Works of art often refer to one another. Perhaps a closer examination of this relationship occurs if they are theoretically displaced from the sequence of events that contextualise them. Placed side-by-side, they may take on a fresh meaning that might identify artistic intention as universal — as a 'redemptive' statement of Being. Both Piero della Francesca and Stanley Spencer painted 'Resurrection' pictures. The five hundred years that separate them notwithstanding, the reasons for their so doing must bear some comparison. Each made a statement of belief in their depiction of a metaphysical world created primarily in the imagination but housed in cultural milieus that would identify them as 'visionary' amongst their peers. Yet, in many ways, one picture is the antithesis to the other, the first deeply religious, the second highly personal. Regardless of their differences, each work might perpetually and simultaneously strive toward 'the spiritual' in an individual and universal sense. As an artist whose work ostensibly denies any lofty 'spiritual' aspiration whatsoever, Frank Zappa's dismissal of authority, whether couched in religious, musical or sociological terms, marks a valid juxtaposition to current acceptance of artistic form. Not only was it legitimate to invite a musician into the affray, for me it was a vital continuation of my earlier exploration. Zappa seriously challenges the notion of 'feeling' as little more than a pre-set conditioned response to music. I hoped to establish that Zappa's own quest for musical perfection flew in the face of his notorious cynicism, proclaiming his output as 'redemptive' — alongside that of Piero della Francesca and Stanley Spencer. It is the main contention here that as the human predicament requires that the artist should attempt to re-present his vision in order to redefine reality for himself and his peers, the role of artist as 'visionary' is worthy of perennial consideration.

This thesis’ main goal is to answer the question: from where did Peter Paul Rubens’s Life of Marie de Medici Cycle come? Previous literature has focused on the content of the twenty-four canvases of the Medici Cycle and their meanings. However, they have not viewed the Medici Cycle as part of a bigger whole and thus part of a larger agenda that was symbolised through Marie de Medici’s construction and patronage of her own palace in Paris, the Luxembourg Palace. Originally planned to emulate the Palazzo Pitti in Florence in which Marie was raised, the Palace represents the Florentine agenda that was prevalent throughout Marie’s patronage after her first exile at the hands of her son, Louis XIII, in 1617. By viewing the Luxembourg Palace as a whole and exploring the Medici Cycle’s placement there, this thesis will show that Marie was looking back to Florence for guidance when constructing her own image as wife, widow, mother and regent. The first chapter places the Medici Cycle firmly within the Luxembourg Palace and the themes prevalent throughout the decoration there, acknowledging Marie’s dependence on Medici architectural and pictorial projects when developing her own programme of praise. The second chapter looks to how the other Medici queen of France, Catherine de Medici, portrayed herself when faced with the same obstacles as Marie, fifty years prior: motherhood, widowhood, regency, foreignness, gender and power. In this chapter it becomes evident that Marie used many of the same strategies as Catherine, yet far surpassed her in her own aggressive self-promotion, as evidenced by the nature of the Medici Cycle. Chapter three focuses on the similarities between the Medici Cycle and sixteenth and seventeenth century entries and festivals, especially those in Florence staged in celebration of dynastic marriages. The chapter answers the question of whether the Medici Cycle was in fact, finally, Marie’s triumphal entry into Paris. The final chapter looks to Marie and her image following her final exile in 1630. It highlights the importance of the Medici Cycle on Marie’s public image and how it influenced later depictions and laudations of Marie, specifically in her entries into Brussels, Antwerp, Amsterdam and London. This chapter will show that Marie still had the same patronage agenda following her final exile and how the imagery of the Medici Cycle became part of the symbolism and vocabulary in Marie’s patronage and image that shaped opinions of Marie far past her death in 1642 to how her image is perceived today.

