This study examines the influence of Modern Art on the piano compositions of Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) to demonstrate how he was inspired by visual art and integrated its ideas into his music. From his youth, Takemitsu was aware of the relationship between music and visual art, exploring different genres, especially Surrealist poetry and modern painting, as well as Japanese gardens, then harmonizing and incorporating these ideas within his music. In doing so, he established his own philosophy and musical structure, combining colorful sonorities with spatial effects of timelessness, which became cornerstones of his music. This document explores and identifies ideas from Modern Art - primarily visual works of Paul Klee, Odilon Redon, Kagaku Murakami, and other Surrealists - that Takemitsu adapted and wove into his compositions to create visual imagery, rich in color, within his music. The use of these ideas is discussed in an analysis of two of Takemitsu's most profound and mature solo piano works, Les Yeux Clos - In Memory of Shuzo Takiguchi (1979) and Les Yeux Clos II (1989), both inspired by Odilon Redon's series of paintings, entitled Les Yeux Clos (1890).Following Chapter I, the introduction, Chapter II discusses Takemitsu's early influences, film music, legacy, and contribution to society. Chapter III examines Takemitsu's encounter with Surrealism and the four artists– Shuzo Takiguchi, Paul Klee, Odilon Redon, and Kagaku Murakami - that influenced him the most by demonstrating the importance of breaking with convention and freely exploring one's inner world. Chapter IV identifies the principles and ideas of Modern Art and Surrealism that appealed to Takemitsu, and how he adapted them into his compositions. The ideas fall into four categories: philosophy, structure, color, and space. Chapter V presents original analyses of two solo piano works, Les Yeux Clos and Les Yeux Clos II, demonstrating how the principles and ideas of different art forms are integrated into Takemitsu's works. Concluding remarks in Chapter VI include a brief discussion of how an understanding of Takemitsu's complex artistic journey can deepen a performer's understanding and interpretation of Les Yeux Clos and Les Yeux Clos II.

Par sa vision tragique du monde, René Char semble, à première vue, bien éloigné des penseurs utopistes, moins intéressé par les lendemains qui chantent que par les dangers imminents qui guettent l’humanité. Dans un grand nombre de ses poèmes, il s'attaque aux naïfs qui se persuadent que c'est le bien qui adviendra, valorise les pessimistes dans la mesure où « ils voient de leur vivant l'objet de leur appréhension se réaliser ». Son œuvre semble parfois rejoindre les actes d'accusation faisant de l'utopie l'antichambre du goulag et des camps, la rendant responsable de la dégénérescence des états dits socialistes en systèmes totalitaires. À plusieurs reprises, Char indique qu’entre l’ethos (qui recommande d’arrimer la poésie et la pensée au réel) et l’utopos (qui s’élabore à l’écart de la réalité du monde) il ne peut surgir qu’une incompatibilité essentielle. Mais s'en tenir là serait ignorer que tout une part de sa poésie demeure également marquée par le « principe espérance ». Si ses recueils du début des années 1930 sont traversés par le désir d’un « monde en tout renouvelé de l’attractif », certains de ses écrits plus tardifs sont également ponctués d’« images-souhaits » de la conscience désirante, d’évocations de lieux rêvés : « ville imperforée » ou « pays d’à côté », « citadelle idéale » ou « perfection à la fois territoriale et inspirée du bien commun ». Bien que Char se soit de nombreuses fois attaqué aux utopies du futur, il convient de se demander si on ne peut trouver à l'intérieur même de sa critique une invitation à penser l'utopie autrement. / By virtue of his tragic vision of the world, René Char initially appears to be far from a utopian. He is less interested in “enchanting dawns” than in the imminent dangers that await humanity. In many poems he attacks the naïve who believe that good will triumph, and values instead the pessimists “who see in their very lifetime the realization of what they most feared.” For this reason, Char has been placed alongside those who view utopia as the foyer of gulags and concentration camps, and hold utopianism responsible for the degeneration of so-called “socialist” states into totalitarian ones. Char suggests several times that between ethos (which encourages the adherence of poetry and thought to reality) and utopos (which distances us from the reality of the world) only an essential incompatibility can arise. To leave the question of utopia at this, however, is to ignore how a whole dimension of Char’s poetry is equally inspired by the “principle of hope.” His poetry from the early 1930s flows from a desire for “a world in every respect renewed by the attractive.” His later works are equally filled with “wish-images” of desiring consciousness, evocations of dreamed places – be it an “imperforate city,” a “country at the margins,” an “ideal citadel” or, indeed, “perfection, both earthly and inspired by the common good.” While Char has on several occasions taken it upon himself to attack future-oriented utopias, it is necessary to ask whether, from within this very criticism, we may find instead an invitation to think utopia otherwise

