In this thesis I examine the artistic contributions of Gerrit van Honthorst (1592-1656) to the sudden increase in the pictorial representation of musical subjects in Utrecht during the 1620s. Like his contemporaries, Honthorst was profoundly influenced by the complex and dramatic style of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) during his studies in Italy, and he adopted the new Italianate interpretation of realism and chiaroscuro in his painting technique by the time he returned to Utrecht in 1620. However, Honthorst employed a strategy of representation that combined painterly techniques from the milieu of Italian art with subjects and themes from Netherlandish tradition, resulting in an innovative category of genre painting that was both familiar and new to the contemporary viewer. Through an analysis of a representative sample of Honthorst’s paintings of musicians and their relation to contemporary Dutch trends and interests, I consider how his works resonated with the aesthetic tastes of Northern patrons. I argue for the presence in Honthorst’s paintings of musicians of elements from contemporary Dutch culture, such as literary conventions, artistic tradition, and customs of musical performance, and I examine the ways in which these commonalities in ideology appealed to Northern audiences. / text

This study is an examination of Gerrit Dou’s Violin Player (1653, Liechtenstein, Vaduz Castle, Princely Collection). The painting is a visual testimony to Dou’s manual skills and trompe l’oeil manner of painting in his own innovative fijnschilder painting style. The composition incorporates and reinvents devices from a variety of sources from portraiture, genre painting, and emblem literature, such as the arched niche window framing the violinist. The work demonstrates the connection between music and painting in the relationship between the violinist and the background setting of an artist’s workshop. Through an iconographic analysis of works depicting the artist in the studio by Dou and his contemporaries the correlation between music playing and painting becomes evident. In this context, this relationship acts as an important device in fashioning the painter’s image as an elevated and scholarly artist and brings to light the power of music as a mode of inspiration for the painter in the studio. Additionally, tobacco smoking, which appears in many seventeenth-century Dutch self-portraits, in the context of the studio, was also perceived as an inspirational tool for the artist, thus contrasting with smoking in genre scenes of the lower classes as a symbol of waste and idleness. The work, similarly to other Dutch seventeenth-century paintings, is not a realistic representation but a cleverly constructed image that acts as an allegorical master deception for the amusement and entertainment of an educated, upper-class clientele. / Thesis (Master, Art History) -- Queen's University, 2008-09-24 23:56:10.869

This dissertation explores the influence of Reformation representational anxiety on early seventeenth-century poetic depictions of Christ. I study the poetic shift from physical to metaphorical portrayals of Christ that occurred after the English Reformation infused religious symbols and visual images with transgressive power. Contextualizing the juncture between visual and verbal representation, I examine the poetry alongside historical artifacts including paternosters, a painted glass window, an emblem, sermons, and the account of a state trial in order to trace signs of sensory “loss” in the verse of John Donne, George Herbert, Aemilia Lanyer, and John Milton. The introduction provides a historical and poetic overview of sixteenth-century influences on religious verse. The first chapter contrasts Donne’s sermons—which vividly describe Christ—with his poems, in which Christ’s face is often obscured or avoided. In the chapter on George Herbert’s The Temple, I show how Herbert’s initial, physical portraits of Christ increasingly give way to metaphorical images as the book progresses, paralleling the Reformation’s internalization of images. The third chapter shows that Aemilia Lanyer’s Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum makes use of pastoral conventions to fashion Christ as a shepherd-spouse, the divine object of desire. In the final chapter I argue that three poems from John Milton’s 1645 volume can be read as containing signs of Milton’s emerging Arianism. Depictions of Christ in the poetry of Donne, Herbert, Lanyer, and Milton reveal the period’s contestation over images; the sensory strain of these metaphorical representations results in memorable, vivid verse.

Physiognomy is generally assumed to be, and has been historicized as, the science of judging human character according to the features of the face. However, the type of physiognomy favoured by seventeenth-century English authors was one which adapted the Aristotelian claim that physiognomy be a full-body study. This project explores how physiognomic focus on the entire body – from the forehead, fingers and feet to the breast, belly and back – was shaped by contemporary religious and “scientific” legitimating claims, and how it interacted with the century’s anxieties regarding disorder and the self. The implicit suggestion that few bodies and the souls which helped shape them were perfectly symmetrical and, by extension, virtuous, illustrated human variety and depravity and stressed the need for self subordination. Only through reason and God’s grace, it was argued, could humans moderate the interconnected and essentializing influences of sin, the stars and the humours, and thereby embody the godly values of truth, virtue and harmony. The full-bodied practice of seventeenth-century physiognomy simultaneously emphasized human uniqueness and God’s omnipotence, and was both a part and product of predominant tensions and mentalities.

