This dissertation examines the life and works of Jan van de Velde II, with a focus on the large body of original landscapes that he both designed and etched himself. Van de Velde was one of the most prolific printmakers of the seventeenth century, whose emphasis on creating and promoting his own designs not only exceeded the usual professional ambitions of most contemporary printmakers but also proved pivotal in the development of a distinctively Dutch landscape tradition. The fact that innovation in the landscape genre was propelled through the print medium inverted the usual relationship between painters and printmakers, in which painters were usually held as the primary artistic innovators. This study provides the first focused treatment of Van de Velde’s original landscape etchings, as well as the first critical study of the artist’s prints generally. The first two chapters offer a detailed biography of Van de Velde, and incorporate a comprehensive gathering of archival documents related to his life, network, and career as a printmaker. Chapter 1 examines his early life and training, along with the remarkable letters from his father, who actually encouraged him at the outset of his career to invent his own designs. Chapter 2 details his professional life in Haarlem and Enkhuizen, and challenges the previously held notion that he more or less abandoned the pursuit of original printmaking after his marriage, as well as the notion that he developed financial problems later in life. At stake in this reassessment is the proper grounding of his enterprise of artistic self-definition, one that has repercussions for the status of printmaking generally in this era. The remaining chapters address different aspects of Van de Velde’s original landscape etchings, particularly those produced at the beginning of his career, c. 1614-1618. Chapter 3 examines the balance of types of imagery in his landscape series, between the seemingly real and the imaginary, and between the local and the foreign. Chapter 4 is a study of the high prevalence of ruins in Van de Velde’s etchings, both as subjects in their own right, and as ones that dramatized their landscape settings and reflected a new form of visual antiquarianism at a time of peak interest in local history and antiquity. Chapter 5 looks at the significant subset of Van de Velde’s landscapes couched in the visual time-cycle tradition of Seasons and Months, and how the Neo-Latin captions found in these series offer a range of innovative commentary. It specifically examines in detail a series of Months that demonstrate how Van de Velde’s relationship with the previously unidentified humanist author Reinier Telle clearly led to a significant transformation of that tradition to reflect both local and Protestant values.

This dissertation examines symbolic representations of British imperial power through the appropriation and display of Indian “things.” The objects and spectacles examined here—the Koh-i-Noor diamond, tigers and tiger hunting, and turbaned men on display—are all invested with a range of social and symbolic meanings within both their indigenous and imperial contexts. The things appropriated into the British Empire’s styling of itself that are discussed in this study were each traditionally associated with masculinity and kingship in their native Indian context and subsequently displayed on and around the bodies of British women. This study advances a relationship between the theatrics of British imperial power, and the emasculation and objectification of Indian men. A list of images has been submitted as a supplemental digital file with this dissertation.

This thesis attempts to examine and define the degree of influence which the Turks exerted on Islamic art of the Seljuqid period (1040--1194 AD) specifically, and on Islamic art of the medieval period generally. As this thesis represents a first investigation of the topic, it was necessary to retrace Turkish history from its beginnings to fully understand its dynamic, but also to analyze the art historical and cultural past of the Turkish peoples in order to assess the degree of probability of Turkish influence on Islamic art as well as the means of its penetration. The vaster arena of this research is the field of Central Asian history and the growing awareness of the important cultural ramifications of its widespread Indo-Buddhist culture. / Due to the complexity of the thesis topic, a simple method has been followed to present the material. The thesis is divided into three chapters, each addressing a major issue. The first chapter introduces the four major Turkish steppe dynasties and their art in so far as archaeology permits. The second chapter deals with the process of Islamicization of the Turks, while the third chapter broaches the issue of Turkish influence on Islamic art of the Seljuqid period under four headings: architecture, architectural decoration, animal imagery, and figurative iconography. The basic premise of this paper is the assumption that, if the Turks played such a major role in the political developments of medieval dar al-islam, they must have also contributed, consciously or not, to the formation of medieval Islamic art.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2006. / Electronic version also available. Includes bibliographical references (p. 198-208).

The art on the Berlin Wall has been looked at often for its social and political meaning. Instead, I intend to look at the artwork and text which appeared on the Berlin Wall as art. In this paper I will discuss the formal aspects of the art on the Berlin Wall as well as its import as an example of public art and as a forum created through visual representation.

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Based on amber artifacts from excavated sites as well as museums and private collections, this thesis focuses on the art of amber in the Liao Dynasty, and though comparing with the use of amber in ancient Europe and other periods in China to reveal the significance of amber in the Liao Dynasty founded by the Qidan, a semi-nomadic people who lived in China's northeast. Through the comparative study of materials, techniques, usage, decorative themes, cultural and artistic meanings, this thesis concludes that: (1) amber artifacts in China flourished during the Liao Dynasty (907--1125A.D.), although there is no textual evidence on record; (2) amber artifacts from Liao tombs and Buddhist pagodas are comparable to other material arts in terms of quality, quantity and artistry; (3) the Qidans, founders of the Liao dynasty, used amber widely as personal ornaments, religious items, and funeral objects; (4) like jade, gold and silver, amber was a symbol of rank and power; it was also used by the Qidan elite to emphasize their ethnic identity. This phenomenon is unique and unprecedented in Chinese history; nothing like it came before or after. Qidan amber has greater political and cultural meaning than jade, gold and silver; (5) Baltic amber is the likely source of Qidan amber, finding its way from Baltic to Qidan territory through "the fur route" across Southern Siberian and "the silk route" across Central Asia, with Uyghur merchants playing important roles as intermediaries. / 許晓東. / 論文(哲學博士)--香港中文大學, 2005. / 參考文獻(p. 165-183). / Adviser: Jenny F. So. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-01, Section: A, page: 0006. / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [200-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts also in English. / School code: 1307. / Lun wen (Zhe xue bo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2005. / Can kao wen xian (p. 165-183). / Xu Xiaodong.

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This monographic dissertation traces the development of happenings and mass media art in Argentina through the works that Argentine artist Marta Minujín created between 1961 and 1968. It argues that, in its unparalleled pursuit of a mass audience, Minujín’s art articulated a populist logic that allowed it to subvert authoritarianism in an oblique manner based in dissensus. This distinguished Minujín’s practice from that of other politically radicalized Argentine artists, who had turned their art into a form of activism and overt critique of the dictatorship of General Onganía. This dissertation also demonstrates that Minujín’s media-centric happenings and environments adopted a carnivalesque strategy of “positive negation” or ambiguous mimetic excess to reveal and critique the effects of an incipient spectacle culture.

Title assigned by the cataloguer. / Consists of books, booklets, articles and catalogues authored or edited by Ron Radford during his career as an art curator and gallery director. / Full list of all the author's published work included in the folder. Not all of these have been physically submitted. / 25 v. : / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (D.Litt.)--University of Adelaide, School of History and Politics, Discipline of History, 2006