<p> Abstract not available.</p>

<p> Since her <i>Untitled Film Stills</i> of the 1980s, Cindy Sherman has assumed the roles of artist and model to present a continuum of complex female personas that are embedded within our cultural unconscious. Though we are often reminded that her photographs are not self-portraits, Sherman continues to employ many stylistic conventions of portrait photography. I use this as a means to re-contextualize Sherman's practice within a critical study of portrait photography that will open up new possibilities in reading her work. Using the photographic index, Charles Sanders Peirce's classification of signs, Charcot's nineteenth century photographs of hysterics, and Jacques Lacan's four discourses, I locate Sherman's practice within a complex history of photographic portraiture from the nineteenth century to today's digital landscape to ask where portraiture has been and where it is headed. </p>

<p> This paper is a review and discussion of the career of French runway photographer, Guy Marineau. It specifically explores his tenure at Fairchild Publications between the years 1975-1985, contextualized by his personal experience and the history of the fashion show. Prior to shooting the runway, Marineau photographed conflicts in Portugal and Israel. Traumatized by war, Marineau, decided to realign his career towards capturing beauty.</p><p> Fashion shows emerged around the turn of the century, and press coverage of them has been long fraught with complications due to the threat of copyists reproducing unlicensed designs. During the mid-1950s John Fairchild tirelessly challenged the strict embargo set by the <i>Chambre Syndicale</i> that restricted the immediate release of images taken at couture shows. Yet by the 1960s, the demise of the haute couture was imminent, and couturiers resorted to licensing to keep their houses afloat, which in turn, reestablished their relationship with the press.</p><p> Since his start at Fairchild Publications, Marineau approached runway photography through the eyes of a war photographer. Marineau's work improved vastly as he grasped how to shoot fashion shows and was one of the first to challenge the established protocol by leaving his editor for the end of the runway. His photographs kept pace alongside his continuously evolving subject, the fashion show, and with advancements to camera technology. Relatively unknown, Marineau's work remains an undiscovered wealth of fashion history. His photographs are a testament to the once-diverse genre of runway photography that is slowly being replaced by the standardized runway photographs now linked with fashion websites.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2009. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 70-06, Section: A, page: . Adviser: Jordana Mendelson. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 220-240) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.

<p> Lynd Ward, an American Expressionist artist, and &ldquo;father of the graphic novel,&rdquo; helped shape the conventions of contemporary artists&rsquo; books. His legacy has influenced the direction beyond the graphic novel in areas such as the use of Expressionism and printmaking in the artists&rsquo; book, breaking graphic conventions, and using the artists&rsquo; book to convey a socio-political commentary. This paper will explain his influence and legacy by comparing his work to four contemporary artists&rsquo; books. Ward&rsquo;s work, however, has only recently been recognized as a significant influence on graphic novels and has yet to be fully acknowledged as an influence on American artists&rsquo; books.</p>

<p> During the 18th century, the novel was criticized for a lack of representation of reality and in turn a public distrust of fiction was established. The epistolary form addressed these issues by presenting a narrative that was bound by a real-life structure that allowed for the illusion of reality and authenticity. Today, this distrust of fiction is nonexistent but the epistolary form is still present and a frequently used literary device, providing the real-life structure for an escape from reality. However, while commercial fiction has embraced the form and moved past the historical justification of the epistolary novel, most artists&rsquo; books have not. This paper will prove how the artist book has struggled to move past the historical epistolary form and what lessons it can take from the world of contemporary commercial fiction.</p>

<p> For centuries Western sensibilities have been governed by an assumption that imagination is an exclusively human faculty, independent of the phenomenal world. This dissertation explores a view, long elaborated in mythologies and artistic traditions of pre-modern cultures, that phenomenal reality is the template of imagination, that terrestrial and celestial elemental forces are continuous with the mind, and that meaning in artistic practice is derived from a reciprocal exchange with the world in which we live.</p><p> This dissertation revives a traditional view of the heart as the seat of a continuous circulation of mind, imagination, and the world. In endeavoring to recover the eclipsed intelligence of the heart, this study argues that both the thought and perception of the heart are primarily metaphorical, which necessarily makes them essential in humanity&rsquo;s unceasing exchange with the greater community of beings.</p><p> This dissertation demonstrates that imagination and artistic practice are inseparable from the environment, and that a study of pre-modern artistic traditions broadens an ecological understanding of the web of relationships between living beings and the environment that sustains them. Three traditions of painting disclose varying human orientations within the world: Navajo sandpainting, Chinese landscape painting, and Western European painting since the fourteenth century. Navajo sandpaintings are made at times when disorder and sickness prevail in order to restore balance in the relationship between the human community and primordial forces embodied in the landscape. Chinese landscape painting is a visual contemplation of the interwoven place of humanity within the perpetual change and transformation of heaven, earth, and sentient beings. Western painters in the fourteenth century departed from pre-modern approaches to painting when linear perspective was introduced as a way to fix a perception of the phenomenal world that was primarily optical, rather than visionary. The perception promoted by this method, based on an orientation that is both dualistic and literal, eventually ran its course, giving way to the introduction of more interactive approaches to artistic practice and perception by twenty-first century artists.</p>

<p> My thesis work, which consists of a series of small scaled, mixed media constructions, is inspired by the beauty and complexity of the natural world in which we live. There is beauty in the harmony and balance found in the intricate arrangements and order of a variety of living systems such as the rising and falling tides, human DNA structures, life cycles of plants, and the orbits and rotations found in our galaxy. Each work is intended to reveal the density and sophistication of these networks through layers of information and intricate detail. Found wooden cases, drawers, wire, reclaimed metals and recycled plastic, found glass objects, thread, monofilament, and mylar are just a few of the materials I work with to create my sculptures or assemblages. </p><p> The beauty and sophistication of the diverse elements in the natural world have inspired me to create these small scale assemblages or microcosms. Using science and nature as a foundation, I allow my interest in the reuse and transformation of found objects to direct the construction of these intimate environments. I hope the size of the work and layers of visual information entice viewers to explore the spaces and consider the numerous associations evident from my unique orchestration of elements.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-11, Section: A, page: 4025. Adviser: David Desser. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 226-230) Available on microfilm from Pro Quest Information and Learning.