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Between 1837, when the first railraod were authorized by the July Monarchy, through the 1870s there were vociferous public debates on the utility of the train, large scale government funding for rail infrastructure, and notable depictions of the train in print, photography and literature. During this period there was also a notable - if currently unrecognized - dearth of painted depictions. This absence suggests that the Impressionists' paintings of the railroad in the 1870s were more than novel images of modern life, and provide evidence of the contested perception of the railroad, industrialization and aspects of modernization in the aftermath of l'année terrible that so far have been unaddressed by art historians and scholars of the nineteenth century.

Andy Warhol, one of the most famous American artists in history, achieved an extraordinary level of commercial and merchandizing success both during his lifetime and posthumously. Utilizing contemporary advertising theory, the emotional and psychological appeal of the artist to the art world and the general public is revealed.

Attempting to make sense of the oeuvre of Prud’hon in 1876, Edmond de Goncourt in his Catalogue Raisonné de Prud’hon contrasts Prud’hon’s paintings with the predominant art of David and his students. He describes Prud’hon as an isolated romantic artist, full of elegance, going against the virile masculine academic traditions of his day. Goncourt sees in Prud’hon the epitome of an erotic classicism, which he considers unique for his time. I seek to demonstrate that Prud’hon’s embrace of classicism reflects and propels a variety of contexts from the literary, aesthetic, philosophical, and cultural developments of his time. The significance of poignant upheaval and the political change from the ancien regime through the Revolution and the Empire had a considerable impact on the various moments examined in my dissertation. I use selected examples from his works and those of his contemporaries to serve as case studies to reveal key moments in the development of his oeuvre. Prud’hon’s oeuvre is vast, but my dissertation will highlight case studies from 1770-1815. I have analyzed central concepts of this period’s aesthetic and philosophical ideals, especially the philosophic treatises by French Enlightenment thinkers such as Rousseau and Diderot, and by classicists like Winckelmann and Quatremère de Quincy. Prud’hon’s transformations were also clearly impacted by the historical reality of the French Revolution and Empire.

During World War I, art produced in the United States shaped various opinions about the nation's role in global affairs, whether that art supported isolation or intervention. The U.S. government called on its artists to rally public support, and for the first time in its history, the military officially commissioned eight men, most of whom were classically-trained artists who worked as illustrators, to go to the front lines on its behalf. The AEF 8, as the official artists are commonly called, created approximately 500 artworks illustrating all aspects of the First World War, which were used in the popular press and exhibitions in an attempt to connect Americans "over here" with the efforts of the soldiers "over there." By uncovering the Army's dilemma of how to visually depict a controversial war, how the military used these images, and how the public responded to them, a new understanding of early twentieth century American art comes to light, linking the conflicting approaches of pictorial representation in early American modernism. By the spring of 1918, the eight illustrators landed in Europe and began their service as captains in the Army Engineer Corps. These men--William Aylward (1875-1956), Walter Jack Duncan (1881-1941), Harvey Dunn (1884-1952), George Harding (1882-1959), Wallace Morgan (1873-1948), Ernest Peixotto (1869-1940), J. André Smith (1880-1959), and Harry Townsend (1879-1941)--had unique access to locales and opportunities during the Great War. Back home, the U.S. government rallied other artists and effectively utilized their images, either in poster, print advertisement, film, or photographic form, to elicit support for the war. The Army hoped the official combat artworks would do the same, as well as become a visual and historical record of the war. This recognition of illustration's ability to persuade--and document--coincides with the rise of advertising, illustrated books and periodicals, and new printing technologies that occurred at the fin de siècle and into the 1910s. Most illustrators received decent wages for their work, and a few reached a level of popularity that garnered them significant salaries. Yet, many in the "high art" world considered the work of commercial artists and illustrators as less significant than that in the fine arts and, furthermore, denigrated the status of the professional fine artist. However, the skills of an illustrator--to be thorough yet quick, efficient yet detailed, and truthful yet artistic--were suited perfectly for combat art production, and the occupational limitations or criticisms of being a commercial artist seemed moot in the minds of those who commissioned the AEF 8. Considering the amount of time, effort, and funding the War Department extended to the creation of this new corps of combat artists, one must question what became of the art, what its purpose was, and if it fulfilled the mission stipulated by the Army, the patron for these eight artists. The Army desired that the art reveal the hard work and hardships of the common soldier to the American public, thus eliciting support for the war. One way citizens interfaced with the art was through magazines, journals, and books. Another more public form of interaction occurred in the museum setting. The analysis of these platforms presents a broader understanding--both historical and cultural--of the ways in which the official World War I art accomplished or failed in its mission to connect with the American public.

This dissertation explores interchanges and connections between Rome and Egypt that occurred during the four decades immediately following Egypt’s annexation into the Roman Empire in 30 B.C.E. The dissertation focuses on five temple precincts that were expanded under the first Roman emperor, Augustus (27 B.C.E.–14 C.E.), who as new ruler of Egypt, continued the venerable practice of building cult temples. In order to gauge the level of imperial support and analyze how local and imperial precedents were combined at temple sites, the dissertation compares the built space at sacred sites in three regions. The comparison reveals programmatic emphasis on areas where public worship occurred over inaccessible areas reserved for the gods, and that the combination of local and imperial elements strengthened cultic connections to each region’s center. Five chapters demonstrate temples in the Augustan period were created to encourage continued public use and worship by forming space where public veneration could be carried out, and by integrating pharaonic and imperial elements appropriate for the temple precincts’ transcultural local and visiting audience. This analysis indicates that temples in Augustan Egypt, like those in other areas of the Roman world, were tied to the existing traditions of the local community, engaged with new imperial elements, and were designed to encourage public involvement and continued use. Through encouragement by Augustus and his advisors, religion and culture mediated change as Egypt was annexed as a Roman province.

The St. Johns Bridge is a 1,207 foot span suspension bridge crossing the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon, connecting the Portland communities of St. Johns and Linnton on the eastern and western banks, respectively. Commissioned in 1928, the bridge was completed in 1931, with much fanfare in the local community. The two neighborhoods are some distance from downtown Portland, and the bridge brought prestige to an otherwise nondescript locale. It was designed by the New York-based firm of Steinman & Robinson. David Barnard Steinman (1886-1960) acted as the public face for the firm, however, and the design of the bridge has traditionally been ascribed to him in the literature. Steinman was one of the most prominent bridge engineers of the twentieth century, and is recognized today, as he was even within his lifetime, as such. It was a position which he worked fervently to attain. Steinman wrote extensively concerning the St. Johns Bridge and spoke of it as his own; his extensive use of the St. Johns Bridge as an example of aesthetics in bridge engineering is related to the early twentieth-century debate between engineers and architects regarding the role of each in bridge design. As an engineer who sought, without the aid of the architect, to build bridges which were objects of beauty, he asserted the role of the engineer as artist. The predisposition toward the engineered machine aesthetic in the intellectual climate of the avant-garde in the early twentieth century enabled Steinman to style himself as such an artist--even though the St. Johns Bridge, which he frequently employed in this regard, was not a work of functionalist aesthetics. While the architectural avant-garde was borrowing from the engineer for artistic rejuvenation, Steinman was in an advantageous position to argue for the engineer-artist, thereby casting the engineer as an individual sui generis, equal to and without need of the architect.

An examination of the iconography (primarily ceiling fresco) in the library hall in the German monastery of Schussenried. Thesis deals with the historical context surrounding the creation of this space and how the depicted scenes reflect both the influences of the Counter Reformation and Enlightenment.