This study seeks to clarify the limits of knowledge regarding Azuchi Castle (Azuchi-jō) and, in turn, offers a multifaceted interpretation of its crowning glory―the six-story, lavishly decorated, timber-framed tower known as a tenshu (donjon). Azuchi Castle was located on a small mountain on the eastern shores of Lake Biwa. Completed in 1579, it was conceived and constructed to be a capital for the first of the so-called “three-unifiers” of Japan, Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582). Due to its landmark importance in Japanese history, Azuchi has not suffered from a lack of attention. However, owing to its short, three-year life and the tantalizingly vague and often contradictory records that remain of it, Azuchi has often been the subject of unfettered and under-qualified speculation. The first part of this dissertation is thus dedicated to surveying and simplifying the issues that have inspired the contentious and confusing image of Azuchi that exists in scholarly discourse. To this end, the disparate written primary sources on Azuchi, the waves of archeological digs, and the numerous reconstructive models of the tenshu are explored and the known perimeters of the “object” at the center of this study is as best as possible, defined. The second part of this dissertation is focused on the Azuchi tenshu. The case will be made that the tenshu represents a unique product of class, technology, and ideology. I contend that the tenshu as an evolved form of yagura (unembellished towers used in sieges) represents an unique expression of provincial warrior identity. This expression was elevated to a level of elite status by means of a new breed of master carpenter versed in the newly capable technology of architectural drawing. Finally, I argue that the architectural and painting programs of the Azuchi tenshu’s keep framed Nobunaga as both heir to his predecessors in the Ashikaga shogunate and through evocation of the Chinese imperial building known as a Mingtang (“Bright Hall”), the unimpeachable recipient of a “Mandate of Heaven” to govern. / History of Art and Architecture

This dissertation takes a mode of production — cutting-and-pasting in its most literal and more abstract forms — as a tool for thinking anew about eighteenth-century French art and visual culture in two key ways. The first is to orient art historians’ focus away from spaces of reception (prioritized in the field since the logocentric discourse established by academicians and critics in the seventeenth century) towards spaces of production (typically obfuscated by the same discourse). This is to undress painting of many of the ideologically-driven, highly wrought terms that elevated it from a mechanical to a liberal art in France between roughly 1690 and 1790. Cutting-and-pasting also provides a means of addressing current art historical concerns about “transmediality” (for which eighteenth-century France and its “integrative interiors” have been seen as particularly relevant) that nonetheless remains historically responsible about the medium-specificity so central to the guild-based culture that produced these objects. In order to lodge these issues at the heart of the study of eighteenth-century art, the examples of Antoine Watteau, Jean-Baptiste Oudry, François Boucher and Hubert Robert are explored in greatest depth and situated against a much broader cast of actors that includes print-makers, publishers, anonymous studio assistants, architects and experts in porcelain, textiles, marquetry and metalwork. In this dissertation’s conclusion, the ghost of the decorative in works that would become known as “rococo painting” is addressed in order to posit new insight into how divisions that were being actively constructed in the eighteenth century between fine and decorative, liberal and mechanical — and, indeed, works on canvas versus all other media — do not necessarily serve art historians well in their understanding of eighteenth-century French painting. / History of Art and Architecture

This project-based thesis has added five stops and an introduction to American Silver to the Currier Museum of Art’s mobile tour. The Museum has an extensive silver collection but has very little information readily available for its visitors in the galleries. This thesis provides those visitors with information about the Currier’s American silver collection. It uses the Currier’s current mobile application as a template while incorporating museum education teaching methods to create an engaging tour. The thesis begins with a history of silver in America from Colonial times to the start of the nineteenth century. This time period is best represented in the Currier’s American silver collection. The thesis discusses the role and development of the silversmith as a craftsman as well as the social history of silver in America during this period. It also discusses the use and advantages of using mobile technology in the museum setting. Many visitors already own mobile devices. Museums can take advantage of visitors’ familiarity with these tools by creating programs specifically for this technology. The tour itself is based on teaching methods outlined by the museum educator George E. Hein in his book: Learning in the Museum (1998). These methods are used to build upon the standards set by the Currier Museum of Art’s “Audience Engagement and Interpretation Philosophy” in order to make the tour more engaging for visitors. Articles by museum technology professionals Robert Stein and Nancy Proctor were also consulted when researching the best practices for mobile tours. Their work lays out many key elements for successful mobile applications including the use of media assets, stops where these assets are experienced and the connections used to move between the stops. The accessibility benefits of mobile technology for visitors, especially the use of audio recordings for visitors with disabilities, are also discussed and were taken into account when creating the tour.