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Dans ce travail de thèse, j’ai dressé un tableau de la situation actuelle de la peinture contemporaine iranienne pour montrer dans quelles conditions celle-ci a évolué : tantôt elle a été opprimée et condamnée, tantôt elle s’est relevée et a continué sa progression vers l’avant. J’ai analysé la situation générale de la peinture contemporaine iranienne en tenant compte du contexte historique, politique, social et culturel de l’Iran. L’histoire et la culture ancienne de ce pays, et la vie quotidienne des iraniens sont soumises à un certain nombre d’événements qui pèsent sur la vie du peuple. Les invasions étrangères et l’arrivée des puissances qui gouvernaient le pays tout en convoitant ses ressources et ses richesses, ont fait que les Iraniens ne se soucient guère de l’avenir et qu’ils essaient plutôt de saisir le présent ! L’attachement profond des iraniens aux traditions, aux valeurs, aux relations humaines et surtout à l’image que les autres se font d’eux, les a souvent amenés à se donner qu’une place secondaire par rapport aux autres. Consciente de cet état d’esprit, la jeune génération d’artistes iranien est bien avisée, et sait parfaitement que pour rejoindre l’art mondial, elle doit se nourrir principalement de ses propres racines. / In this research project, I have analyzed the current contemporary Iranian painting and its evolution composed of periods of oppression in one hand and periods of progression on the other hand. This analyze is based on historical, political, social and cultural events in Iran. As long as one can remember, this country and its people has been invaded and exploited by foreign countries and even local governments which at all time, they have used resources and cultural treasure of Iran. For all these reasons, a national philosophy has taken place in the country, which pushes Iranian to think less about the future by trying to appreciate the present. The young generation of Iranian artist knows that it has to consider and to use its own roots and culture to get the opportunity to join the world-wide art.

The primary purpose of this thesis will be to examine the orchestration of the trombone section in the Viennese symphonies of the early Romantic period. In order to fully understand the function of the trombone section in these syphonies, a review of the trombones usage in previous centuries is in order.

Die praktische Arbeit des Monumentalmalers Hermann Prell (1854–1922) wurde zeitlebens von einer intensiven Auseinandersetzung mit Fragen der Maltechnik begleitet, die sich in seinen umfangreichen Aufzeichnungen niederschlug. Aufgrund seiner zahlreichen Kontakte zu Zeitgenossen, wie Hans von Marées und Arnold Böcklin, stellt sein schriftlicher Nachlass eine wichtige Quelle zur kunsttechnischen Entwicklung um 1900 dar. Im Rahmen der vorliegenden Arbeit werden seine Forschungen zur Maltechnik und die Beschreibung der von ihm angewendeten Materialien sowie Techniken das erste Mal tiefgreifend untersucht und umfassend vorgestellt. Die erhaltenen Dokumente bieten die Grundlage für eine Aufschlüsselung der verwendeten Rezepturen und handelsüblichen Künstlermaterialien sowie deren Kontextualisierung. Des Weiteren ergänzen historische Abbildungen und Vorstudien zur Erarbeitung der Komposition und Maltechnik den Blick auf den Werkprozess. Ebenso wird die kunsttechnologische Untersuchung von ausgewählten Werken mit der Auswertung der Quellen kombiniert. Während seiner monumentalen Aufträge galt sein besonderes Interesse der technischen und künstlerischen Umsetzung eines Gesamtkunstwerkes. Hermann Prell widmete sich eingehend kunsttechnologisch relevanter historischer und zeitgenössischer Quellenliteratur, zum Beispiel von Cennino Cennini und Ernst Berger. Die Freskotechnik nahm im breiten technischen Spektrum seines Œuvres einen hohen Stellenwert ein. Daneben spielte die Beschäftigung mit Tempera sowohl für das Staffeleibild als auch für die Wandmalerei eine große Rolle. Insgesamt wird erstmals ein Überblick über Hermann Prells angewendete Kunsttechniken in ihrer Vielfalt sowie deren Genese gegeben. / Throughout his life Hermann Prell (1854–1922) – known for his monumental paintings – accompanied his practical work with intense explorations of questions related to painting technique. This is reflected in his extensive writings. Prell was also engaged in a lively exchange with other artists, such as Hans von Marées and Arnold Böcklin. Hermann Prell’s writings combined with his contemporaries’ present an important source on painting technique around the turn of the 19th century in Germany. This study provides the first in-depth examination and comprehensive presentation of Prell’s research into painting techniques and a description of the materials and techniques he utilised. The preserved documents provide the basis for analysing the recipes the artist used and commercially available artists’ materials as well as their contextualisation with current research. Our view of his working process is further supplemented by historical reproductions and preparatory studies that served Prell to develop his compositions and painting techniques. Furthermore, the results of recent technical examinations of selected artworks are combined with an evaluation of the written sources. For his numerous large commissions for government buildings, Prell was particularly interested in the technical and artistic realisation of a Gesamtkunstwerk. He occupied himself extensively with related historical and contemporary sources, for example, the writings of Cennino Cennini and Ernst Berger. Amongst the broad technical range of his oeuvre the fresco technique assumed particular importance. In addition, his occupation with tempera’s use for easel paintings as well as wall paintings played a major role. In conclusion, for the first time Hermann Prell’s various applied techniques and materials as well as their genesis are given a comprehensive overview.

