This thesis proposes an anti-Orientalist reading of the portrait of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror (r. 1451-1481) by Gentile Bellini. The artist's work is analysed in the context of the Venetian Renaissance and the status of the visual arts in the Ottoman Empire. Mehmed's patronage of Italian artists, who created medallic and pictorial portraits of the sovereign, is considered together with the local translation of conventions enabled by early modern cross-cultural encounters. The Western political and intellectual climate following the conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed in 1453 is examined and, in particular, the secularising crusade literature produced by humanist scholars. Covert efforts to incorporate the Turks within the boundaries of civilised society coexisted with the conventional derogatory anti-Turkish propaganda. Bellini's portrait is seen as an attempt to portray the sultan as a member of the Venetian aristocracy. The historiographical record of modern academic scholarship in the disciplines of history and art history exploring these cross-cultural exchanges is set in a framework that explores the role of Edward Said's Orientalism in light of recent developments.

People I Know is a conceptual visual arts project which involves collecting and archiving information with the intention of extending the notion of portraiture and identity beyond the frame of the body. The collection is a body of collaged material that is a substitute for the body of the sitter, characterizing them. My practice methodology is a combination of collage and collection which allows for a wide field of research and an interdisciplinary approach. These works could be considered case studies of people I know; in object, text, and sculpture; brought together in installation.

The thesis focuses on four sets of official portraits of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, which were painted by the German-born elite portrait specialist Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805-1873) between 1842 and 1859. These portraits are examined in detail and are placed within the contexts of the existing scholarship on Franz Xaver Winterhalter, British portrait painting of the 1830s and 1840s, and the patronage of portraiture in Britain during the reigns of William IV and Queen Victoria. The thesis compares and contrasts these works with official representations of Queen Victoria and her husband by British artists; and examines the concept of “gender reversal” within the accepted notion of marital pendants by highlighting Winterhalter’s innovations in the genre of official portraiture.The thesis challenges the perception that Winterhalter’s employment at the court of Queen Victoria was due to the Queen’s alleged penchant for “all things German” by placing Winterhalter’s portraits within the context of the British Royal Collection. It examines the reasons for the artist’s success at the British court, accentuating among others Winterhalter’s ability to conceptualise in his portraits of Prince Albert the hierarchically-complex position of the Prince Consort. The overarching arguments of the thesis focus on two propositions - that by employing a foreign artist as her official image maker, Queen Victoria acquired ultimate control over the production, distribution and popularisation of her own imagery; and that this patronage is illustrative of the emergence of a royal and aristocratic international iconography that overrode the competing concept of ‘national’ schools of art.

People I Know is a conceptual visual arts project which involves collecting and archiving information with the intention of extending the notion of portraiture and identity beyond the frame of the body. The collection is a body of collaged material that is a substitute for the body of the sitter, characterizing them. My practice methodology is a combination of collage and collection which allows for a wide field of research and an interdisciplinary approach. These works could be considered case studies of people I know; in object, text, and sculpture; brought together in installation.

This thesis seeks to examine the nineteenth-century art collections and architectural style of the original buildings at the University of Sydney in order to demonstrate ways in which visual material may be employed to shape public perception of an institution. I shall argue that the architectural style of the original university buildings was specifically chosen with particular aims which extended beyond the mere establishment of a tertiary institution for the colony. I will also argue that the style shaped the character of the institution, contributed to the maintenance of law and order in the colony, linked the colony more firmly than hitherto to the mother country and provided social benefits for the founders of the institution. The instant history and character thus imposed upon the institution was reinforced by the assembly of a portrait collection in emulation of other collections of portraits at leading institutions of the colony and the mother country, including the Oxbridge universities. Once the building proclaimed that the institution was comparable with the great universities of the world, the subjects of the portraits at the university could be placed in the class of founders of a great historical institution, thus at the same time enhancing the reputation of the institution and the individuals. The construction of an indentity through visual images was extended by the benefactions of Sir Charles Nicholson, the principal donor of works of art to the university in the nineteenth century. I argue that his intentions in relation to his collections were didactic but were also concerned with the entrenchment of the imperial hegemony over the colony, and again with the enhancement of his personal repuatation. This analysis shows how, by a complex of personal ambition and aspiration for the colony, the style of the buildings and the art collections formed were used to establish the colony as civilized and the new university as a bastion of English tradition.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, June, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 280-297)

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Montana, 2008. / Title from title screen. Description based on contents viewed Aug. 25, 2008. Includes bibliographical references (p. 46-49).

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Virginia, 1998. / Description based on content as of June 1999; title from title screen.

Revision of the author's dissertation (doctoral)--Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Bonn, 1995. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Revision of the author's dissertation (doctoral)--Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Bonn, 1995. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references and index.