This thesis is a study and description of the process of designing the scenic elements of Saying Grace by Robert Smythe, an adaptation and translation of the play Divinas Palabras by Ramón María del Valle-Inclán written for Temple University Theater. The body outlines the process the author took in researching and developing the concept for the play, finalizing the design with the director of the piece, and completing the actual drafting and artwork necessary to realize said design. It also details the actual construction of the scenery, properties, and puppet elements, discusses the final product and offers self-evaluation. Plates of the drawing and drafting, and photographs of the scale model and final production accompany this work. / Theater

Rent is an extremely popular musical, recognizable across the globe. The iconic characters, images, and costumes from the original production have been copied and interpreted numerous times. I have chosen to reinterpret this script by examining the essence of each individual character. After researching magazines from the time period in which Rent was written and books containing information on AIDS and the East Village, all subject matter within Rent, I developed a design concept. Through a series of fourteen sketches I present my original concept for a very well known story. Production photographs and pre-production tables support my journey from concept to finished production. / Theater

Store lighting is a combination of art form and function that contributes to a retail store's sales and prosperity. The quantity, quality, and effect of the light reaching the merchandise are the determining factors in the success of the sale of merchandise. There are three basic merchandise lighting techniques used in retail stores. They include the low-end, mid-market, and high-end lighting techniques. However, retailers are developing merchandising techniques that do not have a clear cut lighting solution. A new merchandising technique for the audio/video retailer is the simulated home environment (SHE). It is a series of rooms and vignettes that present audio/video products in a home setting. Studies have shown that lighting has an affect on human behavior. In a retail store, three customer behaviors are linked to increased sales: customer communication with store personnel; customer interaction with displays and merchandise; and length of time in the store. The purpose of this study was to determine which of the lighting techniques was most effective in stimulating the customer behaviors linked to increased sales in an audio/video store's SHE. The study was conducted in an audio/video store's SHE equipped with a lighting system that could produce the three lighting techniques. Each day the SHE's lighting system was set up for one of the lighting techniques and customer behavior was unobtrusively observed and recorded. A convenience method of sampling was used in the study. The subjects were the customers shopping in the SHE. The study's experiment was done twice using two methods for selecting the observation days for the experiments. One method used the same day of the week in three successive weeks (SDW), the other used three different days within the same week (DDW). The sample size for the SDW method was 123, and 47 for the DDW method. To assess the effectiveness of the lighting techniques in stimulating customer behavior, two behavior rating scales were created. The Customer Communication Rating Scale and the Customer Display and Merchandise Interaction Rating Scale assigned values to observed customer behavior. The third customer behavior, length of time in the SHE, was measured in minutes. Data was analyzed using Chi Square tests for the Customer Communication Rating Scale and the Customer Display and Merchandise Interaction Rating Scale. An ANOVA was used to analyze the length of time in the SHE. The results indicated that both the mid-market and high-end lighting techniques were significantly better than the low-end lighting technique in stimulating customer display and merchandise interaction, and longer customer visits in the SHE. However, the results indicated that all three lighting techniques were equally effective at stimulating customer communication with store personnel. The study concluded that store lighting designs that include highlighting of displays and merchandise will stimulate customer display and merchandise interaction and longer customer visits. / Master of Science

This thesis explores facets of Scottish identity via the decorative work of Douglas Strachan. Nations and nationalism remain extraordinarily potent phenomena in the contemporary world and this work seeks to examine aspects of Scottish nationhood and cultural identity through Strachan's evocation of history, folklore, religion and myth. It has been argued that these are the chief catalysts for enabling people to define and shape their understanding of themselves and their place within society. Cultural identity is often understood as a passive form of nationalism which is remote from its political counterpart. Yet there are strong arguments to counter this belief. This thesis addresses some of the issues raised by such arguments and adopts an ethno-symbolic approach in order to re-evaluate Strachan's work, and that of his contemporaries. The thesis also develops the theoretical and contextual debates concerning the decorative arts in general and stained glass in particular in order to raise awareness of its merits and its role within our society.

