemporary natural environment from interfaces that exploit the earth in various ways: through the vertical look of drones, satellites, probes and also the kaleidoscopic setting ciberpercepção and technologies that create, mix and reinterpret images. We conducted a preliminary study essentially exploratory, seeking to establish relationships between the arts and environmental studies in the context of the Visual Culture field of study, reflecting on the effects that this convergence may have on human cognition and vision of the planet. By intervisuality, defined as simultaneous and interactive exhibition of visual modes2, we propose to develop an initial overview to analyze the seizure of the current environmental problem and inquire of a future expanded perception of the world.

Este trabalho tem como objetivo o estudo da conformação do campo da fotografia profissional em São Paulo e sua relação com a dimensão visual da sociedade entre as décadas de 1920 e 1940. Para tanto, analisa-se em perspectiva histórica a produção do fotógrafo Theodor Preising (1883-1962) em seus circuitos de produção, circulação, consumo, apropriação e ação. Quando desembarcou no Brasil imigrado da Alemanha na década de 1920, Preising deu continuidade a sua atividade como fotógrafo profissional. Uma vez estabelecido com a família na capital paulista, se manteve como editor de álbuns e cartões-postais com registros da paisagem natural, rural e urbana do país, prestou serviço de documentação fotográfica para órgãos públicos e instituições privadas, transitou na fotografia de imprensa, passando pela revista S. Paulo (1936) e pelo Departamento Estadual de Imprensa e Propaganda (DEIP), até se aposentar no Serviço de Documentação da Universidade de São Paulo (USP) em 1952. Sem perder de vista as demais dimensões, enfatiza-se a circulação dos materiais visuais produzidos por Preising, articulando-se sua biografia com a biografia de sua produção fotográfica no intuito de percebê-los na interação social, em deslocamentos e mediações que, por vezes, confluem em arquivos. Buscou-se o entendimento tanto da trajetória de Preising, como do percurso dos artefatos por ele produzidos cujo núcleo é o arquivo legado com cerca de 15 mil imagens, que participam de sistemas de ação envolvendo também indivíduos, redes de sociabilidade e instituições quando entram em circulação. Em escala reduzida, reconstituiu-se a trajetória profissional de Preising para compreender sua inserção em um campo profissional em formação entre a especialização e a diversificação. Em escala mais ampla, avaliou-se como a estruturação deste campo em formação se relacionou com a consolidação de uma cultura visual da qual faz parte registros da paisagem natural, rural e urbana de determinadas regiões do país, que são passíveis de ressignificação possibilitando outras leituras ao longo do tempo. / This work aims to study the conformation of professional field of photography in São Paulo and its relation to the visual dimension of society between 1920 and 1940. Therefore, it is analyzed in historical perspective the production of the photographer Theodor Preising (1883-1962) in their circuits of production, circulation, consumption, apropriation and action. When arrived in Brazil immigrated from Germany in the 1920s, Preising continued its activity as professional photographer. Once settled with family in São Paulo, remained as editor of albums and postcards with natural, rural and urban landscapes of the country, provided photographic documentation services for public agencies and private institutions, moved in press photography through the magazine S. Paulo (1936) and the State Department of Press and Propaganda (DEIP), to retire at the Documentation Service of the Universidade de São Paulo (USP) in 1952. Without losing sight of other dimensions, it is emphasized the circulation of visual materials produced by Preising, articulating his biography with the biography of his photographic production in order to perceive them in social interaction, in displacements and mediations that sometimes converge on archives. The understanding was sought to both in Preising\'s trajectory as in the route of the artifacts that it has produced, whose core is the legacy file with about 15,000 images, which participate in systems of action that also involve individuals, social networks and institutions when come into circulation. In reduced scale, it was reconstituted the professional trajectory of Preising to understand its insertion in a professional field in formation between the specialization and the diversification. On a larger scale, was evaluated as the structuring of this field was related to the consolidation of a visual culture which is part the natural, rural and urban landscapes of the specific regions of the country, which are subject to resignification enabling further interpretations over time.

