Perrault's Bluebeard tale is a story of domestic abuse: Bluebeard tries to control his wife's movements by prohibiting her from entering a specific room in their chateau and attempts to kill his wife as punishment when she ultimately disobeys him. Bluebeard's violence towards his wife clearly marks him as an abuser. There have been countless other versions of the Bluebeard tale including Elizabeth Gaskell's short story "The Grey Woman." Unlike other versions of the tale that emphasize Bluebeard's physically abusive behavior, Gaskell's version focuses on a more subtle form of abuse: emotional abuse. Emotional abuse has remained an obscure topic within Victorian scholarship, and my paper attempts to address this gap in the literature by exploring the emotionally abusive marriage between Anna Scherer and, her personal Bluebeard, M. de la Tourelle. The term "emotional abuse did not exist during Gaskell's time, and yet, she skillfully portrays an emotionally abusive relationship. M. de la Tourelle isolates Anna from her family, controls her movements within her own home, and unexpectedly rages at her. Anna records the events of her abusive marriage in a letter to her daughter years after the events originally take place. As Anna writes her narrative, she attempts to articulate the abuse she endured. Without access to our 21st-century lexicon of abuse, Anna instead settles on physiognomy as a language that allows her to make sense of her husband's behavior. Physiognomy was a popular pseudoscience at the time, and it teaches that physical characteristics are indicative of personality traits. So, in her writing, Anna analyzes the curve of her husband's mouth, the light in his eyes, and the color of his cheeks all in an attempt to explain the emotional abuse she endured throughout her marriage. Anna also subjects herself to a physiognomic reading as she depicts how drastically her coloring has changed during her brief marriage to M. de la Tourelle. When Anna first married M. de la Tourelle, she had bright, lily-like skin and blonde hair. However, after enduring abuse in her marriage, her hair and skin both turn unnaturally and permanently gray. Anna depicts herself as being forever changed because of her abusive marriage. Gaskell's short story uses physiognomy as a tool to discuss emotional abuse long before the term "emotional abuse" existed. Studying the role physiognomy plays in "The Grey Woman," allows for new insights on how emotional abuse operates within the text. Ultimately, physiognomy provides a way of understanding how Victorian authors may have depicted both abusers and victims.

This dissertation situates the works of Anglo-Swiss artist Henry Fuseli and French artist Anne-Louis Girodet within a vast and heterogeneous epistemological transformation occurring in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It examines three distinct but interlocking case studies—physiognomy, electricity, and the guillotine—each of which constellates scientific discourses, representational practices, and popular attractions. Although working in separate contexts and different modalities, Fuseli and Girodet both engaged with these discourses and practices. Yet they did so in ways that also tested and undermined them. They painted bodies that emphatically failed to conform to the scientific discourses they cited; they painted bodies that were similarly unable to represent heroic virtues or legible narratives. In this way Fuseli and Girodet compel us to read the stylistic shift from neoclassicism to romanticism as participating in a significant realignment of the relationship between knowledge, representation, and the body. By the first decades of the nineteenth century, the body no longer served as a privileged agent of knowledge production within the scientific discourses and artistic practices under consideration. The physiognomic body was no longer self-identical; the electric body was no longer internally continuous. The guillotine offered, in their places, bodies without heads and heads without bodies, whose mechanisms of sensation and cognition were only ever partially and provisionally aligned.

Through the use of masculinity as a visual language this research aims to unravel the divide between the role of the act and the acted. French actor Julien Boisselier operates as the male manifestation of the actor in question and functions on multiple levels of performance, both as male and as an actor. Boisseliers depictions of major, medium and minor acted characters offer another level to the performance variable. The aim to highlight the visible triggers of a ‘pure performance’ (a performance where the actor may slip or falter out of acted character and into default human performance) as shown through the choreography of his physiognomy is the experience underpinning this thesis.

