Nas poesias do francês Charles Baudelaire a imagem marinha é recorrente, seja como duplo que reflete a subjetividade humana, espaço de fuga do árido cotidiano urbano, paralelo da amada ou ainda um espaço de incomparável beleza. Em um de seus manuscritos, o poeta afirma que o espetáculo do mar oferece uma ideia de infinito diminutivo, pois uma porção do líquido em movimento é suficiente para dar a mais elevada ideia de beleza que pode ser oferecida ao homem em sua habitação transitória. Assim, este trabalho pretende fazer uma análise crítica do pequeno poema em prosa O Porto, integrante do volume póstumo O Spleen de Paris, para examinar de que maneira o motivo marinho transfigura-se em um infinito diminutivo e, assim, promove sentimentos do belo e do sublime questões fundamentais para a estética do autor em uma poesia autônoma, que encerra sob sua harmonia e homogeneidade fraturas específicas do sujeito moderno. Por meio da comparação com outros pequenos poemas em prosa e em verso que abordam o elemento marítimo, manuscritos e textos estéticos do poeta, bem como a fortuna crítica acerca da obra baudelaireana e estudos filosóficos que conceituam o belo e o sublime no âmbito da estética, a presente análise procura verificar como este curto O Porto se vale do tópico marítimo e, sob o traje do pequeno poema em prosa e da composição de um sofisticado engenho alegórico, oferece ao leitor vislumbres intensamente líricos da beleza moderna criada por Baudelaire. / In Charles Baudelaires poems, the maritime images are recurrent, either as a double that reflects the human subjectivity, as an escape from the arid urban space, as the beloved portrait, or as a space of incomparable beauty. In one of Baudelaires manuscripts, he affirms that the spectacle of the sea offers the idea of the infinite diminutive: twelve or fourteen leagues of liquid in movement are enough to convey the highest ideal of beauty which is offered to man in his transitory habitation. Therefore, this work aims to critically analyze the prose poem The Port, part of the posthumous edition Paris Spleen, to verify how the maritime motive becomes the infinite diminutive and, thus, promotes the feeling of the beautiful and sublime fundamental questions to the authors aesthetic in an autonomous poetry, that under its harmony shows specific fractures of the modern individual. Comparing The Port with other prose poems and also with some Les Fleurs du Mal poems that mentions the maritime element, manuscripts and aesthetic texts written by the poet as well as Baudelaires critical fortune and philosophical studies that define the beautiful and the sublime, this analyses aims to verify how this short The Port addresses the maritime topic and, under the garment of the prose poem and the sophisticated allegorical procedure, offers to the reader deep lyrical glimpses of the modern beauty created by Charles Baudelaire.

L’objet de ce travail est de rendre compte d’une triple invention. La première, au sens de « trouver », tient à la découverte fortuite des œuvres d’Henry Darger (1892-1973). La deuxième, qui est le fait de la réception institutionnelle, consiste à faire de l’écrivain et illustrateur un artiste d’Art Brut, créateur pour ainsi dire par accident. Qui plus est, cette approche privilégie sa production picturale, alors qu’il se considérait lui-même avant tout comme romancier. Ces deux inventions seront avant tout l’occasion d’exposer l’objet central de cette étude : l’invention de l’artiste par lui-même, rétabli en écrivain. Dans ses écrits, autobiographiques et fictionnels, Darger déploie une inquiétude volontaire qui lui permet de remettre en cause le primat de l’identité personnelle, en multipliant les Moi potentiels. L’état d’inquiétude interroge la relation au monde, bouleverse les rapports conventionnels entre réel et vrai, vrai et faux, et met au jour l’irréel, ce pan de la réalité que la fiction rend accessible. Enfin, Darger déploie une pratique littéraire en rapports à des œuvres préexistantes, véritable écriture-lectrice qui repose toutefois sur une mythologie personnelle, un ensemble de thèmes structuré en architecture de symboles. / The purpose of this study is to account for a triple invention. The first resultsfrom the incidental finding of Henry Darger’s works (1892-1973). The secondone, which is the result of institutional reception, consists in turning both writerand illustrator into an Outsider Artist, creator by accident, so to speak.Moreover, this approach favour his pictorial work, whereas he consideredhimself to be a novelist above all. These two inventions will give us theopportunity to present the main issue of this study : the artist’ self-creation,reclaiming the status of writer. In his writings, be they autobiographical or fiction, Darger displays a purposeful anxiety enabling him to question theprimacy of personal identity, hence multiplying potential selves. This purposefulanxiety questions his relation to the world and upsets the traditional structuresbetween what is real and what is true, right and wrong. It also unveils the unreal,this aspect of reality made available by fiction. Finally, Darger displays aliterally craft associated with pre-existing works, a fully-fledged writing-in-thereadingexperience still based upon a personal mythology: a set of themeswoven into an architecture of symbols.

