Texte remanié de: Diss.--Hamburg, 1985. / Bibliogr. p.397-407. Table des ill.

My paper investigates Peter Paul Rubens’ female portraits in terms of the male and female gaze, psychoanalytic analysis, and historical context. My research will support the idea that Rubens painted women in a sexualized manner based on what Foucault coins the male gaze.[1] The paintings evaluated in this project include portraits of Rubens’ wives, Isabella Brandt and Helene Fourment, and portraits of wealthy patrons such as Marchesa Brigida Spinola Doria, Anne of Austria, and Marie de’ Medici. It is incorrect to view these paintings as pure, complete depictions of identity because women in this time were always defined and observed by men.[2]However by deconstructing the male gaze and also acknowledging the role of the active female gaze of the subjects of these works, a more complex construction of female identity is uncovered. Throughout history the feminine has been generalized to be passive and silent. My project aims to build on recent feminist scholarship that works to uncover more responsible and representative descriptions of the images of women in history. [1]Michel Foucault, “Discipline and Punish” from Literary Theory: An Anthology, ed. by Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan, (Malden: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004), 549-565. [2]Patricia Simons, “Women in Frames: The Gaze, the Eye, the Profile in Renaissance Portraiture,” edited by Norma Broude and Mary Garrard, The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History (New York: Harper Collins, 1992): 44.

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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.

Leonardo da Vinci's art and science have a dynamic relationship that can be used to better understand the role of the individual and the human body within his art. Leonardo believed that movements of the body were expressions of the soul. He also thought that the body was as a microcosm of the physical world. The theories, based in ancient tradition, would be challenged by his work with the human anatomy. By studying his notebooks it becomes evident that Leonardo held nature to be the highest creator of the world but as he worked to understand the human body and through extension the physical world, his ideas about nature and the divine became more incomprehensible. Leonardo's art reflects this turn of perspective as he becomes unable to define the physical world through the human body.

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A discussion of possible means by which the varnish of Master John's portrait of Katherine Parr (c.1545) might be conserved, providing historical context and a description of new conservation methods.

In this thesis I examine the artistic contributions of Gerrit van Honthorst (1592-1656) to the sudden increase in the pictorial representation of musical subjects in Utrecht during the 1620s. Like his contemporaries, Honthorst was profoundly influenced by the complex and dramatic style of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) during his studies in Italy, and he adopted the new Italianate interpretation of realism and chiaroscuro in his painting technique by the time he returned to Utrecht in 1620. However, Honthorst employed a strategy of representation that combined painterly techniques from the milieu of Italian art with subjects and themes from Netherlandish tradition, resulting in an innovative category of genre painting that was both familiar and new to the contemporary viewer. Through an analysis of a representative sample of Honthorst’s paintings of musicians and their relation to contemporary Dutch trends and interests, I consider how his works resonated with the aesthetic tastes of Northern patrons. I argue for the presence in Honthorst’s paintings of musicians of elements from contemporary Dutch culture, such as literary conventions, artistic tradition, and customs of musical performance, and I examine the ways in which these commonalities in ideology appealed to Northern audiences. / text

The master´s thesis deals with technology of hanging painting in the Baroque period and it is a source of inspiration for visual interpretation. The master´s thesis is devided into theoretical and practical part. Theoretical part deals with technologies of baroque painting on hanging painting and techniques of this period. Key figure is study of production of Czech painter Karel Škréta. The integral part is teoretical and technological process of prominent preservers. The technological process of Škréta's production, which is the part of practical part, is based on their cognition.