La thèse établit l’histoire comparative des différents Sacri Monti italiens dans un but précis : étudier la transformation d’ « architectures » qui étaient des copies de lieux vides de Terre Sainte en vastes cycles chronologiques animés de nombreuses peintures et statues. Les nécessités religieuses de ces sites définissent un rapport original entre les arts qui donne la première place aux statues : on l’appellera « paragone chrétien ». La statuaire y est exceptionnellement didactique et propre à susciter les émotions. Didactique : les Sacri Monti mettent progressivement en place une statuaire narrative. Propre à susciter les émotions : ces terres cuites polychromes à grandeur sont « vivantes » au point d’incarner les scènes. À la fois familiers et exotiques, variés et récurrents, les très nombreux personnages des chapelles composent souvent des types singulièrement outrés. Leur beauté et surtout leur laideur cruelle et difforme, doit être utile : s’appuyant sur une lecture physiognomonique des scènes, le pèlerinage (guidé) aux Sacri Monti constitue une catharsis chrétienne / This dissertation examines the history of the Italian Sacri Monti from a comparative perspective. The main objective is to understand how “architectures” that were copies of void monuments from the Holy Land were transformed into large chronological cycles animated through the use of numerous paintings and statues. The religious motivations of these sites define a specific relationship between the different art forms, one that emphasizes sculpture and which can be characterized as a “Christian paragone”. Statuary is particularly didactic and emotional. It is didactic in the sense that the Sacri Monti serve to stage a narrative statuary It is also emotional since the life-sized and polychrome terracotta sculptures are so “alive” that they seem to be performing the scenes. The many characters in the chapels are both familiar and exotic, diverse and repetitive. They constitute types that often look strangely outraged. Their beauty but also their cruel and deformed ugliness serve a didactic purpose: grounded on a physiognomic reading of the scenes, the (guided) pilgrimage to the Sacri Monti mediates a Christian catharsis.

In this thesis I review how Sargassum muticum (Yendo) Fensholt, an invasive alga from Asia, has spread globally due to human activities and describe how this species can affect seagrass ecosystems. Abiotic factors such as nutrient and substratum availability may facilitate the spread of S. muticum into Zostera marina L. meadows, but analyses of seawater nutrients, and sediment particle size and % organic content revealed no significant differences between experimental quadrats in seagrass meadows either with, or without the presence of S. muticum. Phenolic compounds were examined because they form the basis of defensive mechanisms in plants and algae, therefore any change in phenolic content may affect the ability of Z. marina to protect itself from disease, herbivory and invasive species through allelopathic interactions. Results from a four year field study and multiple annual laboratory experiments showed significant reductions (p = 0.034 and p = 0.002, respectively) in the caffeic and tannic acids equivalents content of Z. marina when in the presence of S. muticum. As the abundance of S. muticum increases, other changes in the physiology of Z. marina may occur including variations in growth rates, nutrient partitioning and chlorophyll fluorescence, but data from multiple laboratory experiments illustrated no significant differences in growth. Chlorophyll fluorescence analyses revealed significant differences between treatments with and without S. muticum (p = 0.008), but pairwise comparisons indicated these differences only occurred in 2008 (p < 0.001). Significant differences were also found in nutrient partitioning amongst functional regions of the shoots (p = 0.024), but pairwise comparisons detected these differences between a biomass control treatment (ZZ: Zostera + Zostera) and the ZS (with S. muticum) and ZM (Z. marina on its own at a lower biomass per replicate) treatments (p = 0.013 and p = 0.019, respectively), but not between ZS and ZM. Previous in situ research has found negative effects of S. muticum presence on densities of kelp and other algae. Results from the long-term field study indicated significantly lower mean in situ Z. marina densities within the ZS treatment (p < 0.001). Epibiota found living on the blades of Z. marina provide food for organisms within seagrass ecosystems and also create microhabitats for other species to occupy. Alterations in the abundances of epibiota and microhabitats formed could further modify seagrass ecosystems through shifts in timing of food availability, food preferences and microhabitats created. The long-term field study data revealed significantly lower epibiota abundances within the ZS treatment (p = 0.019), but differences in biomass between treatments were not detected. Changes in the biochemistry, physiology, vegetative physiognomy and epibiota assemblages of Z. marina revealed during experimental manipulations are presented and considered within the context of long-term seagrass survival in light of increasing S. muticum invasion.

