Choi Suet Han. / "Architecture Department, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Master of Architecture Programme 2005-2006, design report." / Includes bibliographical references. / Chapter I . --- Synopsis / Chapter II . --- Art and Architecture: From Art Space to Space of Art / Chapter III . --- From Spirituality to Physicality / Chapter IV . --- From Human to Nature / Chapter V . --- From Private to Public / Chapter VI . --- Dialogue with Artists / Chapter a) --- Water...and lines / Chapter i... --- Spiritual and Physical Engagement / Chapter ii... --- Between Consciousness and Unconsciousness / Chapter iii... --- Wandering in Geometric Abstraction / Chapter iv... --- Essence of Chinese Landscape / Chapter b) --- Shadow...and layers / Chapter i... --- Nature of painting / Chapter ii... --- Emptiness / Chapter iii... --- Shadow / Chapter c) --- Human and Memory / Chapter d) --- Light and Contrast / Chapter e) --- Wind and Wood / Chapter i... --- Solid and Void / Chapter VII. --- Space and Architectural syntax / Chapter VIII. --- Site anlysis and Site plan

This thesis examines Andrea Mantegna's painting of Judith and Holofernes in the context of attitudes towards women, material culture, and the Middle East during the Italian Renaissance.

In the sixteenth century, the nocturne genre developed in Italian art introducing the idea of a scene depicted in the darkness of night. This concept of darkness paired with intense light was adopted by Caravaggio in the late sixteenth century and popularized by himself and his followers. The seemingly sudden shift towards darkness and night is puzzling when viewed as individual occurrences in artists’ works. As an entire genre, the night scene bears cultural implications that indicate the level of influence culture and society have over artists and patrons. The rising popularity of the theater and the tension between Protestantism and Catholicism intersected to create a changing view on the perception of darkness and light. This merging of cultural phenomena affected Caravaggio and his contemporaries, prompting them to develop the nocturne genre to meet the growing demands for darker images.

This study of the single artists museums using the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver, Colorado and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico aims to compare these institutions to each other in terms of organizational practice and design as well as to the broader museum industry.

The artistic is always political, even if not overtly so—each work carries with it the histories of the artist, the means of production, the subject matter, and the many art historical precedents that overlap and diverge to constitute the theoretical circumstances surrounding it. Since I began translating my lived experience into artworks, I have become interested in the ways in which my personal politics have affected the choices I have made in material and narrative substance. This is a deconstruction of the politics of representation as a method for better understanding the art historical context in which contemporary materials- and performance-based art work exists and to conceptually develop the work I want to produce in the future.

This practice-led research One Mind - seeks to represent Korean Buddhist architectural aesthetics and Buddhist spiritual ideas using the animated documentary genre as a form of creative representation. It is intended that the piece be shown either as an installation in a gallery, or within a museum or cultural exhibition context. The key goal is to offer this digital artwork to European audiences, in a spirit of engendering the same feeling state as when present in the real monastery, encouraging an understanding of the sacred, and experiencing a form of transcendence. My art work in some ways functions as a digital restoration of sacred architecture outside its real environment and context, and seeks to document cultural heritage and knowledge. One Mind is different from a classic form of documentary, though, because it does not echo the idea of documentary based on live-action footage as a mode of non-fiction record and expression. I have particularly stressed the suggestiveness of the architectural aesthetics and the philosophic principles embedded in the environment. I have sought to bring my own subjective artistic interpretation to Korean Buddhism accordingly, resisting typical character animation and classical narrative, seeking instead, to encourage the viewer to be part of the environment. I focus on the meaning in Buddhist buildings and the landscape they are part of, and dramatise the environment, using the poetic tone of the voice over performance, the sound track of Buddhist chanting, and the visual effects and perspectives of computer generated imagery. This digital visualisation of the Buddhist s spiritual world is informed by a Buddhist s traditional way of life, but, most importantly, by my own past experience, feelings and memory of the Buddhist monastery compound, as a practising artist. My thesis is categorised into eight chapters. Chapter One offers an overview of the aims and objectives of my project. Chapter Two identifies my research questions and my intended methodology. Chapter Three focuses on important background knowledge about Korea s natural and cultural aspects and conditions. Chapter Four offers an analysis of the issue of the Korean cultural identity, suggesting that a more authentic image of Korea and Korean-ness is available in the philosophy and spiritual agenda of Buddhism. Chapter Five addresses the practical ways in which digital restoration of architecture has taken place, identifying three previous cases which both resemble and differ from my own project. Chapter Six looks at the specific characteristics of Korean Seon Buddhism and architecture, and engages with three theoretical approaches about the spatial composition of the monastery, and the ways it may help in constructing the monastery in a digital environment. Chapter Seven offers an evaluation and validation of my artwork, having adopted the approach of creating an animated spiritual documentary to reveal Buddhist philosophy and experience as a model of Korean cultural identity. Chapter Eight offers some conclusions about my intention, process and outcomes.

