This thesis is a multidisciplinary project, drawing on the discourses of Visual Cultural Studies, Latin American history and Critical Theory. Insights from each of these disciplines interact to investigate the representation of the indigenous peoples of Mexico in the mural triptych entitled History of the Mexican People painted by Diego Rivera in the National Palace, Mexico City between 1929 and 1935. The main focus is an exploration of the mural as a cultural text, which is formed through socio-political structures and homogenising nationalist visions. The artist is seen as partly a product of history who acts, both consciously and subconsciously, as a conduit for such historical structures. The investigation requires a multi-dimensional approach as it includes emotional, aesthetic, sociological, political, cultural, philosophical, biographical and material elements. A close-reading of the National Palace mural as a cultural 'text' is undertaken in order to deconstruct certain culturally-specific political myths. The production of the fresco triptych is inextricably interlinked with the construction of the post-revolutionary Mexican nation and socio-cultural mythologies regarding the 'Indian' which are central to nationalist imagery and the post-revolutionary, anthropological theories of indigenismo. Certain distinctive racial strands of nationalist mythology which are represented in the mural are analysed within the framework of Anthony D. Smith's (1999) theory of historical ethno-mythology. I argue, following Smith, that what gives nationalism its power are the myths, memories, traditions and symbols of ethnic heritages and the ways in which a popular living past has been, can be and is rediscovered and reinterpreted by modern, nationalist intelligentsias. Smith's universal theory has not previously been applied in depth to a complex concrete situation. This thesis relates the insights of the theory of nationalist ethno-mythology to the tangible cultural text of History of the Mexican People.

This thesis contributes to the study of portraiture by delivering an appraisal of female portraits produced in the urban areas of Italy and Flanders in the fifteenth century. Scholarship on individual and selections of these items exists, but it is fragmented and influenced by Marxist-feminist views about genders and their roles in the system of patriarchy. The term ‘patriarchy’ describes a socio-political and economic organization that is male-controlled. By applying patrilineal rules of patrimonial and political transmission through social stabilisers such as the institution of marriage, it disenfranchises women from decisions that affect their life directly, and ultimately their sense of entitlement. However, in order to function successfully, it creates forms of compensation that diminish the risks of uprising by the marginalised. Concerning women, this could be seen as their feminine experience of these conditions, which feminist analyses tend to overlook. With an original survey of one-hundred and four individual female portraits dated c.1400-c.1500, this thesis explores the relationship between the image and such experience during the rise of entrepreneurial communities, because these groups relied principally on this system to prosper individually and collectively. For the task, this thesis uses a legal-anthropological method that eschews the Marxist-feminist trappings. Its results show that female agency in the domestic environment and the dowry-system produced a binary relationship between men and women and forms of public and private recognition that challenge the basic notion of female marginalisation. Secondly, the Christocentric practices developed by evangelical groups from the early-thirteenth century proved very popular amongst women because they offered varieties of autonomy and public intervention that were otherwise precluded to them. Thirdly, humanism affected a small but important group of women, whose desire for learning challenged conventional propaganda about female inadequacies. This thesis explains the ways in which these facets are integrated in the likenesses of this survey. It demonstrates that fifteenth-century spectatorship received two types of stimuli. One that invested on an affinity of appreciation of the social values of female beauty, fashion and domestic skills, and that articulated ideas of commonwealth and kinship. One other that sought affinity that was more intimate and consistent with the sitter’s psychological condition. These strands ramified into social and ethical discourses that this thesis charts and examines. The one-hundred and four portraits featured in this survey originated predominantly in Flanders and central-northern Italy, the early strongholds of European mercantile groups. Current scholarship compares Netherlandish and Italian portraiture in terms of modernity versus obsolescence because the former developed naturalistic portraits in located backgrounds in c.1430, whilst the latter preferred the profile format until the end of the century. This thesis contests this polarisation because visual and contextual evidence together suggest that sociocultural interests informed choices of formats and the circulation of likenesses to the effect that modernity in portraiture cannot be measured in mere technical terms. Fifteenth-century Netherlandish portraits are, indeed, the earliest examples of modern portraiture but this phenomenon must be understood, this thesis explains, as the product of concomitant conditions that include new media and new attitudes towards the self, caused by the secularisation of culture and the revival of Greco-Roman literature. This thesis also contributes to the knowledge of the genre because it uncovers types of female portraiture that are new to the existing assessments, thereby setting the parameters for a classification of the topic from the perspective of the feminine experience of her own mimesis.

