The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the use of alchemy within the work of Rebecca Horn, to elucidate its presence in her work, and to illuminate its purpose as a personal philosophy and as a creative tool. The use of alchemy within Horn's work occurs as a process of revelation and transformation. Alchemy is revealed as a spiritual philosophy and as an interpretative system through the changes that occur in Horn's oeuvre. Throughout Horn's career, alchemy has developed into an interpretive system, a type of spiritual and cosmic perspective, that allows the artist to study, access, and meld diverse realities (sacred and profane) and diverse social systems (religious and scientific) into a more holistic and spiritually infused reality for herself and society-at-large. The purpose of her work is to help reinvest contemporary life with a spiritual presence by offering a model and a means of bringing the sacred into the profane.

Nas poéticas oitocentistas brasileiras, são recorrentes as vinculações entre a prática artística e o culto religioso. Especialmente em produções românticas e simbolistas, o poeta aparece figurado como sacerdote, profeta, iniciado, alquimista, monge, vidente, anjo caído e demais variantes, sendo-lhe conferido o poder de dissolver e remodelar a realidade e a subjetividade por meio da linguagem. Desde o final do século XVIII na Europa, é possível sondar o esforço de formulação de uma religião da arte, na qual se estabelece um culto secular à imaginação criadora. Este estudo analisa tais discussões partindo das poéticas de Álvares de Azevedo e de Cruz e Sousa, dois exemplos de criadores seculares que interiorizam os mitos cosmogônicos, os ritos iniciáticos e os processos alquímicos, na condição de metáforas alusivas a processos de transfiguração, por meio das quais se torna possível ao artista encenar, ao mesmo tempo, os papéis de criador e de criatura, sujeito e objeto, polaridades mobilizadas no trabalho reflexivo do sujeito sobre si mesmo. A obra de arte produzida visa sintetizar uma nova unidade, articuladora das experiências conscientes e inconscientes do sujeito moderno cindido. Nos dois primeiros capítulos dedicados a Alvares de Azevedo, se apresenta o anseio romântico de revitalização do sujeito e do mundo desgastados e moribundos. O desejo de renovação das formas, valores e significados motiva a elaboração de profecias de renascimento da humanidade, que se reconfigura a partir das ruínas de seu passado. As metáforas do infanticídio e do aborto aludem à irrealização de utopias. Os terceiro e quatro capítulos, centrados na poética de Cruz e Sousa, exploram o questionamento do poeta sobre as possibilidades de transformação de si e da realidade por meio da arte e da cultura, em um país estruturalmente racista. As metáforas do nigredo e da sombra se articulam à dificuldade do poeta em plasmar uma forma estável e bem delimitada de si, por meio da qual sejam harmonizados interioridade e exterioridade. A reescrita do mito dos Doze Trabalhos de Hércules dramatiza os impedimentos sociais enfrentados pelo artista negro na busca por consagração literária. Finalmente, o anúncio da profecia do futuro Dante, nascido da dor inconcebível, sinaliza a necessidade de elaboração de uma nova forma sublime, capaz de assimilar o sujeito negro enquanto tema e voz poética. / In the nineteenth-century Brazilian poetics, there are recurrent links between artistic practice and religious cult. Especially in Romantic and Symbolist works, the poet appears as a priest, prophet, initiate, alchemist, monk, seer, fallen angel and other variants, being given the power to dissolve and reshape reality and subjectivity through language. Since the end of the eighteenth century in Europe, it is possible to scan the effort to formulate a religion of art, in which a secular cult of the creative imagination is established. This study analyzes these discussions in the poetics of Álvares de Azevedo and Cruz e Sousa, two examples of secular creators who internalize cosmogonic myths, initiatory rites and alchemical processes, like metaphors allusive to processes of transfiguration, through which it becomes possible for the artist to play, at the same time, the roles of creator and creature, subject and object, polarities mobilized in the reflective work of the subject on the self. The work of art aims to synthesize a new unity, articulating the conscious and unconscious practices of the torn modern subject. In the first two chapters dedicated to Álvares de Azevedo, there is the romantic wish for the revitalization of the weary and dying subject and world. The desire for to renew forms, values and meanings motivates the elaboration of prophecies of humanitys rebirth, which is reconfigured from the ruins of its past. The metaphors of infanticide and abortion allude to the unrealized utopia. The third and fourth chapters, focused on the poetics of Cruz e Sousa, explore the poets questioning about the possibilities of transformation of himself and reality through art and culture in a structurally racist country. The metaphors of blackness and shadow allude to the poet\'s difficulty to shape a stable and well-defined form of himself, in which interiority and exteriority are harmonized. The rewriting of the myth of the Twelve Works of Hercules dramatizes the social impediments faced by the Black artist in the search for literary consecration. Finally, the announcement of the prophecy of the future Dante, born out of inconceivable pain, signals the need to elaborate a new sublime form, capable of assimilating the Black subject as theme and poetic voice.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Brown University, 2008. / Advisor : Catherine Wilkinson Zerner. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 176-191) and index.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Delaware, 2007. / Principal faculty advisors: Wendy Bellion and Bernard L. Herman, Dept. of Art History. Includes bibliographical references.

