"'The Burden of the Image:' Jane Morris in Art and Life" examines the work and life of Pre-Raphaelite model Jane Burden Morris (1839-1914). Burden Morris, an embroiderer and wife of the arts and crafts designer William Morris (1834-96), became famous in her own lifetime as the model for a number of Pre-Raphaelite works, particularly the paintings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82). Although she was not considered conventionally beautiful by Victorian standards, artists drew heavily upon Burden Morris’s appearance, particularly her striking features and unusual artistic dress, in order to heighten the exoticism of their works and to suggest moments outside contemporary Victorian time and place. Burden Morris’s features became synonymous with the Pre-Raphaelite ideal in female beauty and several contemporaries reflected upon the surreal experience of meeting the enigmatic woman thought only to exist in paintings. Borrowing from a material culture approach which views images as both reflective and formative of identity, this work considers the relationship between Jane Burden Morris and her painted representation, and focuses in particular on the works produced through Burden Morris’s long-standing collaboration with Rossetti. Through an examination of Burden Morris’s appearance, activities, and demeanour, this dissertation considers the aspects of Burden Morris’s identity which contributed to her use in numerous Pre-Raphaelite images, and further explores the way in which these paintings may have altered how Burden Morris conceived of her own identity. “The Burden of the Image” examines three dominant modes of representing Burden Morris, including depictions of Burden Morris as medieval damsel, myth, and monster. It also considers Jane Burden Morris’s role within the broader context of aestheticism, and explores her relationship to the artistic dress movement and the aesthetic interior. / Thesis (Ph.D, Art History) -- Queen's University, 2014-03-31 13:33:52.106

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:29:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-02-18Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:39:18Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 amaral_sr_me_sjrp.pdf: 847638 bytes, checksum: 1ca8f6c036d4d30d7925b494972844ba (MD5) / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) / Este trabalho tem por objetivo a análise da peça A importância de ser Prudente (2007), escrita por Oscar Wilde (1854 – 1900), de acordo com a perspectiva teórica de base estética, da qual Wilde foi um dos expoentes maiores. O método analógico foi utilizado para estruturar a comparação entre a teoria estética de Wilde e o texto de sua peça A importância de ser Prudente, representante de sua prática dramatúrgica. Os textos teórico-críticos de Wilde foram escolhidos com base nos objetivos da proposta, os mais relevantes sendo: O crítico como artista, A decadência da mentira, A verdade das máscaras e Pena, lápis e veneno, todos eles compilados no livro Intenções, publicado no volume único da Obra Completa de Oscar Wilde (2007). A pesquisa partiu, ainda, dos conceitos teóricos do Movimento Estético (geral) para os conceitos estéticos encontrados nos ensaios críticos de Wilde (específico), e os ensaios em questão se prestaram à abordagem teórica estética utilizada na pesquisa. Considerando que o principal teórico do Movimento Estético foi Walter Pater (1839 – 1894), suas obras Appreciations, with an Essay on Style (1889) e The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (1873) foram analisadas a fim de clarificar quais são os pressupostos teóricos do Movimento Estético e quais desses são compartilhados com Oscar Wilde. Tomando como base tais conjecturas, verificaram-se como esses conceitos teóricos incidem na prática de Wilde / This study has as its aim the analysis of the play The Importance of Being Earnest (2007), written by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), in accordance with the aesthetic theoretical perspective, of which Wilde was a major exponent. A method of analogical comparison was utilised, contrasting Oscar Wilde’s theory, taken from some of his critical essays, with the text of the play The Importance of Being Earnest, as a representation of his dramaturgy in practice. The theoretical and critical texts by Wilde were chosen according to the aims of this proposal, the most relevant being: “The Critic as Artist”, “The Decay of Lying”, “The Truth of Masks” and “Pen, Pencil and Poison”, all of which were published together in the book Intentions, republished in Oscar Wilde’s Complete Works (2007). The research moved from the theoretical conceptions of the Aesthetic Movement (general) to the aesthetic conceptions found in Wilde’s articles (specific), therefore the aforementioned essays are used as the aesthetic theoretical approach which was chosen to lead the research. Considering that the main theorist of the Aesthetic Movement was Walter Pater (1839 – 1894), his works, Appreciations, with an Essay on Style (1889) and The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry (1873), were analysed in order to clarify the theoretical premises of the Aesthetic Movement and which of these are shared with Oscar Wilde. Taking these conjectures as a starting point, the impact of these theoretical concepts on Wilde’s practice was then analysed

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In the late nineteenth century, the American art world was highly competitive as artists vied with each other and more established European artists for a small pool of patrons. A few recognized the power of mass media to create celebrity and financial success. They tread carefully into the arena of self-promotion, striking a delicate balance between advertising and maintaining Gilded Age ideas about the purely artistic motivations of a great painter. In 1878, the largely unknown artist William Merritt Chase arrived in New York with the idea that an elaborately decorated studio could potentially make his name in the art world. The plan worked. His Tenth Street Studio was a harmony of color created through his masterful arrangement of bric-a-brac and art objects. It soon attracted media coverage and public attention. Chase quickly realized, however, that the writers who gushed over his studio were more interested in the space than the artist who created it. While the studio had achieved celebrity, its creator had not. In order to attract patrons, Chase needed to garner press coverage of the studio that would refer back to himself as the artist. His solution was a series of paintings of the studio interior itself. Chase depicted wealthy visitors looking at prints, conferring with the artist, even contemplating a purchase of work right off the walls – messages intended to advertise his availability to these potential patrons. These painted “advertisements,” created in the 1880s, redirected public attention from the studio to its creator and solidified his celebrity. In 1890, Chase painted one of the most famous events to ever occur at the Tenth Street Studio – the performance of the Spanish dancer known as the Carmencita. While encapsulating the bohemian atmosphere of the studio, Chase’s portrait of the dancer displayed no trace of the studio or its contents, only a plain muted background. He no longer needed to advertise himself as artist-for-hire because he had already succeeded in this endeavor. His painted studio advertisements had worked. Chase was a bona fide Gilded Age celebrity and a permanent addition to the canon of great American artists.