This thesis examines the reconstructed altarpiece formed by the Madonna del Voto, the Coronation of the Virgin, and the twelve narrative panels dated circa 1267 and attributed to Guido da Siena, currently dispersed in museums in Europe and America. The reconstructed altarpiece is vital to the study of early Sienese art because of its association with the Madonna del Voto in Siena cathedral, the most venerated icon believed to be once on the high altar. If proven, it represents a significant rediscovery of an altarpiece commissioned to commemorate the miraculous intercession of the Virgin who granted Sienese victory over Florence in 1260 at the Battle of Montaperti, giving birth to Siena’s identity as ‘the City of the Virgin’. Moreover, it reveals a more comprehensive view of the precedent of the complex altarpiece, the Maestà by Duccio di Buoninsegna dated 1308-11. However, the unconventional format and the iconographical programme of Guido’s reconstructed altarpiece has been criticised, and its original location on the cathedral high altar is questioned. The four chapters of this thesis reassessed the validity of the reconstruction of Guido’s altarpiece and its original location on the high altar by combining the methodological tools of altarpiece studies and pictorial narrative studies. Chapter 1 clarified that the reconstruction is highly probable from a technical viewpoint. Chapter 2 proposed an alternative interpretation of the historical documents suggesting its original location on the high altar. Chapters 3 and 4 examined the two extra-biblical episodes (the Ascent of the Cross and the Coronation of the Virgin), which are often associated with Franciscan commissions, and argued that they were selected to emphasise the Virgin’s intercession. The reconstructed altarpiece of exceptional format and iconographical selection was thus probably an invention for the important commission for Siena cathedral where art embodied the Marian civic identity.

The approach to this thesis uses political history to interpret art history. The following chapters are dedicated to uncovering how artists defined Germany’s various lands. The analysis of identities in the paintings in this thesis are considered to be intangible, for at times artists are clearly constructing regional identities, particularly in the Worpswede colony. Others, such as the Eifel landscapes, are conscious markers of a national identity and attempts to combine it with the local. The Dachau paintings expand the issue further since, as it is argued here, Bavaria aspired to be a nation-state in its own right so artists represented a regional (Dachau) identity and federal and national (Bavarian) identity both of which fed into an overarching national (German) identity. The identities studied in this thesis are not binary; one does not exclusively dominate the other, but are constructed in a constant negotiation between the local, regional and national. As such this study participates in a wider dialogue that has exploded since the 1960s in sociology and beyond about the formation of identity.

Although it was an era of extraordinary scientific progress and fertile methodological debate, the seventeenth century was characterized by a profound vein of scepticism that can be traced throughout its literary, scientific and philosophical works. Upon his arrival in Italy, the Spanish painter Jusepe de Ribera (1591-1652), one of the most innovative interpreters of Caravaggio’s painting in Europe, wittily thematized, through his series of the Senses (c.1612-1616), the aspirations, achievements and doubts of his age with regard to man’s sensorial experiences and the possibility of investigating and comprehending the functioning of the senses. Scholars have singled out both the allusions within Ribera’s paintings to scientific experimentalism and their affinity with the themes which characterised contemporary Spanish picaresque literature. However, neither the ‘picaresque vein’ nor the scientific factors in question have been analysed per se, or indeed been examined comparatively. In this regard, my main contention is that, by juxtaposing the tools of the new science with low-genre props, the Senses series clearly alludes to contemporary discussions about the function and reliability of sensory perception, a theme which was then of the utmost importance. By staging the equivalent of the pícaro, the shabby protagonist of numerous novels who has to constantly struggle for his existence and who is both assisted and misled by his senses, Ribera’s series parodies not only the experimental method which had been established by the Roman and Neapolitan members of the Accademia dei Lincei, but also Galileo’s contributions to the debate. By the same token, his connection with picaresque literature is often reduced to Ribera’s predilection for plebeian models and his propensity to represent high subject matters with ordinary figures and accessories. The main goal of this thesis is to offer a new interpretation of Ribera’s naturalism and its interconnections with the picaresque novel, as developed not only in Spain but also in Spanish Naples. My contention is, in fact, that these two aspects of Ribera’s art are not only inextricably connected, but are also specifically rooted in early seventeenth-century Roman and Neapolitan culture and society.