Dissertation (PhD)--University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 308-315). Also available via the World Wide Web.

The submitted work deals with the topic of the gate. The theoretical part analyses this structural and cultural feature, particularly from its architectural point of view, and focuses on the origin of gateway, its evolution throughout the centuries, and on the description of the best known and most famous gates, both throughout the world and in the Czech Republic. In the thesis, the gate is characterised as a symbol with different meanings in various cultural contexts. The implementation of the author´s photographic project entitled ?The Gates to the Past? is further presented in the practical part of the work. The text also describes a brief essay on the relation of aesthetic education to the environmental artistic works and develops its potential for educational goals emphasizing humanistic objectives.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-12-23T14:09:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Joao Batista Jr.pdf: 678587 bytes, checksum: a48cee6a40b7b6d5f5decc8c99149e40 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-12-13 / A presente dissertação analisa a interpretação hegeliana da passagem da religião grega e do mundo romano ao cristianismo, que a Fenomenologia do Espírito apresenta. Para Hegel, o princípio racional de organização da diversidade aparentemente desconexa de religiões no tempo e no espaço nãodeve sera consciência de uma essência absoluta transcendente, mas o Absolutoenquanto unidadedaconsciência com a consciência de si do espíritoalcançada por meio do movimento figurativo da religião que vai da representação até a consumação do seu conceito. Após analisarmos as contradições internas entre a consciência de si emergente, na Tragédia, e a consciência ética, com a consequente dissolução da pólis grega e dos deuses éticos, e a passagem da religião da arte para o mundo romano, voltamos nossa atenção para a situação de direito, onde a liberdade ética se torna universal porém abstrata e carente de espírito. Um novo patamar será alcançado com a identificação vivente do Si do espírito com a sua universalidade, na religião manifesta, o Cristianismo

At the commencement of this thesis I saw myself standing at the outer limits of my knowledge with my nose pressed against a wall of demarcation. This wall was built from my willingness to tolerate systems of control in silence and from my unwillingness to make my beliefs and personal convictions known. I set out at the start of this journey with two intentions. I want to raise my voice because I didn’t want to pretend about my faith anymore. And for the first time use my art practice as a mouthpiece to tell these truths.

Within the field of theological aesthetics, this project assesses the divide between theological accounts of art and the re-emergence of religious imagery in modern and contemporary art. More specifically, American Protestant theologians and their accounts of visual art will be taken up as a representative set of contemporary theological inquiry in the arts. Under this category, evaluation will be made of three diverse traditions in American Protestant thought: Paul Tillich and Liberal Protestantism, Francis Schaeffer and the Neo-Calvinists, and the open evangelical accounts of Nicholas Wolterstorff and William Dyrness. With respect to modern and contemporary visual art, this evaluation judges the degree to which theologians have understood the primary concepts and dominant narratives of various modernisms and postmodernisms of art since the end of the nineteenth century, recognised the watershed moments in the lineage of the twentieth century avant-garde, and acknowledged the influence of critical theory not only upon the contemporary discourse in aesthetics and art production but also in the social reception of art. In tracing the re-emergence of religious imagery in modern and contemporary art, this project takes up three diverse traditions: the Crucifixions of Francis Bacon and the memento mori art of Damien Hirst, the ‘re-enchantment’ of art in the work of Joseph Beuys, and the art of ‘False Blasphemy’ associated with lapsed Catholics like Rober Gober and Andres Serrano. By assessing what theologians have written concerning visual art and the surprising return of certain religious imagery in modern and contemporary art, this study will intimate a new way forward in a mutually beneficial dialogue for art and religious belief.

In addition to his renowned musical output, Richard Wagner produced a logorrhoeic prose oeuvre, including a dramatic sketch of the last weeks of the life of Jesus Christ entitled Jesus von Nazareth. Though drafted in 1848-1849, it was published only posthumously, and has therefore been somewhat neglected in the otherwise voluminous Wagnerian literature. This thesis first examines the origins of Jesus von Nazareth amidst the climate of revolution wherein it was conceived, ascertaining its place within Wagner’s own internal development and amongst the radical thinkers who influenced it. While Ludwig Feuerbach has traditionally been seen as the most prominent of these, this thesis examines Wagner’s sources more broadly. The thesis then summarizes and analyzes Jesus von Nazareth itself, particularly in terms of Wagner’s use of biblical scripture. The thesis demonstrates how his not infrequent misuse thereof constitutes one way in which Wagner transmogrifies Jesus as mutable lens through which his own ideology of social revolution is reflected. It also attempts to provide a critical assessment of the relative dramatic merits of Jesus von Nazareth and looks into Wagner’s ultimate decision not to complete the work. The thesis then briefly summarizes the changes that occurred in Wagner’s mature Christological outlook subsequent to his drafting of Jesus von Nazareth, attempting to concisely demonstrate some developments beyond Wagner’s well-known encounter with the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. The thesis concludes with an evaluation of how Jesus von Nazareth informed Wagner’s general religious outlook and the extent to which this worldview is a productive one.