This thesis examines the visual representations of elite women, who wielded and were seen to transgress, gendered political roles through their activity in the elite socio-political spheres of eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century Britain. In analysing the portraits and satirical prints of this select breed of women, this study questions the common bifurcation of gender debates in existing secondary literature, which include, but are not limited to, the porosity of traditionally conceived public and private spheres, contested masculine and feminine identities, and the gendering of morals and vices. The study will explore how predominantly male artists represented these women alongside an examination of how elite women were able to manipulate and choreograph their own portrayal. As such, it will probe how these political women utilised portraiture as a crucial means of self-fashioning; and likewise how their satirical representation was routinely subjugated to the male gaze. In doing so, it will reveal the varieties, vagaries and subtleties of the political power held by women and how this could be iterated, celebrated, or criticised in the visual culture of late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth century Britain. Four case studies form this examination. The first, argues that three women from Rockingham-Whig social networks, Lady Elizabeth Melbourne, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and Hon. Anne Damer, used portraiture as a form of self-fashioning to both celebrate their friendship and declare their burgeoning political agency. Chapter two revisits the 1784 Westminster election, to probe the theme of rivalry in satirical prints representing female canvassers. It argues that the visual vocabulary expressed in such prints pertains to wider cultural debates concerning class and gender that crucially came to a head during this political event. The third chapter introduces the dialogues between portraiture and satirical prints through its examination of the visual media that politicised Scottish Pittite hostess, Jane, Duchess of Gordon. Whilst the duchess used painted portraiture to proclaim her adherence to culturally-inscribed gender roles, satirical prints attacked her for her perceived political access, acquired through her daughters’ marriages and through her close proximity with prominent members of the Pittite government. The thesis concludes with a study of arguably the most political woman in the period of study: Queen Charlotte, consort of George III. This chapter revisits her reputation, arguing that a close examination of visual culture reveals that the queen, long thought to be an uncontroversial figure, became deeply problematic after the king’s bout with ‘madness’. In seeking to connect the visual aspects of women’s political engagement, this thesis expands on previous work in gender, social, cultural, and art histories such as those by Elaine Chalus, Cindy McCreery, Marcia Pointon, and Kate Retford to further our understanding of women’s political activity and eighteenth-century visual culture.

Esta pesquisa segue a trajetória do fotógrafo italiano Vincenzo Pastore, que atuou em São Paulo entre os anos de 1899 e 1918. Se Pastore, por um lado, viveu produzindo retratos comerciais em estúdio, por outro, a sua produção mais emblemática foi a série de fotos realizadas nas ruas e nos arredores da capital paulista. O percurso trilhado por Vincenzo Pastore se entrelaçou nesta análise com o de suas imagens, numa investigação voltada para os processos sociais que constituíram as duas trajetórias: a do fotógrafo e a de suas fotos. Este estudo tentou compreender duas questões principais. A partir de um ponto de vista histórico, documentamos a prática e a vivência de Pastore como um fotógrafo retratista de notável inclinação para o foto-pictorialismo. Observamos o percurso de Pastore no métier do retrato em São Paulo, mas também em Potenza e Bari, cidades italianas onde o fotógrafo atuou. A pesquisa realizada também nos acervos e arquivos na região da Puglia e da Basilicata, proporcionou uma abordagem histórica que delineou os muitos desafios dos retratistas italianos que buscavam incessantemente condições mais favoráveis para sobreviver da produção de retratos ao sul da Itália, forçados, muitas vezes, a vivenciarem a experiência da imigração. Documentamos mais profundamente, o processo de agenciamento sobre as imagens produzidas nas ruas da cidade de São Paulo, entre os anos de 1908 e 1914, mas submetidas a um circuito de apropriação e circulação somente após 1996, depois da doação feita ao Instituto Moreira Salles pelos descendentes do fotógrafo. / This research follows the trajectory of Italian photographer Vincenzo Pastore, who lived in São Paulo between 1899 and 1918. If Pastore, on the one hand, produced commercial portraits in studio during his life, on the other, his most emblematic production was the series of photographs taken on the streets and surroundings of São Paulo\'s capital. The path trodden by Vincenzo Pastore entwines with that of his images in this analysis, in a research focused on the social processes that built both paths: that of the photographer and of his pictures. This study tried to understand two main issues. From a historical point of view, we document the practice and the experience of Pastore as a portrait photographer of remarkable penchant for photo-pictorialism. We followed Pastore\'s path not only in the métier of the portrait in São Paulo, but also in Potenza and Bari, Italian cities where the photographer worked. The research, also carried out on the collections and archives in the region of Puglia and Basilicata, provided a historical approach, which outlined the many challenges of Italian portrait painters, who were constantly searching for more favorable conditions to live by the production of portraits in south of Italy, often forced to undergo the experience of migration. We documented more deeply the agency process on the images produced on the streets of São Paulo, between 1908 and 1914, but that entered an appropriation and circulation circuit only after 1996, when the photographers descendant\'s donated the photos to the Moreira Salles Institute.

My PhD is a study of the politically charged literary and visual works that have emerged in response to escalating violence in contemporary Mexico. Providing close, comparative readings of fictional, theoretical and documentary works by critically-acclaimed authors Jorge Volpi, Cristina Rivera Garza, Mario Bellatin and Juan Pablo Villalobos, and award-winning filmmakers Carlos Reygadas, Amat Escalante and Natalia Almada, my chapters examine explicit and oblique cultural engagements with topics such as the political assassinations of the 1990s, the dispossession brought on by the neoliberal restructuring of the economy, and the violence prompted by the so-called ‘War on Drugs’. The cultural texts I examine share a concern with visualising and deconstructing the close relationship between death and power that marks the contemporary political terrain. I contend that narrative has become a critical site of cultural contestation, and discuss the ways in which experiments with the assemblage and frustration of narrative intertwine with issues related to visuality, embodiment and the nonhuman. Through my discussion of these themes, I trace out the ways in which cultural texts frequently employ narrative strategies that are rooted in dispersal, displacement and loss when engaging with destructive power. These strategies, I argue, pose urgent questions about the interrelation of violence and aesthetics, speak to critical shifts in the relationship between culture and the nation-state, and are marshalled to launch tentative appeals to forms of politics and ethics that work through spaces of shared dispossession. My thesis offers an innovative framework through which to theorise these cultural processes by reframing the notion of ‘excess’, a foundational concept in scholarship on death and power that has seen a resurgence in contemporary political philosophy. In dialogue with authors such as Georges Bataille, Achille Mbembe, Adriana Cavarero, Roberto Esposito, Michel Foucault and Jacques Rancière, and with close reference to the ‘necropolitical’ theory and cultural texts authored in Mexico, I posit excess as an analytical term that can encompass both reflexive critiques of spectacular violence and latent forms of resistance to this violence that proceed through loss and displacement.