A 1755 advert in the Gloucester Journal listed for sale, 'A MODERN-BUILT HOUSE, with four rooms on a floor, fit for a gentleman'. In the late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 'gentlemen's houses' like the one described evolved as a cultural norm. This thesis offers a social and cultural reading of an under-studied group of small free-standing classical houses built in the west of England between 1680 and 1770. By developing a profile of eighty-one gentlemen's houses and one hundred and thirty-four builders and owners, this study unites subjects such as the history of architecture, landscapes, domestic interiors, objects and social development that are often treated separately. The design, spatial arrangement, and furnishings of gentlemen's houses precisely defined the position of their builders and owners in the social hierarchy. The 1720s marked an important shift in the location and meaning of building that corresponded to an alteration in the background of builders. Small classical houses moved from a relatively novel form of building for the gentry to a conventional choice made by newcomers often from commercial and professional backgrounds. Gentlemen's houses projected status in a range of settings for both landed and non-landed elites, highlighting the house as a form of status-enhancing property rather than land. Moreover, gentlemen's houses had adaptable interior spaces and were furnished with an array of objects that differed in number and quality from those lower and higher in society. The connections between gentlemen's houses and important processes of social change in Britain are striking. House-building and furnishing were measured strategic activities that calibrated social status and illustrated mobility. This thesis demonstrates that gentlemen's houses are one key to understanding the permeability of the English elite as well as the combination of dynamism and stability that characterized eighteenth-century English society.

Sweet Briar House is one of the best documented sites in Virginia, with sources ranging from architectural drawings and extensive archives to original furnishings. Sweet Briar House was purchased by Elijah Fletcher, a prominent figure in Lynchburg, Virginia, in 1830. Thirty years later it passed into the possession of his daughter Indiana Fletcher Williams, and remained her home until her death in 1900. In her will, Williams left instructions for the founding of Sweet Briar Institute, an educational institution for women that exists today as Sweet Briar College. This dissertation examines Sweet Briar House in three distinct phases, while advancing three theses. The first thesis proposes that the double portico motif introduced by Palladio at the Villa Cornaro in the sixteenth century became the fundamental motif of Palladianism in Virginia architecture, generating a line of offspring that proliferated in the eighteenth century and beyond. The Palladian plantation (Sweet Briar House I, c. 1800) featured this double portico. In 1851, following the return of the Fletcher children from an extended Grand Tour of Europe, the house was remodeled as an Italianate villa (Sweet Briar House II, 1851-52). The second thesis advances the contention that by renovating their Palladian house into an asymmetrical Italianate villa, the Fletcher family implemented an ideal solution between the balanced façade that characterized the Palladian Sweet Briar House I and the fashion for the Picturesque that dominated American building in the second half of the nineteenth century. In 1876, the Williams family traveled to the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia, where visitors were presented with an unimaginable array of artistic possibilities from countless eras and nations, exactly the conditions that the Aesthetic Movement needed to flourish in America. The third thesis maintains that the Williams family’s decision to transform Sweet Briar House into an Aesthetic Movement retreat was inspired by their reaction to the Centennial, and in particular by their appreciation for the Japanese objects presented there.

This thesis analyzes Czech cosmetic company Dermacol in the on-line environment. The crucial goal was to give a compact overview of Dermacol's on-line activities and propose their possible improvement. The theoretical part describes and contrasts the purchase decision process in a traditional store and on the internet. Furthemore, it depicts the evolution of the internet and e-commerce in the Czech Republic. In the next part the situation on the market with decorative cosmetics and Dermacol's position on it is analyzed. Crucial part is dedicated to the on-line tools which are used by Dermacol for its presentation, communication and sale. The recommendations and possible proposals for improvement follow. In the end the thesis deals with a research whose goal was to find out the attitude of the Czech consumers towards decorative cosmetics. Moreover, the research examined the awareness about Dermacol's web and e-hop and the willingness of the Czech women to buy decorative cosmetics via internet.

The contemporary Japanese manga industry began in 1959 when the first weekly manga magazines were published. Throughout the 1960s publishing companies attracted a large adult readership by incorporating radical political themes and realistic drawing styles in manga magazines. The readership continued to expand throughout the 1970s and 1980s and manga became a mass medium on a similar scale to television or pop-music. This thesis identifies two distinct trends in the cultural status of manga which were developing from the mid-1980s onwards. On the one hand, what had previously been seen as 'commercial' manga became respected as an 'art' form and highbrow communication medium. On the other, manga was vilified as pornography and as the extreme expression of an increasingly fragmented society. In the former trend, prestigious corporations sponsored a new category of 'information' manga, whilst in the latter, 'girls' and 'otaku' manga genres were censured by a quasi-governmental censorship movement. The amateur manga subculture in particular became the focus of a 'moral panic' where those involved were characterised as isolated and socially dysfunctional. This thesis, based on ten months' participant observation and intensive interviews in 'Morning' manga magazine editorial office in 1994, examines how this editorial was influenced by the changing status of manga in Japanese society in the formulation of its editorial policy and production methods. Editors felt that in the 1990s social changes presented the manga industry with serious production problems - in particular, a dearth of 'good' artists who could produce social themes, and a shrinking readership. Morning editorial attempted to overcome these problems by pioneering a new form of artistic, high-quality and respectable adult manga, aimed at older and more socially-elite readers. By creating a new proactive intellectual role for manga editors at the same time as sponsoring experimental graphic styles, Morning editorial produced a distinctive new form of conservative, state-supporting social and political adult manga. The re-definition of specific genres of manga as 'art' by Japanese institutions was paralleled by changes in commercial manga production which privileged the social and intellectual interests of editors over those of readers and artists. This study concludes that editors have become increasingly impo7tant in manga production between 1986 and 1995, and that there is a tight interrelationship between commercial cultural production and broader cultural and social discourses generally.

