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Focusing on satirical prints from illustrated newspapers, this thesis examines nineteenth-century French notions of masculinity in a culture that linked its reputation for success to the productivity of its male citizens. I will focus on man’s connection to marriage and family life, as these institutions were so closely connected to perceptions of masculinity. Specifically, I look at portrayals of the cuckold and the bachelor—tropes of male identity that deviated from the ideal notions of the French man—and how printed images reflected, commented on, and shaped the ways in which conventional French masculinity was imagined. Examining these lithographs in light of specific social and political shifts, including changing marriage and divorce laws, the rising feminist movement, and the loss of the Franco-Prussian war, will ground my project historically. Popular lithographic prints, from the 1840s to the early 1900s, remarked not only on masculinity itself—the ways in which men should act and look—but also on the ways in which any departures from the norm threatened the French family and nation. Although medical journals and etiquette manuals expounded on the ‘natural’ qualities of men, satirical cartoons that were most often published weekly, were immediately pertinent in their commentary. Using prints to decode these ever-prevalent issues of masculinity, my project makes clear why representations and notions of certain types of masculinity were so alarming to French audiences. Although much of the scholarship around nineteenth-century French lithography deals with the censorship issues and political implications of the illustrated newspapers, I focus instead on the social ramifications of such images. I emphasize the distinctive nature of such prints—the audience, the circulation, and the cultural impact of printed images themselves. Looking to both art and social historical texts, I concentrate on the everyday realm of printed images, and what it meant for Parisian men and women to be surrounded by such tropes. My thesis connects the growing concerns over family and marriage to issues of failed masculinity and the ways in which they were addressed in the print culture across the century. It explores how these satirical cartoons provided a humorous, yet urgent, visual attempt to illuminate the tricky and conflicting expectations of French men in the nineteenth century. / Art History

The dissertation addresses the question, How should we engage with art? The thesis is that a practice of engaging with art ought to be sensitive with and to a work of art, and conversation better suits sensitivity than criticism. Conversation does not merely mean a conversation we may have about art. Instead, the project proposes that we treat artworks as conversational partners. The construction of the thesis involves three philosophical streams coming together. The first is a survey of prominent philosophical studies of criticism from the late 1930s to the 1960s—a watershed period for the philosophy of criticism—through to contemporary views that bear the legacy of that period, summarized and exemplified in Noël Carroll’s philosophy of criticism. Second, the project contrasts the orthodox view with competing accounts, including those of visual art criticism from the late 1980s and 90s, the critical theory of Terry Eagleton, and the “philosophical criticism” of Stanley Cavell. The third stream consists of testing criticism (and conversation) against the criterion of sensitivity. Taken together, this approach looks at engagement in a more general way than what studies on criticism or other familiar practices tend to countenance. Writers and works that exemplify conversation, such as Wendell Berry, The Philadelphia Story (Cukor 1940), and Mary Poppins (Stevenson 1964) help explicate and uncover limits to conversation as well as what procures it. The project culminates by circling back to the criterion of sensitivity, looking at conversation’s advantages in cultivating a suitably sensitive practice of engaging with art. The primary, substantive claim for conversation as the basis for an ethics of engaging with art is that conversation encourages a process of coming to an understanding with a work, where our prejudices and judgments are subject to the claims a work may make upon me at any given moment, without ceding to either the finality of judgment or the incompleteness of understanding provoked by over-familiarity, incessant talk, ‘talking at’ or ‘past,’ or silence. In the shift from criticism to conversation, we gain a clearer, more equitable understanding of what a work is doing. We curtail prejudice and evaluative bias; we respond more sensitively to the context for engaging with art; and, we ask more questions. Is this a setting where criticism is warranted or useful? Who are my interlocutors? What do they have to say? / Philosophy

Art South Africa is currently the leading, professionally published art magazine in South Africa. The magazine plays an important role in the dissemination of art discourse and art news and is the only ongoing, printed forum devoted exclusively to South African contemporary art. In this paper I will be looking at Art South Africa to describe the type of art texts it presents and the particular position it has taken in the contemporary art world of South Africa. In doing this I will be analysing the magazine to register the types of writing and other information in formats such as art news, exhibition reviews, artist bios, interviews and even advertising. This paper will also be analysing selected texts to determine the key issues that are represented and the way those issues have been represented with a critical position. Looking at Art South Africa from many angles will show that criticality is one of the magazine’s ideological aims and though the magazine’s format changes over time, it has continually sought to engage its readers in critical discourse.

Zugl.: Berlin, Freie Univ., Diss., 2006

Thesis (M.A.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Art History, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references.

abstract: Black Rock City is a temporary city existing for one week in the harsh desert of northern Nevada. It plays host to the Burning Man festival with over 300 large-scale art installations and is considered to be the largest interactive art festival in the world. Besides the main burn, smaller local regional events have developed. These regional events encompass many of the same tenets as Burning Man including the presentation of large-scale art. Burn2 is the regional event held on the virtual world, Second Life. In 2013, both events used the theme of Cargo Cult as a stepping off point for the artists. Through the lens of spectacle, I used art criticism as a way to gain understanding of the artworks. Art criticism is a means of interpreting and appreciating artwork and is often used in the art classroom. Edmund Feldman's method promotes a deeper understanding of art and consists of four steps: description, formal analysis, interpretation and judgment. Using Feldman's method, I analyzed three artworks from the 2013 Burning Man festival and three works from Burn2. From interviews, photographs, and personal observations I analyzed the artworks. I used external analysis to compare the literature on similar festivals and the artworks with other events held in the real life and virtual world. I found in both events very similar concepts and themes. Artists had specific subject matter in mind when designing their installations. Artists used the theme as a stepping off point for rationalizing their content. Art made to be displayed at Burning Man was expensive; funding was a concern for all the artists. Burn2 artists were free from funding concerns even though there were expenses to making art in Second Life. Emerging themes were use of building materials and color, use of electronics and computer technology, art installations in festivals, spectacle, collaboration, and interactivity. Further implications included teaching about the engineering of structures, critical thinking about festival themes and the individual art installations, visual culture, and art making with these emerging art forms. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Curriculum and Instruction 2014

This study seeks to determine Roger Fry's position in the cultural and aesthetic dynamics of his era by examining Fry's critical writings and those of his predecessors, contemporaries, and successors. Based on Fry's published works, this thesis begins with a biographical survey, followed by a chronological examination of the evolution of Fry's aesthetics. Equally important are his stance as a champion of modern French art, his role as an art historian, and his opinions regarding British art. The fifth chapter analyzes the relationship between Fry's Puritan background and his basic attitudes. Emphasis is given to his aesthetic, social, and cultural commentaries which indicate that Fry reflected and participated in the artistic, philosophical, and social ferment of his age and thereby contributed to the alteration of British taste.

In our Post-Modern milieu there has been a renewed attempt in art to communicate with the viewer. My hypothesis is that particular images provoke empathic responses in the viewer. Iconographical and formal characteristics in images which provoke empathy are discussed and Lipps' ( 1905) and Worringer's (1908) theories of empathy are examined. The psychological profile of a viewer is considered in the light of Freud's familial model of the human psyche with its emphasis on sexual instincts. The theoretical framework within which my hypothesis operates is based upon Bryson, Holly and Moxey's ( 1991) interventionist response to visual interpretation. They foreground the viewer's historicity in the viewing of an image and their approach is contrasted with that of the perceptualists (Wollheim, Gombrich and others) who maintain that the historicity of the viewer is unimportant. Finally it is argued that art can have a transforming potential if the artist provokes empathy in the viewer. / Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology / M.A. (Fine Arts)

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