This inter-disciplinary thesis addresses the authenticity and social context of surviving portraits of Scottish monarchs between 1530 and c.1590, bringing the study of the Scottish portraits closer to the standard undertaken upon surviving English works. This research focuses upon key questions to begin to reveal the nature of commission and execution of sixteenth-century portraits in Scotland, focusing upon a pair of double portraits from Blair Castle, Pitlochery, Perthshire. The two paintings will form the key case-studies for this research, and the central question to the thesis is whether they are authentic, sixteenth-century Scottish-made images. The thesis will address questions such as: How do they fit into the contemporaneous culture of court portraiture production in Northern Europe and across the border in England? Does the physical evidence support the notion of Netherlandish influence? Surviving documentary evidence of the painterly aspects of the courts of King James V and his grandson King James VI is presented, and the results of interdisciplinary technical analysis used to explore whether the materials and techniques of the Blair portraits and their surviving counterparts demonstrate enough Netherlandish influence to present the existence of a Scoto-Netherlandish school of painting. The National Portrait Gallery’s research project Making Art in Tudor Britain (2007-2014) 2010 conference Tudor and Jacobean Painting: Production, Influences and Patronage raised the issue of the need for a parallel project for Scotland, tracing the highly-developed use of portraiture by the later Stewart dynasty to its fifteenth-century Scottish beginnings. This thesis argues that far from being culturally backwards in terms of portraiture, the Scottish court employed fashionable Netherlandish techniques from an early date, with a strong understanding of the impact of the arts dating from the earliest Stewarts. Most importantly, this research is the first to undertake a full technical examination of the Blair Castle portraits, placing these works within a comprehensive material context. Such examination of the visual arts commissioned at this time can only further our understanding of the wider context of production in Scotland at this time. Additionally, understanding the nature of the commission of royal portraits by those in noble families makes clearer the use of the visual arts to enhance careers and reputation, as well as social identity. In focusing the discussion purely upon Scottish portraits in native collections, this research unites works which have not been comprehensively studied as a whole. The study of the sixteenth-century Scottish court has advanced considerably in recent years, but without an in-depth examination of the artworks produced as visual representation of these courts, a complete understanding cannot be achieved. This thesis demonstrates that much of the production of royal portraits was based upon the copying of copies. It is thus not the aesthetic quality which should be the focus, but the circumstances of their existence and material composition which is most revealing about the place Scotland holds within the study of early modern European art.

To better understand how the evolution of Cenozoic deep-water circulation related to changes in global climate and ocean basin configuration, we generated Nd isotope records from Ocean Drilling Program sites in the southeastern Atlantic to track deep water mass composition through time. We used fossil fish debris from ODP Sites 1262-1264 (Leg 208), spanning present-day water depths of 2500-4750 m, to reconstruct the isotopic signature of deep waters over the past ~53 Ma. The data indicate an initial transition from relatively non-radiogenic values (??Nd=~-10) at 53 Ma to more radiogenic values (~-8.5) at ~32 Ma. From ~32 Ma to 3.85 Ma, the Nd signal becomes more nonradiogenic, ~-12.3 at the top of the record. Comparison of our data with Nd isotopic records derived from a North Atlantic Fe-Mn crust show similar non-radiogenic values (~-10.5) in the 53??32 Ma interval and a trend toward more non-radiogenic values beginning at ~20 Ma. The data likely reflect an overall shift from a Southern Ocean deep water source to the ultimate incursion of deep waters from the North Atlantic. The non-radiogenic values at the base of the record reflect a Southern Ocean source of deep water. The shift toward more radiogenic values indicates an increased contribution of Pacific waters to the Southern Ocean source as the tectonic gateways changed after ~35-33 Ma. The subsequent trend toward more non-radiogenic Nd isotope values is approximately concurrent with the increase of benthic foraminiferal ??18O values, based on comparison with a compilation of global data. Thus, changes in oceanic gateway configuration in addition to overall cooling and the build-up of continental ice on Antarctica may have altered the Nd isotope character of Southern Ocean deep waters during the early Oligocene.