L’œuvre de YUN Duseo (1668-1715), peintre lettré ayant vécu lors de la dernière monarchie coréenne, reflète la forte sinisation de la société de l’époque. Cette œuvre est un fruit de la civilisation du « monde chinois », et interroge les principes esthétiques et le statut de la peinture dérivés de la doctrine néo-confucéenne, doctrine elle-même ici associée à des doctrines souvent considérées comme opposées, le taoïsme et le bouddhisme. YUN Duseo invente une peinture « pré-moderne » qui met en valeur de manière nouvelle des figures humaines, les portraits en particulier, et donne une nouvelle forme à des sujets courants de la peinture chinoise, les natures mortes ou les scènes de la vie quotidienne. La peinture de YUN Duseo, influencée aussi bien par un mouvement de retour aux sources de la culture chinoise que par le contact avec la culture européenne, est étudiée principalement à travers le prisme du rapport entre peinture et écriture. / The work of YUN Duseo (1668-1715), a scholar-painter who lived during the last Korean monarchy, reflects the strong sinicization of contemporary Korean society. Indeed, such work is a product of the civilization of the ‘Chinese world’: it questions the aesthetic principles and the status of painting stemming from the Neo-Confucian doctrine, a doctrine itself associated with two often opposed doctrines, Taoism and Buddhism. YUN Duseo invented a ‘pre-modern’ painting that emphasized human figures, and particularly portraits, in a novel way and gave new form to common subjects in Chinese painting, whether still lives or scenes of everyday life.YUN Duseo’s painting, influenced by a return to the sources of Chinese culture as well as by the contact with European culture, is examined here through the prism of the relation between painting and writing.

Cette étude a pour but d’analyser les représentations peintes – mais aussi, à chaque fois que cela était pertinent pour le propos, les dessins, les photographies et les sculptures – des campagnes d’Italie de 1800 et de 1859. L’approche comparative de ces deux événements met en parallèle les héritages et les innovations artistiques d’« un Napoléon à l’autre », en posant à chaque fois la question de la volonté de précision et des connaissances des artistes chargés d’immortaliser les grandes phases de ces conflits, de manière à apporter un regard principalement centré sur les aspects militaires de ces représentations, en recourant notamment à l’étude iconographique. S’il s’agit avant tout d’un travail d’histoire de l’art, s’appuyant sur l’analyse stylistique et sur la réception critique des œuvres, l’approche méthodologique proposée croise d’autres disciplines afin de détailler la conception et l’organisation des œuvres : topographie, stratégie, tactique et, plus largement, d’autres domaines plus spécifiquement liés au patrimoine militaire (uniformologie, emblématique, armement…). Les œuvres sont également confrontées aux objets conservés et à l’histoire militaire qu’elles représentent, afin de comprendre comment les artistes ont conçu leurs productions et sont parvenus à rendre les faits. L’organisation du propos est divisée en trois parties, étudiant successivement la représentation topographique (les artistes se sont-ils rendus sur les lieux, ont-ils cherché à être précis en rendant les paysages et les particularités géographiques ?), le rendu de la bataille (comment la traite-t-on au début et au milieu du siècle, trouve-t-on un véritable souci de faire figurer les bonnes unités aux bons endroits et de tenter de comprendre et / ou de recomposer les manœuvres tactiques ?) et la perception héroïque (comment met-on en valeur le héros d’une époque à l’autre et comment différencier une œuvre au rendu réaliste d’une autre vouée à la glorification ou à l’édification ?). / This work deals with a comparative analysis of military paintings representing the French Italian Campaigns (1800 and 1859), including drawings, photographs and sculptures when it is relevant. The parallel is established between artistic heritages and innovations from “a Napoleon to the other”, asking the artists’ willing of precision and military knowledge when they represented these events, so these works of art are studied in a different way focused on a military approach using iconography. Although the main work is in history of art, based on the analysis of formal handling and critical reception, the methodology resorts other sciences in order to examine the artworks composition and organisation in details: in that way, artworks are confronted to topography, strategy, tactic and also military heritage testimonies (uniforms, emblems, weapons…) and history they aimed to show. The work is divided in three parts, successively studying topographical representation (did the artists travelled to see the places and did they represented precise and recognizable geographical details?), the way of painting battles (how fights were figured at the beginning and in the middle of the 19th century, can regiments and tactical manoeuvres be identified correctly?) and heroic perception (how heroes were showed in 1800 and in 1859 and how artworks can be ranked, between glorification and realistic representations?).