This thesis will seek to illustrate the social and cultural role which the European Fallow Deer has played in the period 6000 BCE – 1600 CE by investigating cultural depictions of the animal. These cultural depictions take various forms, in material culture, iconography and literary works as well as in its conceptions and classifications. Taking specific examples of practices throughout the eras, each will be examined in regard to the historical, cultural and ecological contexts and the fallow deer itself. Although many depictions, especially from earlier eras would appear scant, and later depictions are very geographically and culturally specific, the perception of the deer by cultures is a worthwhile and meaningful exploration. This present work gives particular attention to the ancient Greeks, the Thracians, the Romans, and the medieval British, who all appeared to invest heavily in the species and in its cultural depictions and movements. Depiction of fallow deer will be discussed from the Neolithic period, through the medieval until the 17th century at around the time the medieval emparkment and sovereignty systems ended. Whilst fallow deer has become a staple for the many deer parks of Europe, and has been introduced across the world, historical research into the human approaches and efforts shown towards the animal by species and classifications has been minimal. As part of an AHRC funded project, this species of deer has been subject to intensive study. It is hoped that this research will complement the project’s work and that a better understanding of the human perception and efforts regarding the animal may be attained.

The topic of my research is the irrational and the ways it was accommodated through the visual arts of the modern era. In particular, I explore this theme through the relationship between Dionysos and Apollo. Ever since Nietzsche's 'Die Geburt der Tragodie' (1872), the polarity of the two gods has been codified in Western culture. Yet while their discrepancy as opposites has been widely discussed, they are two sides of the same coin, sharing similar traits since Antiquity. Beginning with an introduction on the cultural climate of the nineteenth-century, I argue that Nietzsche's principles had been anticipated by the exponents of German Romanticism and found earlier sources in the Humanism of fifteenth-century Italy, when Plato's writings in praise of 'madness' were rediscovered. While investigating significant aspects of Western cultural heritage, I trace the sources of Nietzsche's ideas, confronting these with examples from the visual arts. To this end, I first re-consider the ancient Dionysos and his transformation in the Middle Ages. I then analyse which aspects of the god were favoured in the Renaissance and which Dionysian narratives were re-produced. Within this framework, I assess the multifaceted character of the god and the meanings he acquired according to different periods, places and requirements. `Bacchus, id est vinum' recites a popular formula, but from Michelangelo to Caravaggio and beyond, this was not the only Dionysian guise to be known in the modern era. While often represented as a merrymaking god of nature, either alone or participating in Bacchanals and his Triumphs, darker aspects could be chosen to represent his world. It is the madness and disorder, as well as the reasons for their revelation (or omission) in specific contexts that I explore, in the belief that they provided the roots for Nietzsche's dualistic formulations and many a modern coniunctio oppositorum.

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The thesis examines the trope of anamorphosis as a formal dimension of art practice and as a critical tool for exploring subjective vision. Anamorphosis is a technique of perspective that produces a distorted image that may only be corrected and made coherent when viewed from a specific angle. In order to re-form an oblique anamorph, it is necessary to view the image from a position that is markedly different from the conventional, frontal viewpoint. This process of eccentric viewing relies on the observer of the work to actively locate the viewing position that will re-form the image and confer meaning. The beholder of anamorphic images becomes aware of herself as a viewing subject and consequently, this act of viewing affirms the construction of vision as reflexive and self-critical. The thesis takes as its point of departure the claim of the influential art critic and theorist, Rosalind E. Krauss that the art practice of the German-American artist Eva Hesse, specifically the work, Contingent, 1969, represented a reinvention for its own time of an anamorphic condition through a mutual eclipse of form and matter. Krauss deploys the device of anamorphosis as a means of addressing the problematic of the relationship between the categories of painting and sculpture, and the debates into which Hesse's work intervened during the late 1960s. The thesis outlines the history of anamorphosis and its relation to geometric perspective from its genesis in the Renaissance to contemporary artists' engagement with anamorphic strategies of disruption. The psychoanalytical model of vision proposed by Jacques Lacan deploys anamorphosis as an exemplary structure in the elaboration of the gaze. The thesis discusses various dimensions of the anamorphic in art practice since 1970, with reference to works by Hannah Wilke, Richard Hamilton, Rachel Whiteread, Christine Borland and Shirazeh Houshiary.

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The purpose of this work is to present a reframing and repositioning of films made by Derek Jarman via in-depth textual analysis (rarely seen previously) and attention to relevant theoretical connections (such as heritage, pastiche, camp, adaptation). These discussions are anchored to a consistent contextual grounding within the British film industry/culture, which includes consideration of the history and role/s of the BFI, dialogues with debates of national cinema and heritage, an assessment of Channel 4’s impact and influence, and an investigation into the function of British Film Year and its lists of acknowledged films. The first chapter addresses shortcomings and problems of previous framing, and gives an example of my textual analysis and methodology using previously ignored filmic texts Queen is Dead and Paninaro. With the stifling and dominant biographical/auteur approach removed from application (and the label Jarman accounted for as a categorising structure of the text rather than a reference to an external figure), the thesis considers the films as cultural texts which examine representation and heritage. The next three chapters explore Jubilee, The Tempest, and Caravaggio respectively, addressing the films’ uses of history, cultural heritage and style via facets such as temporal layering, punk and camp modalities, pastiche approaches, adaptation, appropriation, and allusion. The thesis opposes arguments that can be reductive, monolithic, and totalising (like auteur, biographical, and heritage frames of analysis), and instead makes central the operations of the specific filmic text. Rather than allowing texts (in terms of content and meaning) to be subsumed into an examination of the life and personality of the director (as has so often been the case with Jarman films), the filmic texts are observed, analysed and discussed via attentiveness to the particular properties of the text (style; representations; framing), and connected to the British cinema context of the period.