This thesis examines the hitherto largely-overlooked multifarious response by British artists to early Italian art which pre-dated the activity of the Pre-Raphaelites and their greatest champion, John Ruskin. The title of this thesis does not endeavour to claim that the artists under examination consciously formed or naturally constituted a group with clearly defined common interests and aims, as was the case with their aforementioned successors. Rather, the collective ‘pre’ Pre-Raphaelites is intended to demonstrate that, contrary to the impression given by the standard scholarship on this area, there were British artists prior to the dawn of the Pre-Raphaelites who found worth in periods of art beyond what was conventionally considered both generally tasteful and also useful for an artist to imitate, and who indeed made many of the important steps which facilitated the Pre-Raphaelites’ rediscovery of early Italian art in the late 1840s. The temporal span of the main investigative thrust of this thesis is, approximately, 1770 - 1845. Its structure is intended to reflect the multiplicity of both the catalysts and then the subsequent responses of British artists to the Italian primitives. The first part of the thesis comprises a number of chapters which offer a broad contextual framework - encompassing analyses of taste, artistic education and historiography - within which the varied activities of the artists explored in the subsequent chapters are set. Parts two and three reveal the very different approaches taken by a series of artists in the decades either side of the turn of the century in their attempts to study, learn from and sometimes emulate the visual lessons of the past. Thus this thesis rescues the often marginalised contributions of a selection of British artists to the resurgence of interest in early Italian art, and demonstrates how fundamental their interpretive filter was for the nature of the quasi-revolution in taste in the last half of the nineteenth century.

This thesis presents and contextualises a distinct cluster of fresco cycles depicting the life of Mary Magdalen in the central-eastern Alpine regions of Trentino, Tyrol and the Swiss Grisons from the late middle ages to the early Renaissance. Located for the most part in the marginal rural parish ambit and reflecting the agenda of the local patron, these cycles offer an alternate manifestation of the popularity and relevence of a major saint at this time. As such my thesis is a corrective to the precedence placed on the role of the mendicant orders in the development and transmission of the Magdalen cult and its visual canon. Through a series of interrelated case study chapters, I examine the narrative mural paintings found in the churches of Dusch, Rencio, Vadena, Seefeld, Cusiano and Pontresina, with three further appendices presenting relevant comparative works and restoration details. Each chapter sheds light on a neglected but crucial area of late medieval painting, drawing to the fore their individual interpretations of the Magdalen cult but also their affinities to one another. In particular, my thesis establishes the possibility of diverse patronage sources, modes of image reception and access. Moreover, it documents the sophisticated handling of issues such as gender, religious drama and the relevance of the life cycle liturgies, all of which contribute to the many iconographical innovations. In the absence of mendicant association, I suggest that the transmission of the visual cult of Mary Magdalen was made possible by itinerant artists and workshops, as well as a generational network of influence radiating from regional centres. As a result, my thesis contributes to a growing interest in the organisation, life and relevance of rural parish churches and communes and particularly those in remote areas.

This study explores El Greco's language of gestures. The first part will explain the preconditions for the general development towards rhetorical gestures and draw parallels with El Greco's artistic development in the sphere of gestures. In addition, handbooks on gestures are introduced. The second part will analyse how El Greco applied gestures, using examples of his paintings. It will reveal how El Greco developed some gestures over more than thirty years, and how he creates with their help an intense concentrated mood in his paintings. It will also demonstrate how he worked by means of hyperbole to evoke an inspiring atmosphere, how he created space with the help of gestures and gaze, and how he transformed the meaning of some 'model' gestures he took over from famous Italian painters. Finally, this work seeks to renew and intensify the analysis of gestures in painting as a way of approaching the paintings and revealing layers of meaning that can not be found by an analysis solely focused on iconographic topics. In this study the body is taken as a mediator of signs, difficult to read, but decipherable. This study is intended to be a step forward in approaching a deeper understanding of the codified language of gesture. It should open the way to an intensified concern with the language of gestures, with the reading of bodily signs in paintings.