<p> This thesis examines the characteristics of the spirits Ezili, Legba, and Ogou, in order to determine which aspects of their manifestations incorporate themes of syncretism from Catholic tradition, and which aspects reflect visual tradition that emerged from distinctly Haitian tradition. Elements of Catholic and African traditions, discernable within Vodou iconography, act as a basis upon which the practice was further augmented. These adaptations reveal the mixing of cultures and continuation of tradition that is of central importance to the development of Vodou, as reflections of the process through which the religion overcame the social problems faced by the practitioners, as well as the culturally devastating consequences of Haitian colonial history. These diversifications from the Christianity and African traditions reflect the ingenuity and resourceful nature of Vodou, which through its fluid nature, can be transformed to accommodate the needs of the devotees. </p><p> Through a postcolonial methodology, this thesis demonstrates that through the syncretism of Catholic themes, the influence of the West African origins of the Vodou, and the unique experiences of the people in Haiti, the iconography of Vodou visual culture interacted of other religions as it evolved into a distinctly Haitian practice. By looking at the spirits Ezili, Legba, and Ogou, alongside their counterparts of the Virgin Mary, St. Peter, and St. George (or St. James) this essay will outline the syncretization of these spirits with Christian icons, while making parallels to the development of Christian iconography which borrowed from pagan imagery in an effort to place the importance of a figure within a pre-established lineage that placed importance on the image.</p><p>

<p>The relationship between photographer and subject in nineteenth-century photographs of Afghanistan operates as a component of identity construction. To date, this interaction is theorized in terms of power between the photographer and the colonial apparatus and labels the image as orientalist, colonializing, and ethnographic. I propose an additional perspective that places consumer interests in costume at the forefront of image construction. While Western photographers have left us with a perception of nineteenth-century Afghanistan as an intersection between British occupied India and Russia, the social economic impetus of these images require further analysis. An examination of British cultural and photographic practices reveals the role clothes play in the creation of the ethnic `type.? My research addresses these principal themes: the continuities between photographic and pre-photographic visualities; the relationship between European cultural attitudes, the creation of costume books, and reception of commercial photography; how visual information was repurposed and influenced the development of anthropology as a discipline. The importance of studying costume and costume books in the nineteenth century is instrumental to understanding Europe?s transition to a culture focused on classification and commodification. Costume books not only allowed for the creation of a consumable `type? in photography, and permit us to examine the actual mechanics of commodification.

On September 29, 55 BC, Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, master of Italy, and conqueror of Spain, Africa, and the East, celebrated the grand opening of his magnificent building complex in the Campus Martius. This extraordinary monument was an architectural achievement hitherto never attempted at Rome. The building complex was designed with Rome's first permanent stone theatre, a temple of Venus Victa quadriporticus, a curia, and housed numerous works of art. Pompey was a triumphant imperator, who used his manubiae to build a monumentum that would best represent his desire for supreme and everlasting glory, in an age of political turmoil, social upheaval, and religious strife. The attempt to discover what influenced Pompey to build such a structure and the purposes it served will show that the building complex functions as an architectural metaphor toward Pompey's quest for popularity at Rome.

The subject of this Thesis is "Erotica on a Selection of Fourteen Attic Sixth-Century Black-Figure Vases Found in Etruscan Tombs". The first chapter provides an introduction to the subject. It discusses the evidence to be examined in the thesis, and briefly reviews the secondary literature on the subject. It then outlines the method followed in researching the thesis. Finally, it gives a summary of the basic techniques of Attic black-figure pottery. The second chapter is a detailed descriptive catalogue of fourteen vases with human copulation scenes. Details are given of each figure painted on the vases, and all subsidiary decoration. Both homoerotic and heterosexual copulations are shown. The third chapter is a discussion of the data revealed by the detailed catalogue. It examines copulation positions, Dionysian iconography, the komos, symposion and banquet, homoerotic courting imagery and question of the status of the women shown. The thesis also contains an appendix which lists twenty-nine vases with copulation scenes. In addition, there are forty-five illustrations. The main contribution made by this thesis is the discovery of the close link between Dionysian imagery and the depiction of human copulation in Attic black-figure. This throws into question the distinction made by previous scholarship between erotica which is designed to titilate and religious expressions of fertility rites. Also of interest is the frequency of multiple copulation scenes and the relative paucity of single-couple heterosexual copulations.