By analyzing and contextualizing the polarized discourses on coffee and coffeehouses in post-1652 England, this dissertation argues that the divisive worldviews of the English population at this critical historical juncture shaped the contentious reception of coffee. Countless scholarly efforts dealing with seventeenth-century coffeehouses, those of London in particular, have helped explaining the rapid growing popularity of coffee and the establishments in which it was consumed, the coffeehouse. Building upon exiting literature, this work advances a new approach to shed light the interconnection between social and cultural anxieties, paradoxes and contradictions in seventeenth-century English society, and the contradictory discourses surrounding the rise of coffee in England. My project demonstrates that pervasive anxieties about the rise of religious heterodoxy, the ambiguous dispositions of the English people towards the Ottoman Turks, and the ever-present concerns surrounding the tenuous state of patriarchal manhood collectively helped to both encourage and discourage interactions with the Islamic practice of coffee drinking in coffeehouses. Coffee and coffeehouses came from the Ottoman Empire, the land of the presumed Turks. One sector of society, the optimists, embraced the exotic novelty from the Islamic world and participated enthusiastically in a custom shared with their Turkish, Arab and Persian counterparts since the early sixteenth century. Conversely, the pessimists vilified the adoption of cultural and dietary practices from a non-Christian society; they condemned the enthusiasts' cosmopolitanism as a sign of disloyalty that would only deepen discord in the nation. Indeed, they proclaimed the craze for the Turkish-imported habit as a sign of degeneration, threatening not just Englishmen's religiosity, but also their manliness. Coffee and coffeehouse came from the Ottoman Empire, the land of the presumed effeminate Turks at that. Intimate intermingling with this imported novelty thus compromised England's identity and even sovereignty. By relying upon a borderlands approach that is inspired by gender analysis, this dissertation seeks an alternative theoretical path to explain the controversy and contention swirling around a new drink and novel spaces of sociability among a populace dislocated by years of religious, political and cultural turmoil.

Seventeenth-century division violin music is not considered part of the classical canon, but its background as a European art form may make it seem “too Western” for traditional ethnomusicological study. The purpose of this thesis is twofold: first, I outline the historical context, transmission, and performance practice of division violin playing in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Also of interest to me is the way in which we, as musicologists, study oral tradition within the context of a musical culture that no longer exists today. After an exploration of the ideas of Milman Parry and Albert Lord, Walter Ong, Ruth Finnegan, and Slavica Ranković, I discuss the English division violin’s background and transition from a largely oral to a predominantly literate tradition. I demonstrate this change in transmission, composition, and performance practices through examining the second and sixth editions of John Playford’s The Division Violin (1684).

In dominant seventeenth-century thinking women's bodies, minds, and spirits were not only inferior to men's, but also more prone to evil. This study explores the ways in which the women writers attempted to redefine these assumptions. Through an analysis organised along various spiritual transformations the writers claim to go through, the study presents an insight into seventeenth-century women's construction and redefinition of femininity. The symbolic process of women's spiritual transfiguration results in them identifying with the metaphorical figure of Zion and in positioning women as godly agents of God, whereas male writers' transformations eventuate in their being effeminized and being turned into 'Crooked Agents' of God. Therefore, the study shows how the potentials inherent in the biblical figure of Zion were used in establishing a connection with God and in forming female and male authorial identity. The thesis draws on the understudied voices of women such as the anonymous Eliza, Elizabeth Major, An Collins or Gertrude More, and is contextualized by male-authored texts, some of them considered as canonical and popular in contemporary literature.

This dissertation explores how feeling was of central importance to the religiosity of Protestants in the north west of England between 1660 and 1740. It demonstrates how in their personal, familial, public and voluntary religious practices these Protestants understood the cultivation of emotions, or more precisely 'affections', as indispensable for the fulfilment of their devotional exercises. Each of these practices was constructive of communities that were linked by feeling and within which different forms of affective norms were expected. These communities preserved much of that godly culture which had otherwise characterised English Protestantism in the earlier seventeenth century. Moreover, by doing so they frequently minimised in part the importance of conformity to the Church of England. Friendships were maintained between conformists and nonconformists and they shared in a culture of religious feeling, which drew on the same topoi in their religious activities. This thesis will make original contributions to a number of debates. It challenges the prevailing narratives of a 'reaction against enthusiasm' dominating the religious discourse of the period. In contrast, it suggests that through the cultivation of feeling, Protestants in the period between the re-establishment of the Church of England and the Evangelical Revival continued to experience a vital religiosity. It thus also questions the suitability of describing some religious movements as inherently more 'emotional' than others. A more viable exploration can be found in differing forms of emotionality in different religious cultures. By examining the north west of England the thesis also revises the notion that the region was spiritually impoverished before the rise of Methodism, or that the religion provided by the Church of England and Protestant nonconformity failed to engage its attendants. The thesis is divided into five chapters which explore the affective communities to which English Protestants of the period and region belonged. These communities were concentric and sequential, in that the individual Protestant might pass between all of them depending upon their devotional practice. Chapter One examines personal religious devotion, conducted mostly alone. It demonstrates the unity between feeling and reason in personal experience of God. Chapter Two examines family religion and how it was defined by a meditative affect and engaged in by a broad spectrum of Protestant affiliation. Chapter Three explores public worship and its central role within the devotional economy; being both the affective crescendo of devotional practice and being a source of pious affections. Chapter Four looks at voluntary religious practices, showing how friendship was defined by its devotional nature and how the various religious societies of the period continued to promote an affective religiosity. Chapter Five considers clerical communities and how these were maintained across lines of conformity and also provided significant spiritual succour to the ministers of conformity and nonconformity in the region.