Sweet Briar House is one of the best documented sites in Virginia, with sources ranging from architectural drawings and extensive archives to original furnishings. Sweet Briar House was purchased by Elijah Fletcher, a prominent figure in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1830. Thirty years later it passed into the possession of his daughter Indiana Fletcher Williams, and remained her home until her death in 1900. In her will, Williams left instructions for the founding of Sweet Briar Institute, an educational institution for women that exists today as Sweet Briar College. This dissertation examines Sweet Briar House in three distinct phases, while advancing three theses. The first thesis proposes that the double portico motif introduced by Palladio at the Villa Cornaro in the sixteenth century became the fundamental motif of Palladianism in Virginia architecture, generating a line of offspring that proliferated in the eighteenth century and beyond. The Palladian plantation (Sweet Briar House I, c. 1800) featured this double portico. In 1851, following the return of the Fletcher children from an extended Grand Tour of Europe, the house was remodeled as an Italianate villa (Sweet Briar House II, 1851-52). The second thesis advances the contention that by renovating their Palladian house into an asymmetrical Italianate villa, the Fletcher family implemented an ideal solution between the balanced façade that characterized the Palladian Sweet Briar House I and the fashion for the Picturesque that dominated American building in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1876, the Williams family traveled to the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, where visitors were presented with an unimaginable array of artistic possibilities from countless eras and nations, exactly the conditions that the Aesthetic Movement needed to flourish in America. The third thesis maintains that the Williams family’s decision to transform Sweet Briar House into an Aesthetic Movement retreat was inspired by their reaction to the Centennial, and in particular by their appreciation for the Japanese objects presented there.

“The Transgressive Stage: The Culture of Public Entertainment in Late Victorian Toronto,” argues that public entertainment was one of the most important sites for the negotiation of identities in late Victorian Toronto. From the vantage point of the twenty-first century, where theatre is strictly highbrow, it is difficult to appreciate the centrality of public entertainment to everyday life in the nineteenth century. Simply put, the Victorian imagination was populated by melodrama and minstrelsy, Shakespeare and circuses. Studying the responses to these entertainments, greatly expands our understanding of Victorian culture. The central argument of this dissertation is that public entertainment spilled over the threshold of the playhouse and circus tent to influence the wider world. In so doing, it radically altered the urban streetscape, interacted with political ideology, promoted trends in consumption, as well as exposed audiences to new intellectual currents about art and beauty. Specifically, this study examines the moral panic surrounding indecent theatrical advertisements; the use by political playwrights of tropes from public entertainment as a vehicle for political satire; the role of the stage in providing an outlet for Toronto’s racial curiosity; the centrality of commercial amusements in defining the boundaries of gender; and, finally, the importance of the theatre—particularly through the Aesthetic Movement—in attempts to control the city’s working class. When Torontonians took in a play, they were also exposing themselves to one of the most significant transnational forces of the nineteenth century. British and American shows, which made up the bulk of what was on offer in the city, brought with them British and American perspectives. The latest plays from London and New York made their way to the city within months, and sometimes weeks, of their first production. These entertainments introduced audiences to the latest thoughts, fashion, slang and trends. They also confronted playgoers with issues that might, on the surface seem foreign and irrelevant. Nevertheless, they quickly adapted to the environment north of the border. Public entertainment in Toronto came to embody a hybridized culture with a promiscuous co-mingling of high and low and of British and American influences.

“The Transgressive Stage: The Culture of Public Entertainment in Late Victorian Toronto,” argues that public entertainment was one of the most important sites for the negotiation of identities in late Victorian Toronto. From the vantage point of the twenty-first century, where theatre is strictly highbrow, it is difficult to appreciate the centrality of public entertainment to everyday life in the nineteenth century. Simply put, the Victorian imagination was populated by melodrama and minstrelsy, Shakespeare and circuses. Studying the responses to these entertainments, greatly expands our understanding of Victorian culture. The central argument of this dissertation is that public entertainment spilled over the threshold of the playhouse and circus tent to influence the wider world. In so doing, it radically altered the urban streetscape, interacted with political ideology, promoted trends in consumption, as well as exposed audiences to new intellectual currents about art and beauty. Specifically, this study examines the moral panic surrounding indecent theatrical advertisements; the use by political playwrights of tropes from public entertainment as a vehicle for political satire; the role of the stage in providing an outlet for Toronto’s racial curiosity; the centrality of commercial amusements in defining the boundaries of gender; and, finally, the importance of the theatre—particularly through the Aesthetic Movement—in attempts to control the city’s working class. When Torontonians took in a play, they were also exposing themselves to one of the most significant transnational forces of the nineteenth century. British and American shows, which made up the bulk of what was on offer in the city, brought with them British and American perspectives. The latest plays from London and New York made their way to the city within months, and sometimes weeks, of their first production. These entertainments introduced audiences to the latest thoughts, fashion, slang and trends. They also confronted playgoers with issues that might, on the surface seem foreign and irrelevant. Nevertheless, they quickly adapted to the environment north of the border. Public entertainment in Toronto came to embody a hybridized culture with a promiscuous co-mingling of high and low and of British and American influences.

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