Hans Baldung Grien used the innovative chiaroscuro woodcut technique, invented in Germany in 1508, to create his prints Witches' Sabbath (1510) and Fall of Man (1511). This thesis argues that Baldung's depictions of witches and of Eve are connected by the chiaroscuro woodcut technique. The chiaroscuro print establishes a conceptual genealogy that begins with Eve as humanity's first female transgressor and results in the sixteenth-century witch. The chiaroscuro woodcut technique removes the sixteenth-century witch of Witches' Sabbath and Biblical personage Eve in Fall of Man from discrete traditional iconographic lineages and encourages the viewer to understand witches and Eve as natural women. The new category of the natural woman serves as a way to analyze the relationship between early modern witches and Eve, as well as their pictorial and textual connections to the Christian hermit and the folkloric wild woman. Furthermore, the chiaroscuro technique elevated the woodcut by making it a luxurious, fine-art print, and thus allowed Baldung to depict his female subjects independent of any explicit textual or visual precedents. Indeed, Baldung used the technique to introduce a darkness, mood, and drama that was impossible to capture with other techniques in the graphic arts. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Spring Semester, 2012. / March 26, 2012. / Chiaroscuro woodcut, Eve, Hans Baldung, Wilderness, Wild woman, Witches / Includes bibliographical references. / Stephanie Leitch, Professor Directing Thesis; Jack Freiberg, Committee Member; Lauren Weingarden, Committee Member.

In this thesis I argue that Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) composed the first volume of Le Antichit' Romane (1756) to emphasize his expertise and knowledge of ancient Rome's monuments and topography. My study questions the objectivity of the volume's visual and textual components. In Volume I, views of the city, two topographic maps, an explanatory index of three hundred and fifteen monuments, trompe-l'oeil renderings of fragments of the Severan Marble Plan, and passages quoted from Frontinus seemingly verify Piranesi's archaeological conclusions. I analyze these elements, taking into consideration the role of this volume as the reader's inaugural experience of the work and the reference point for the other three volumes. I examine Volume I as a crafted construction: I begin my study by describing the contents of Volume I, and clarify that contrary to other assessments of the Antichit', the volume is not merely a pictorial survey of ancient Rome. Instead, the imagery of the volume coordinates with text to comprehensively describe the city through visual and verbal means. I follow this inventory with an analysis of Piranesi's use of trompe-l'oeil for many of the volume's images. I connect Piranesi's use of trompe-l'oeil to conventions in antiquarian illustration to show that this pictorial tactic was aligned with current anxieties regarding the preservation of the remains of antiquity. I demonstrate that illusion enables Piranesi to imply interaction with the antique artifacts, thus underscoring his involvement in contemporary antiquarian activities. Additionally, I posit that the use of this pictorial tactic enables Piranesi to blur the distinction between artifact and fiction: I show that not all of the artifacts depicted in the volume are accurately portrayed, and the distinction between Piranesi's hypothetical reconstructions and the artifacts is often intentionally blurred. Finally, my thesis concludes with my reconstruction of the reading experience of the volume. I isolate a specific location described through the maps, index entries, and a supplementary veduta as a case study for this examination. By tracing Piranesi's delivery of information about this site through the disparate media contained within the volume, I reveal the role that the organization of the volume's components plays in conveying archaeological data and in guiding the reader through the artist's deductions. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. / Summer Semester, 2008. / April 30, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references. / Robert Neuman, Professor Directing Thesis; Lauren Weingarden, Committee Member; Stephanie Leitch, Committee Member.

From 1935 to 1945, the Chicago pharmaceutical corporation Abbott Laboratories, the military's primary medical supplier during the Second World War, commissioned dozens of artists in a unique contractual agreement to produce hundreds of paintings and drawings creating advertisements and illustrations for both its medical journal What's New and for the United States Government's War Department. The contract specifically barred direct company profit from the imagery or advertisements created by commissioned artists yet simultaneously demonstrated Abbott's goodwill and "altruism" by donating the proceeds from public art exhibitions and the sales of color reproductions directly to the government's Treasury Department. Artists participating in the combat arts program received payment, travel expenses, and commissions as full-fledged active-duty military officers in exchange for works over a breadth of war subjects. Despite Abbott Laboratories' large expenditure for these projects, it fulfilled its contractual obligation to turn over all of the commissioned paintings and drawings to the federal government's War Department in June 1945. The terms and conditions of this contract, the tri-partite corporation-patron-artist relationship, the works created through Abbott Laboratories' various art initiatives, and the mass reproduction and mobilization of these images for popular culture constitute the focus of this dissertation. Abbott skillfully designed a system of corporate patronage that masked both its intentions and its benefits to result in artistically rich and commercially viable propaganda. In order to understand Abbott's wartime patronage, one must consider the company's need to rehabilitate its corporate image and its consequent negotiation of the projection of that image, its patronage within the context of 1940s corporate sponsorship and the broader context of wartime patronage, the circumstances surrounding the commission and creation of the individual words within its collection and the circumstances leading to the exhibition, distribution, and final ownership of the artwork. Finally, understanding Abbott's patronage is critical to providing insight into the 1940s American artist's mediation of art and advertising. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester, 2013. / March 20, 2013. / Abbott, Art, Benton, Biddle, War / Includes bibliographical references. / Karen A. Bearor, Professor Directing Dissertation; Valliere Richard Auzenne, University Representative; Adam Jolles, Committee Member; Robert Neuman, Committee Member.