Ett försök att ringa in och diskutera en tradition inom film som skulle kunna kallas barngotik. En viss blandning av skräckfilm och barnfilm med barn i huvudrollen. Med utgångspunkt i min egen filmiska praktik som regissör och manusförfattare diskutera jag vad denna tradition öppnar upp mot för tankesätt, politiskt och filosofiskt, och hur det relaterar till surrealism och gotik. Jag använder mig även av Mare Kandres författarskap som inom litteraturen kan sägas arbetat inom just barngotik och de frågeställningar som kommer upp; Hur kan man öppna upp för ett barnperspektiv genom användandet av atmosfär, skräck, förebådan och genom att använda sig av "det okända", och vad betyder det att göra det i film?

Inasmuch as this investigator can determine, no major study has been done concerning music's relation to the "isms" selected for this discussion. The contemporary interest in the movements themselves has been so widespread that the documentation of them, in scattered accounts, is enormous. It is disappointing that these records provide little or no information about the musical aspects of the movements; the graphic and literary accounts, on the other hand, have been accorded generous treatments. Since futurism, cubism, and surrealism, in their origins, were oriented toward the visual and literary arts, it is not surprising that these two aspects would receive the greatest amount of attention. The meager attention to music and the distortion of its role in the movements, as has largely been the case, has created an artistic imbalance, This writer's efforts have been directed toward an exhaustive search for factors which have, in some way or other, linked music with these movements. Musical futurism has been the easiest to identify, although its underlying theories are not always clear, since the futurists, in explaining their theories, were not always convincing, perhaps even to themselves. This writer's main attempt has been to interpret ideas that were frequently vague and poorly explained to begin with. It will become evident to the reader, in the case of the dadaists, and to some extent the surrealists, the provocative nature of their activities was deliberately designed to create incomprehension, incoherency, and confusion.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal. / Pour respecter les droits d'auteur, la version électronique de cette thèse ou ce mémoire a été dépouillée, le cas échéant, de ses documents visuels et audio-visuels. La version intégrale de la thèse ou du mémoire a été déposée au Service de la gestion des documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

This thesis is dedicated to illustrating the unique challenges of staging works by the playwright Tennessee Williams, and to making suggestions on how to avoid common pitfalls in production, performance, and direction of his plays. It uses evidence from the playwright’s various biographical works as well as insight and conjecture from the author’s experience to illuminate these challenges and help the reader to avoid hackneyed or ineffective staging practices. It touches on the effect of film adaptations on stage performances; the typical portrayal of American Southern characters onstage; the aural ramifications of Williams’s poetry to a now-visually-centered audience; stylistic elements similar to Williams’s contemporaries, including Rice, Brecht, O’Neill, and others; the delicacy of Williams’s signature meter and rhythm in his plays; dramaturgical groundwork in the playwright’s intentions; and a systemization of archetypical Williams characters. This thesis does not prescribe a cut-and-dried set of rules and regulations for performing Williams’s works, for the simple reason that the Williams canon is so diverse that no singular set of “tricks” will be effective in every play. Furthermore, the author understands that a producer, director, or actor will not find use in all facets of a rigid “system”. The thesis does outline a number of practices whose aims are to make productions more effective from an integral perspective. There are exercises to attempt, questions to pose, and matters to consider in the staging of Williams’s plays during any part of production—from in-class reading to designing the scenery, and from deciding why to put a Williams play in a season to the living moments of an actor’s performance. The thesis aims to be helpful, informative, and accessible, rather than doctrinaire: much like the playwright’s works, its purpose is to illuminate dark corners of something that viewers think they already fully understand.