This thesis explores the development of naturalistic rendering of emotion in the art of Greece through facial expression and body posture from 525 to 400. Why does emotional naturalism arise in the art of Greece, and in which particular regions? Why at this period? In which contexts and media? What restrictions on situation and type of figure can be interpolated or reconstructed? The upper chronological limit is based on simple observation. It is about this time, in many media, that naturalistic emotional expression is employed, although there are exceptions that blur this line slightly. The lower limit marks a major historical turning point, a culmination in Beazley's chronology of Attic vase painting and a common dating threshold for small finds. Emotional expression accelerates from the fourth century, and requires a different set of questions. 400 is for this reason held as a strict end-point. Many categories of physical object were considered; gems and coins did not offer substantial results, but are used for comparison. The rest have formed the armature of the thesis. Only original objects are included, as emotionality undergoes marked changes in Hellenistic and Roman copies. The first section treats publically-commissioned sculpture – sculpture integrated into architecture. The second section treats privately-commissioned sculpture, stone and terracotta; the third pottery: black-figure, red-figure and whiteground. Within these sections, material is arranged broadly chronologically. Human figures are the focus, and semi-humans such as Centaurs and satyrs are included; figures with essentially non-human faces such as the Gorgon are not. Human anatomy is constant, so the method of analysis is physiological. Rather than putting facial expressions in folk terms – a frown, a smile – they are described anatomically for precision: by muscular contractions and extensions and their correspondent manifestations on the surface of the body. Moving beyond description to explanation, neurochemistry and psychology are the preferred tools, although neither discipline has a consensus on the nature of emotion or its expression. History, religion, location, maker, commissioner, viewer, medium and technique are brought to bear in order put expressivity in context. An important methodological tool has been the separation of emotional 'input' and ‘output’. Output is the evocation or intended evocation of an emotional state in the viewer, and the thesis is constantly aware of the disconnect between the 'intended audience' and a modern one. It focuses instead on input – the methods used to render the inner state of the figures shown. This has twofold benefit: it avoids insurmountable subjectivity – one might laugh at the expression of fear on a maenad being raped by a satyr, while another might not – and allows for comparison across genre and medium.

Pourquoi le locuteur italien a-t-il assimilé la structure phonique calidus comme caldo ? Quels mécanismes sont intervenus dans le processus d’apprentissage de cette phonie d’une langue à l’autre ? Notre réflexion nous a conduit sur le terrain de la nature du langage et des lois qui en règlent le psychisme de formation. Nous montrons que les mots sont des totalités phoniques composés de parties articulées générées par des voix significatives κατὰ συνθήκην (katá synthêkên), « par composition » et non pas « par convention ». Si on considère le langage comme un instrument de représentation indirecte guidant le locuteur, par les signes, jusqu’à la connaissance directe (la représentation) d’un savoir immédiat, dans un rapport direct au monde, et si on accepte le fait que nous percevons de façon gestaltique le signifiant linguistique dans un acte de parole, et non pas sa représentation phénoménique, c’est-à-dire que l’acte de parole est une structure bien organisée dont la perception procède du tout vers les parties, alors le processus de la composition devient l’instrument par lequel les mots se transforment en structures à arbitraire limité. Nous fondons notre travail sur les mécanismes guillaumiens que la pensée réalise afin de saisir elle-même et dont la langue offre une fidèle reproduction : le mouvement de généralisation et de particularisation, ou, au sens de Bühler, le mot considéré comme un visage phonique, avec sa physionomie acoustique. Devant l’impossibilité d’identifier les limitations de l’arbitraire dans un paradigme purement formel, il devient nécessaire de considérer le signe linguistique dans la réalité psychophysique des locuteurs. / Why the Italian speaker did assimilate the phonic structure calidus like caldo? Which mechanisms intervened in the process of training of this phone from one language to another? Our reflection led us on the ground of the nature of the language and the laws which regulate the psychism of formation of it. We show that the words are phonic totalities composed of articulated parts generated by significant voices κατὰ συνθήκην (katá synthêkên), “by composition” and not “by convention”. If it's considered the language as an instrument of indirect representation guiding the speaker, by the signs, until the direct knowledge (the representation) of an immediate knowledge, in a direct report in the world, and if the fact is accepted that we perceive in a gestaltic way meaning it linguistic in a his phenomenic representation and act of speech, not, i.e. the act of speech is a well organized structure whose perception proceeds of the whole towards the parts, then the process of the composition becomes the instrument by which the words change of structures with arbitrary limited. We base our work on the mechanisms guillaumiens that the thought realizes in order to seize itself and whose language offers a faithful reproduction: the movement of generalization and particularization, or, within the meaning of Bühler, the word considered as a phonic face, with its acoustic aspect. In front of impossibility of identifying the limitations of arbitrary in a purely formal paradigm, it becomes necessary to consider the linguistic sign in the psychophysical reality of the speakers.