Sibyl cycles in Northern and Central Italy, in the Early Renaissance. Previous published scholarship listed twenty-two sites. I now know of forty. Twenty-three of these may be considered Early Renaissance works of art and are the subject of this study. This study is not primarily engaged with history of Art but with the history of Ideas. That is, it is not a study of the painters. their methods and status but rather with the study of the development of the genre. its textual sources, the content of the inscribed oracles. the development of the pictorial conventions and symbolism. the transmission of these and the cultural significance of the genre. The dissertation is concerned with artistic styles and techniques only in so far as they illuminate the pictorial origin of the works and their iconographic significance in terms of the ideas conveyed. It describes and defines regional sub-genres. each with clear rules and conventions. These have not previously been identified and no comprehensive national conspectus exists. Structure of the Dissertation The dissertation is in three parts. The first part addresses the nature and origin of Sibyls (who and what they were) and their significance in cultural history until the Renaissance. Part Two is concerned with the origins and transmission of text and iconographic conventions in the Renaissance Sibyl cyeles. Pari three is a catalogue and survey of each Sibyl cycle site in Central and Northern Italy, along with a comprehensive photographic record. Great destruction of some cycles has taken place since the 1960s and the compilation of a complete photographic record is urgent and a significant aim of the present work. There are few published coloured photographs of the full cycles. none complete except for Siena. This dissertation is wide in scope and is in large part a catalogue and survey of all known Italian Sibyl cycles. Because of the limitations of a Doctoral dissertation. at times the transition from one site to another may appear abrupt and disjunct. Nonetheless, the structure is logical and careful. Sites are arranged chronologically, according to genre. The reader is directed to the detailed table of contents, if a review of structure and order be required. Research Method The method of research was to form a comprehensive list of Sibyl sites in Italy by consulting published English and Continental books. journals and locally produced historical papers as well as word of mouth advice in Italy. I visited all the sites and made a photographic record. Origin and transmission of text was established by consulting contemporary manuscripts that either specify the oracle text or describe the original Orsini. and other, frescos. These manuscripts are widely scattered in Europe and difficult of access so, where possible, a significant example of each kind of manuscript is reproduced in photographs or photocopy, transcribed and translated in the Appendices to the dissertation.

This practice based research seeks to explore and extend the potential of camera obscura projections to perceptually transform objects and spaces by using their unique visual qualities. These pertain to immediacy and directness. Although apparently tangible, the projected images appear to reside in a void where there is an absence of surrounding visual reference. This causes the images to appear disconnected from any context, thereby prompting associations with Freud's notions of the uncanny and Proust's narrative of the transitional. The research consists of a sequence of practice based studies. These commenced with an exploration into the perceptual ambiguities of reflection and shadow. Perceptual ambiguity was further explored through the distorting effects of curved pinhole cameras. The latter began to suggest using the camera itself as an object within which something could be viewed. With the incorporation of focusing lenses, this led to projections where the observer was situated within the camera obscura. Throughout the research, the objects projected were always ordinary and familiar, commencing with a light bulb. The addition of lighting sequences thus enabled further exploration of various phases of ambiguity, as well as enhanced definition and recognition of the projected image. This was followed by projections of other objects, which sought to place them in a particular visual context; for example a mug projected into' an actual microwave located within a kitchen. Although this produced surreal connotations, the surrounding visual material diluted the impact of the projected image. A decision was therefore made to concentrate entirely on the presentation of the projected images by refining projection techniques to enhance their quality and definition. The introduction of movement subsequently heightened perceptual ambiguity, as did the addition of the multiplication of images. This led to a rich variety of projected imagery which ranged from the perceptible to the imperceptible, involving synchronicity, transparency, juxtaposition, transposition from line to plane, and contrast between stasis and movement. The increasingly extraordinary images prompted a reevaluation of the observer's visual assumptions. These practical investigations, together with historical, literary, and philosophical issues, combine to extend the possibilities of the camera obscura in terms of contemporary artistic practice.

This thesis explores the importance of the United Kingdom’s composition as a multinational state to the decoration of the new Houses of Parliament, constructed by Sir Charles Barry following the destruction of most of the old Palace of Westminster by fire in 1834. Over seven chapters, it examines the decorative schemes undertaken between the 1840s and 1860s by Barry and the Fine Arts Commission, followed by later, individual programmes, the last of which was completed in 1928. This study develops the twin notions of the art of union and the art of disunion to analyse the complex relationship between the Union and Parliament’s decorative schemes. The art of union is used to identify the elements of the New Palace of Westminster’s planned or completed decoration that validated and promoted the Union. Meanwhile, the art of disunion is deployed as a means of analysing the works of art that caused disunity and division. Examples of the art of union in the Houses of Parliament have led to it being described as a very British building. However, this thesis argues that this is an inadequate description. Though Scotland, Ireland and Wales are represented in the building’s decoration, it is England that dominates. Therefore, this study argues that Anglo-British is the most accurate term with which to describe the sense of national identity embodied by the Palace of Westminster. However, the Anglo-Britishness presented over the lengthy period covered in this thesis is not a consistent and homogenous vision, but one that is varied, complex and, at times, contradictory. There is also a clear development in the general form that it takes: beginning with a relatively inclusive Anglo-Britishness that gives some recognition to the UK nations other than England, it becomes increasingly Anglocentric and imperialist over the period examined.

One of the primary focuses in the works presented and discussed herein is the juxtaposition of many disparate musical styles, recordings, and sound worlds within each individual piece. This juxtaposition extends to combining live improvisation meticulously created non-realtime elements, and elements of generative processes in the creation of individual works. A secondary theme is my attitude to accessibility and how this informs my work with audiovisual elements.