En partant de la volonté revendiquée dans le Manifeste du surréalisme de prolonger le supernaturalisme nervalien, on se propose d’examiner l’aventure d’une idée, depuis le congé qui lui est donné avec la liquidation d’une partie du romantisme français, jusqu’à sa réhabilitation à partir du milieu des années trente, en inventoriant les valeurs et les représentations que sa transformation induit dans l’évolution des discours et des productions artistiques du surréalisme, afin de montrer comment la conception de l’inconscient finit par rendre progressivement l’exploration de l’inconnu extérieur aussi nécessaire que celle de l’inconnu intérieur — l’enjeu étant d’arracher le surréalisme aux fictions qu’il a lui-même forgées pour les repenser dans un vaste panorama apte à saisir les contradictions du mouvement. Une enquête lexicale permet d’inventorier les modes de relation du sujet à la nature et de les relier ensuite aux contraintes de la poétique surréaliste. Les schèmes du métadiscours faisant apparaître une spatialisation de l’intériorité, on constate que les topiques exploratoires se recoupent dans un système de représentation qui emprunte aux sciences de la nature et donne lieu, par la pratique d’une morphologie comparée, à une anthropologie matérielle. L’étude des paysages réintroduit l’épreuve de la nature et permet en dernier lieu d’envisager de quelle manière, latente dans l’esthétique, elle devient manifeste dans la réflexion épistémologique et éthique du mouvement. / Not only could Giorgio de Chirico’s deserted squares and faceless dummies have fossilized surrealism into a metaphysics of dreams—as dalinian deserts did— but a part of the history and reception of Surrealism as well, so much so that nature has turned into a blind spot. This study aims to tear Surrealism away from the fictions it first created so as to rethink them into a comprehensive overview that could reveal the contradictions of a movement which might not have given up the nervalian supernaturalism whose spirit it meant to extend. The main issue of this work is to examine the adventure of a rejected notion through to its restoration to favour, by surveying the values and the representations that its changes lead to, in order to show to what extent the conception of the unconscious could paradoxically make the exploration of the outer unknown as essential as that of the inner unknown. After a lexical inquiry, we try to observe the different modes of relationship the subject entertains with nature, before linking them to the constraints of surrealist poetics. Studying the schemas of the metadiscourse makes it easier to perceive the spatialization of interiority and the way the topics of exploration can match in a combination of representations, which derives from natural sciences and gives rise to a material anthropology linked with comparative morphology. The review of surrealist landscapes allows to experience nature from a phenomenological standpoint and to ponder the way such a latent idea in surrealist aesthetic could become manifest in its ethical and epistemological thought.

Lautréamont's Songs of Maldoror in the critical discourse from Breton to Blanchot This thesis presents four different approaches to the work of Isidore Ducasse: in the texts of André Breton, Léon Pierre-Quint, Gaston Bachelard and Maurice Blanchot we observe the critical view of the Songs of Maldoror beginning to shape in the first half of the twentieth century. While the surrealists tend to adore Lautréamont uncritically, allowing no actual evaluation of his work, the other authors try to review his work, not limiting their commentary to enthusiastic praise. Pierre-Quint considers Songs to be an expression of a revolt in the first place, the contents being Maldoror's revolt against God, and the form being Lautréamont's revolt against the conventional use of language. Bachelard utilizes another approach: through a single topic - the bestiary of the Songs - he analyzes the element that in his opinion determines the characteristic animality of Lautréamont's work. Finally, according to Blanchot, the Songs of Maldoror is the ultimate reflection of Lautréamont's life and the writing process itself his way to deal with the traumas of childhood and adolescence. The final chapter compares the different concepts and evaluates the evolution that Lautréamont criticism has gone through from Breton to Blanchot.

This thesis is a description and critical analysis of the processes, concepts and imagery of my artwork. I am interested in creating visual narratives, often figurative, in the form of sculpture, collage, and installation. In my work I attempt to call attention to the human condition, specifically addressing sexuality, mortality, psychological issues and power struggles. I incorporate both cultural and personal references and use traditional and non traditional materials and processes that are intended to conceptually inform the viewer further. My intention is to create distinct embodiments that provoke contemplative emotion and in which the object and the aesthetic experience allow us to consider and reconsider who we are and how we progress as a culture.

The work that I have produced during my graduate studies at the University of New Orleans addresses the impact that humans have on the environment in our contemporary world. A primary focus, but not exclusive, includes industrial materials or objects, their overwhelming presence that informs the juxtaposition of economic progress, and the reality of environmental disruption. Humor and metaphor are central themes of my work and reference my personal observations and experiences of living in the midst of these environments. Sources from Contemporary underground art have been filtered through my exposure to studio practice and art history, mainly the autonomous processes of Surrealism, resulting in a variety of influences that inform my work. I present imaginary images of architectural, biological, and mechanical transformations with the hopes of nudging the viewers' expectations and to create a better understanding of my opinion pertaining to the world and reality we all live in.