While academic discussion of ornament within medieval Islamic art has laboured much over the codification and meaning of certain forms, there has been relatively little research to date on the visual and iconographic function of architecture as ornament in this context. Those few authors that have dealt with this issue have focused overwhelmingly on two-dimensional architectural representations, largely ignoring the considerable body of portable objects from the medieval Middle East that imitate architecture through three-dimensional forms, whether in a mimetically coherent fashion or in a more elliptical or reconfigured manner. This thesis proposes, first and foremost, that there is significant cultural meaning inherent in the use of architecture as an inspiration for the non-essential formal qualities of portable objects from the medieval Islamic world. Through iconographic analysis of the relationships that such objects form with architecture, an understanding of both full-size architecture and its miniature incarnations in the medieval urban context is advanced within the thesis. To maximise the intellectual scope of the study whilst still enabling an in-depth treatment of the material, four discrete studies of different object groups are presented. All of these are thought to date from approximately 1000 to 1350 CE, and to come from the core Middle Eastern territories of Persia, Syria and Egypt. The first chapter examines the glazed ceramic ‘house models’ believed to originate in late or post-Seljuq Persia. The second discusses six-sided ceramic tables from the same milieu, and more numerous related tables produced in Syria during the same period. In the third chapter carved marble jar stands from Cairo, apparently produced from the twelfth century onwards, are analysed. The final chapter, on metalwork, broadens its approach to encompass two very different strains of production: inkwells from Khurasan and incense burners from the breadth of the Middle East. Because much of the thesis focuses on material that has been dramatically understudied, it performs the primary action of compiling examples of each of the object types under study. Though this information is presented as a catalogue vi sommaire, this component of the thesis is not regarded as an end in itself. The major tasks of the thesis are the identification of the architectural tropes that are being evoked within each object group, analysis of the manner in which those forms have been modified to suit the miniature context of the objects, and the location of meaning within such diminutive evocations of architectural form. Through comparisons with other objects, full-size architecture, two-dimensional representations of architecture and historical texts, the thesis moves discourse on this type of motif in Islamic art beyond the traditional and sometimes superficial discussion of ‘ornament’, re-setting architectural iconography within larger contexts of urbanisation and city culture of the medieval Islamic world.

This paper is about a confessional painting series, which appropriates Abstract Expressionist techniques, and is on geometric canvas reliefs. The main focus through out the series is the process of my recovery from a traumatic event and the process of the creation of a language through abstraction.

There are two principle arguments in this thesis. First, this thesis will show that Félix Bracquemond had a profound impact on late-nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century ceramics in America. Second, this thesis will illustrate how John Ruskin’s principle that pottery is “more permanent than the Pyramids” encouraged reform of the ceramic arts and shaped the Art Pottery Movement of the late nineteenth century. After this thesis introduces Bracquemond as an innovator in ceramic decoration and the dissemination of Ruskin’s principle, the thesis will examine two instances in the American Art Pottery Movement in which Bracquemond’s and Ruskin’s influence can be detected. The first is Theodore Davis’s 1879 design for the Haviland-Hayes Service, the White House dinner service for Rutherford B. Hayes. The second case study is the Rookwood Pottery of Cincinnati, which represents the apex of Bracquemond’s influence in America and Ruskin’s principle of the permanence of pottery.

This dissertation examines six major points: 1) it argues that Jefferson is an architect of the United States Capitol, having direct and final say over its design; 2) it asserts that Jefferson set two nationally influential models of architectural taste as part of his movement to reform American architecture, first in Richmond as the Virginia State Capitol and second in Washington as the United States Capitol; 3) it explores those models to define what Jefferson called “cubic” and “spherical” architecture; 4) it suggests that Jefferson used his political appointments to maximize his influence over the design of the United States Capitol in order to ground the building in classical sources; 5) it surveys the sources Jefferson looked to for inspiration, both printed texts and images as well as extant buildings in Europe and America; and 6) it proposes that Jefferson and B. Henry Latrobe worked hand in hand to execute a design for the United States Capitol that subdued and at times even replaced the official plan adopted from William Thornton’s winning design. This dissertation starts with the idea that Jefferson’s architectural reform consisted of conjoining vernacular building custom with architecture of the classical tradition. Most of what Jefferson knew about classical architecture came from books. Chief among them are Claude Perrault’s 1684 French translation of Vitruvius’ Ten Books on Architecture and the three London editions of Giacomo Leoni’s versions of Andrea Palladio’s Four Books of Architecture in English translation. Using these print sources, Jefferson reinterpreted many of the standard public buildings of Virginia into temple forms. In addition, Jefferson’s plan to reform public architecture rested on two overriding principles: erecting buildings with masonry and organizing those buildings using the classical orders. Furthermore, this dissertation proves that, like the ancients, Jefferson wanted to build on a monumental scale. Jefferson’s own plan for a national capitol shaped like the Roman Pantheon, long misunderstood, clearly reinforces this interpretation. Finally, this dissertation demonstrates that Jefferson and B. Henry Latrobe worked in concert to execute a design for the United States Capitol that subdued the official plan adopted from William Thornton’s winning design.