Research on race and sentencing is increasingly moving beyond racial category analyses to include more subtle attributes such as skin tone and facial features. In keeping with this progression, this research examines the extent to which convicted offenders' Afrocentric facial features interact with sex in order to create longer criminal sentences for stereotypically Black males and females. A random sample of Black and White males and females currently serving prison sentences in the state of Oregon were selected for inclusion in the study. A preliminary regression analysis was run in order to determine the effect of broad racial category on sentencing length when controlling for offense characteristics, offense history, and extralegal factors. Additionally, photographs of a sample of 110 Black males and 91 Black females were rated for strength of Afrocentric facial features by undergraduate students. These ratings were averaged to create an Afrocentric rating for each Black individual in the sample. Regression analyses were then conducted for Black individuals in order to determine the effect of Afrocentric facial features and sex on sentence length. Results suggested that although broad racial category is not a significant predictor of sentence length, Afrocentric facial features interact with sex to produce longer sentences for Black males, but not Black females, with stronger Afrocentric facial features. Individuals with the fewest Afrocentric facial features were excluded from the analysis in order to limit the potential misperception of racial category by judges. These findings are consistent with current understandings of feature-trait stereotyping, as well as the focal concerns perspective regarding judicial decision-making.

For humans and non-human primates (NHPs) the face represents a particularly important source of social information providing a means of conspecific recognition and cues to personal details including sex, age, and emotional state. The human face may also be fundamental in the transmission to conspecifics of other forms of socially relevant information including the display of facial traits associated with sexual attraction and mate choice. A wealth of experimental literature indicates that humans display robust preferences for certain facial traits associated with facial attractiveness including preferences for bilateral facial symmetry, facial averageness and sexually dimorphic faces and facial features. It is thought that these preferences have evolved via sexual selection, and may be adaptive, due to the role that these specific facial features play in reliably signalling to others the possession of heritable genetic quality or ‘good genes’. Therefore, from an evolutionary perspective, it is possible that certain facial preferences may represent an evolutionary adaptation for the selection of potential mate quality. However, despite similarities between human and NHP face processing and recognition abilities, the shared evolutionary history and social importance of faces to primates in general, and the potential importance of these preferences in the mate choice decisions of NHPs, very little research has investigated the extent to which NHPs display comparable preferences to humans for these specific facial traits. Consequently, the aim of the following thesis was to comparatively assess the general and more specific preferences that humans and NHPs display for faces and for traits associated with facial attractiveness. Data was compiled from preference studies examining the visual preferences displayed by two species of NHP (brown capuchins (Cebus apella) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)) for conspecific faces manipulated for those facial traits associated with attractiveness, and from a single study of brown capuchins examining their general visual preferences for various types of facial information. Comparative preference studies were also conducted upon human adults and infants examining the visual and declared preferences that they display for manipulations of facial attractiveness. Data showed that despite possessing general preferences for certain faces and facial information, generally NHPs displayed no significant preferences for those facial traits thought to influences judgements of attractiveness in humans. Possible reasons for this absence of preference for these particular facial traits and the evolutionary implications of these findings are discussed.

Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (1803-1863) set out on his only trip to Greece and Turkey in 1828 to return to France and produce visual images of the Orient at a time when no major European artist had traveled to the Near East and at a time when the Orient had yet to be experienced, understood, and interpreted. Decamps’ highly original and personal interpretation of the Orient in painting has been studied by present-day scholars exclusively within the context of Romantic Orientalist genre painting. Studying criticism written on his work throughout the 19th century and working closely with his paintings, certain issues in his Orientalist paintings question the longstanding categorization of his work as solely Romantic Orientalist genre paintings. The fact that the artist never returned to the Orient; the fact that he invested his Orientalist landscapes with a Rembrandesque rather than Oriental light; his constant inclusion of contrasting opposites in the ostensibly subdued compositions he produced; the striking differences between his Oriental visual expressions and those of his Romantic contemporaries; and his own sentiment of being a failed artist, reveal alternative, less settled, readings of his work. Studying Decamps’ Orientalist oeuvre in its social and political contexts and taking into account the artist’s personal ambitions demonstrates the lasting resonance of this work, of the artist’s highly original working methods, and of his innovative technique. This study provides an assessment of Decamps’ Oriental work; it also delineates its relevance and influence in movements beyond Romanticism and into trends that developed during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. / Thesis (Master, Art History) -- Queen's University, 2008-12-11 20:43:05.08