Existem diferentes modos de se ler uma imagem e de interpretá-la. A partir dos gestos realizados pelo artista, podemos conduzir leitura estética, antropológica, cultural ou teológica, encontrando diferentes significados. Realizar a leitura dos gestos tem como objetivo conhecer não apenas as tradições nas quais foram concebidos, mas também a iniciação na prática visionária que os inspirou. Os gestos mais do que descrevem uma história; interpretam-na, dando-lhe um significado mais amplo. Nesta análise escolheu-se o artista Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, tendo como objetivo considerar o simbolismo e a gestualidade existentes em sua produção. A observação da gestualidade nas obras deste artista, principalmente àquelas relacionadas a representação de São Mateus objeto de estudo, buscou implicações em relação ao conjunto compositivo, ao espectador e ao contexto histórico século XVII na Europa. Assim, procurou-se estabelecer para a obra do artista Caravaggio um alicerce na relação gestos/simbolismo, imagem/culto sendo sua compreensão feita a partir de inúmeros fatores visuais que conferem aos quadros caráter de poder e persuasão / There are different ways to view an image and interpret it . From the gestures made by the artist , can lead aesthetic , anthropological , cultural or theological reading , finding different meanings . In reading the gestures aims to know not only the traditions in which they were designed , but also initiation into visionary practice that inspired them . Gestures more than describe a story , interpret it , giving it a broader meaning . In this analysis we chose the artist Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio , aiming to consider the symbolism and gestures existing in its production . The observation of gestures in the works by this artist , especially those related to representation of Matthew - the object of study , sought implications in relation to compositional whole, the viewer and the historical context - the seventeenth century in Europe . Thus , we tried to establish for the work of the artist Caravaggio a foundation in relation gestures / symbolism, image / worship your understanding being taken from numerous visual factors which give the character tables of power and persuasion

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:26:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2012-03-09Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:26:59Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 lopes_ac_me_assis_parcial.pdf: 63069 bytes, checksum: 1fc50d74046ca3e9b613490ec24ee26c (MD5) Bitstreams deleted on 2015-03-16T11:30:16Z: lopes_ac_me_assis_parcial.pdf,Bitstream added on 2015-03-16T11:31:01Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 000685805.pdf: 570994 bytes, checksum: dce177483fa6ed4f578120ac3d18bd64 (MD5) / Esta dissertação é fruto de uma pesquisa que tem como proposta principal o estudo da metáfora seiscentista em cento e quatro romances atribuídos ao poeta português Antônio da Fonseca Soares. Por se tratar de fonte manuscrita, em primeiro lugar fizemos um trabalho de Crítica Textual, por meio do qual efetuamos a transcrição e a atualização linguística dos poemas analisados de acordo com os critérios de uma edição modernizada. Em seguida, nosso foco centrou-se nos usos, escolhas e construção da metáfora seiscentista no gênero poemático em questão. Para tal, consideramos os manuais de retórica e poética da Antiguidade, especialmente os escritos de Aristóteles e Horácio; a preceptiva poética seiscentista debatida por Emanuele Tesauro e Baltazar Gracián, e os estudos contemporâneos no campo da historiografia literária que versam sobre retórica, as letras do século XVII, e assuntos a ela relacionados. Os resultados da pesquisa demonstram o papel expressivo da mais louvada figura dentre os usos da expressão arguta na retórica seiscentista, aplicada a uma das formas poemáticas mais cultuadas por poetas que praticavam a poesia vulgar desse período / This dissertation results from a master's degree research that has as the main proposal the study of the metaphor of seventeenth century in the one hundred and four romances attributed to the Portuguese poet Antônio da Fonseca Soares. To deal with a manuscript source, we started with a work of Textual Criticism, with which we made the transcription and the ortographic updating of the analyzed poems in agreement with a modernized edition. After that, the focus was centered in the uses, choices and construction of the metaphor of the 17th century in the poems. To analyze the romances, we considered the rhetoric manuals and poetics of Antiquity, especially Aristotle and Horace‟s writings; the poetic rules of seventeenth century debated by Emanuele Tesauro and Baltazar Gracián, and the contemporary studies in the field of the literary historiography about rhetoric, the seventeenth century literature and subjects related. The results of the research demonstrate the expressive function of the most praised rhetoric figure of the seventeenth century in one of the most important poematic form to the vulgar poetry of that period