This dissertation examines portrait production during the global Gilded Age in the United States, revealing an interplay between cosmopolitanism and revivalism. Using a transnational and multi-media framework, it broadens conventional definitions of portraiture, allowing American women to be centered within the study not only as subjects, but also as patrons of art. The project demonstrates that the apparently anti-modern strain of revivalism characteristic of late nineteenth century art emerged as a reflection of US expansionist ideologies. This goal is accomplished through a series of illustrative case studies, including a discussion of Gilded Age costume balls, organized by wealthy American women, that visualized the imperial courts of pre-industrial Europe in order to legitimize their social positions. Another investigation considers the Paris studio contents of American painter John Singer Sargent, which brought his iconic painting Madame X into exhibitionary dialogue with collected Japanese export goods, as emblems of the artist’s cosmopolitan brand of empire. An analysis of society leader Alva Vanderbilt’s Pompadour bedroom by French designer Jules Allard reveals a blend of pre-industrial style produced with modern technologies, making it a space worthy of her imperial ambitions. Finally, the study examines society matriarch Alice Vanderbilt’s paradoxical Victorianism and Modernism in the context of her portrait collection. Overall, the project illuminates new definitions of cosmopolitanism and its cultural significance during the Gilded Age and considers the collaboration between female patrons and artists, placing them within the context of media circulation and a global art market where women could curate and claim their own brand of identity, one expressive of a global reaching American empire in the late nineteenth-century. / Art History

This thesis is an attempt to draw conclusions about consistencies and discrepancies in my studio work of the past two years. I analyze my process and ideas relative to artistic and theoretical discourse with an emphasis on the transgression of standards and values taught in the university setting. The work develops from overt ideological critique into corporeally engaging pieces designed to elicit conceptual narratives that challenge formalist ideals of perception and expression. Quotes from artists, authors, philosophers and popular music formative in my thought process serve as context for the writing and the work.

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