This thesis examines the work of ordained clergymen, of all denominations, who were active photographers between 1839 and the beginning of World War One: its primary aim is to investigate the extent to which a relationship existed between the religious culture of the individual clergyman and the nature of his photographic activities. Ministers of 'the Black Art' makes a significant intervention in the study of the history of photography by addressing a major weakness in existing work. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the research draws on a wide range of primary and secondary sources such as printed books, sermons, religious pamphlets, parish and missionary newsletters, manuscript diaries, correspondence, notebooks, biographies and works of church history, as well as visual materials including original glass plate negatives, paper prints and lantern slides held in archival collections, postcards, camera catalogues, photographic ephemera and photographically-illustrated books. Through close readings of both textual and visual sources, my thesis argues that factors such as religious denomination, theological opinion and cultural identity helped to influence not only the photographs taken by these clergymen, but also the way in which these photographs were created and used. Conversely, patterns also emerge that provide insights into how different clergymen integrated their photographic activities within their wider religious life and pastoral duties. The relationship between religious culture and photographic aesthetics explored in my thesis contributes to a number of key questions in Victorian Studies, including the tension between clergy and professional scientists as they struggled over claims to authority, participation in debates about rural traditions and church restoration, questions about moral truth and objectivity, as well as the distinctive experience and approaches of Roman Catholic clergy. The research thus demonstrates the range of applications of clerical photography and the extent to which religious factors were significant. Almost 200 clergymen-photographers have been identified during this research, and biographical data is provided in an appendix. Ministers of the Black Art aims at filling a gap in scholarship caused by the absence of any substantial interdisciplinary research connecting the fields of photohistory and religious studies. While a few individual clergymen-photographers have been the subject of academic research - perhaps excessively in the case of Charles Dodgson - no attempt has been made to analyse their activities comprehensively. This thesis is therefore unique in both its far-ranging scope and the fact that the researcher has a background rooted in both theological studies and the history of photography. Ecclesiastical historians are generally as unfamiliar with the technical and aesthetic aspects of photography as photohistorians are with theological nuances and the complex variations of Victorian religious beliefs and practices. This thesis attempts to bridge this gulf, making novel connections between hitherto disparate fields of study. By bringing these religious factors to the foreground, a more nuanced understanding of Victorian visual culture emerges; by taking an independent line away from both the canonical historiography of photography and more recent approaches that depict photography as a means of social control and surveillance, this research will stimulate further discussion about how photography operates on the boundaries between private and public, amateur and professional, material and spiritual.

O diálogo entre a visualidade, a história da arte e os meios tecnológicos norteia este estudo. Para tanto, observamos alguns dispositivos maquínicos e sua aplicação na produção e divulgação de imagens. Desde os tempos da Renascença, a representação visual do espaço vem recebendo um impacto direto das tecnologias de geração e reprodução de imagem no contexto da arte e da comunicação. Na pintura, em uma fase inicial, o registro ótico deu-se por meio da perspectiva central, instrumento gráfico eficaz que deu corpo ao conceito de espaço analógico. A partir daí, dissertamos sobre as mutações dos modelos de visão, os dispositivos que, no campo da técnica e da ciência, contribuíram para novas formas de representação visual e espacial. Na época contemporânea, a tecnologia digital associada às telecomunicações propiciou à arte e às mídias uma nova forma visual chamada intervisualidade, caracterizada pela capacidade de ultrapassar as mídias individuais e agregar diversos formatos em uma única visão. / The dialogue between visuality, art history and technological media guides this study. To conduct the investigation, we have observed some mechanical and electronic devices and their application in the production and dissemination of images. Since Renaissance times, the visual representation of space has receivied a directly impact by image generation processes and reproduction technology, in the context of art and communication. In painting, at an early stage, optical representation took place through central perspective, an effective graphic tool that gave substance to the concept of analogic space. From that point on, we talk about the evolution of possible models of vision, devices in the field of technology and science, which have contributed to new forms of visual and spatial representations. At contemporary times, digital technology associated with telecommunications provided, both to art and media, a new visual format called intervisuality, characterized by its potential to transcend individual media aggregating diverse media into an unique vision.