La thèse Les achats d’objets d’art français par la Cour de Russie, 1881-1917, consacrée à un nouvel aspect des relations franco-russes, pose un regard bilatéral sur les arts décoratifs français et russes, dont elle étudie le goût au cœur d’interactions politiques, commerciales et artistiques. Le contexte favorable dans lequel s’effectuent ces achats sous les règnes d’Alexandre III et de Nicolas II repose sur l’ancienneté des relations franco-russes, reconnues pour leur richesse au XVIIIe siècle et au début du XIXe siècle. Il se manifeste par le développement des exportations des produits de l’industrie française d’art et de luxe en Russie depuis le Second Empire, d’autant plus facilitées par la conclusion de l’Alliance franco-russe. Ainsi favorisés, les fournisseurs de l’objet d’art français en Russie, appartenant à des industries variées – mobilier, bronze, textile, orfèvrerie, céramique, verrerie, bijouterie et joaillerie – bénéficient des séjours répétés de la clientèle russe en France. Fournisseurs et différents intermédiaires en profitent pour développer leurs relations avec le marché russe et y renforcent le succès de l’objet d’art français, dont les modèles ont une certaine influence en Russie.De l’empereur au grand bourgeois, les clients russes, reflet de l’évolution sociale du pays accumulaient les achats dans leurs résidences et affirmaient ainsi, par le goût du fabriqué en France, leur appartenance à une élite européenne. L’étude des collections russes d’objets d’art français, dispersées à la Révolution, permet de cerner un aspect de l’histoire du goût et témoigne du rayonnement international de l’art décoratif français. / The thesis The purchases of French “objets d’art” by the Russian Court, 1881-1917, dedicated to a new aspect of French-Russian relationships, gives a dual view on the French and Russian decorative arts and studies them in the context of political, commercial and artistic interactions.The favorable context of these purchases, during the reigns of Alexander III and of Nicolas II, is based on the historical French-Russian relations, very developed in the XVIIIth century and at the beginning of the XIXth century. This context results in an increased of export of French “objets d’art” in Russia since the Second Empire, facilitated by the new French-Russian Alliance.The suppliers of the French “objets d’art” in Russia, belonging to the various French Art and Luxury industries – furniture, bronze, textile, silver, ceramic, glassware and jewellery – benefit from repeated stays of Russian customers in France. Consequently, suppliers and various partners develop their relations with the Russian market and strengthen the success of the French “objets d’art”, which were used as a model in Russia.From the emperor to the “grand bourgeois”, the Russian clients, who illustrate the social evolution of the country, collected their purchases in their residences and showed, by their taste for the made in France objects, that they belonged to the European elite. The study of the Russian collections of French “objets d’art”, dispersed during the Revolution, illustrates an aspect of the history of taste and shows the international success of the French decorative arts.

Entre 1848 et 1914, un groupe de peintres exerça une « mainmise » sur la Manufacture de Beauvais. Pierre-Adolphe Badin et son fils, Jules, Pierre-Adrien Chabal-Dussurgey et Jules Diéterle en furent tour à tour les administrateurs et les principaux cartonniers. Chacun était issu d’une formation différente, de la plus courue à la moins reconnue : des Beaux-arts de Paris à l’école de l’industrie. Malgré la diversité de leur parcours, la Révolution de 1848 les rassembla au sein des Manufactures nationales, où ils participèrent à la régénération des arts décoratifs français. Il s’agit de comprendre les choix esthétiques de la Manufacture à travers deux niveaux d’analyse : celui des individus et de leur réseau, en les resituant ensuite dans le contexte plus général de l’industrie textile de la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle. / Between 1848 and 1914, a group of painters had a “stranglehold” on the Beauvais tapestry Manufacture. Pierre-Adolphe Badin and his son, Jules, Pierre-Adrien Chabal-Dussurgey and Jules Diéterle were in turns the managers and the main cartoon painters of this manufacture. They all came from different backgrounds: two of them attended the Fine Arts School of Paris, while the others ones were trained in the industry. Despite the diversity of their artistic careers, the French Revolution of 1848 brought these painters together within the National Manufactories, where they contributed to the revival of the French decorative arts. The aesthetic choices of the Beauvais Manufacture will be analyzed through the lens of these individual people and their network, while taking into account the global context of the textile industry during the second half of the nineteenth century.