This thesis provides a tour through an imaginary building that contains the work I have completed in the last two years at Virginia Commonwealth University. The body of the text provides a discussion of specific paintings as well as more general themes related to painting and art. The discussion includes thoughts on futility, desire, schism, the leap, collage, photography, materiality, painting, image, and landscape. The second part of the text is an abstract statement about the paintings included in the thesis show, Splinter Paintings.

My work concerns the divergent narratives created by fusing varied, often conflicting, textures, colors and fabrics, into a tenuous order. I intend for these otherwise clashing materials to create drama that is simultaneously enthusiastic, epic and ambiguous. While this media's formal properties re an important component of my work, the material's cultural and art-historical associations are also are critical ingredient. In this thesis, I will explore the use of the varied collage material, hierarchical compositions and contemporary influence of 19th Century Romantic themes as they relate to forming a variety of distinctly contemporary narratives in my compositions. I will investigate how my artistic point-of-view is informed by art-history, irony and the work of contemporary painters. Finally, I will discuss how my work engages a contemporary version of the Sublime.

Abstract “LANDSCAPES SUBLIME: IMPERIALISM, THE WILDERNESS IDEAL AND THE HISTORY OF CONSERVATION IN TANZANIA" The aim of this dissertation is to trace the implications that Western views of nature have had for the restructuring of African landscapes through the creation of game reserves and national parks, with a particular focus on Tanzania. I contend that wilderness spaces are the main repositories of a western imaginary that longs for those places where nature is prodigious and untamed, uncontaminated by development and devoid of people. The idealization of landscapes is derived from the aesthetic of the Romantic sublime with its dual impulse: the quest for escape from a fragmenting and morally corrupting capitalist society, and the search for the immutable and the transcendent in landscape 'untouched' by development. In Africa the physical manifestation of the wilderness landscape ideal came to be reflected in real space – the space of the East African national park. To produce a wild landscape in which animals roam free required the reproduction of a certain ideology of nature which may have been inaugurated during the colonial period, but which has been assimilated and even expanded by post-colonial regimes like Tanzania. Why is it, I ask, that the wilderness landscape ideal is so remarkably persistent in the post-colonial, post-socialist Tanzania of today? Taking the approach of scholars like Mitchell, I ask not just what landscape ‘is or ‘means’ but what it does in this context.

Cette thèse présente sur un plan sémantique la notion de lʼintime en tentant de circonscrire son champ dʼaction. Elle explique comment les acceptions du mot « intime » fluctuent historiquement, déplaçant les limites et les enjeux de lʼopposition entre sphère publique et sphère privée, entre lʼindividuel et le collectif, entre le personnel et lʼuniversel.Cette mise au point théorique a pour but dʼenvisager ensuite comment lʼintime devient lʼorigine et lʼobjet dʼun art. Les oeuvres dʼAnnie Ernaux et de Chloé Delaume ici analysées permettent de comprendre comment lʼintime modélise un texte littéraire ; les travaux de Sophie Calle et de Nan Goldin font apparaître la relation particulière entre lʼintime, le texte parfois et la photographie. Le langage verbal et le langage iconique sont interrogés afin de déterminer comment le style de lʼoeuvre sʼimprègne de la dimension intime. Au-delà du risque ou de la provocation, lʼon voit comment lʼoeuvre intime sʼancre profondément dans le temps, dans un rapport privilégié à la mémoire. Il est aussi question de montrer combien lʼart intime relève dʼune lutte pour exister, se faire reconnaître en tant quʼart. Les notions de valeur et dʼeffet, dans le cadre dʼune théorie de la réception, éclairent cette dimension polémique. Enfin, cette thèse sʼintéresse àdécouvrir dans quelle mesure lʼart de lʼintime sʼinscrit contre une ancienne éthique et en faveur dʼune nouvelle. Il sʼagit également de définir les grandes lignes dʼune esthétique de lʼintime, ravivant les questions du réalisme, de la beauté,du sublime. / This thesis presents a semantic notion of the intimate attempting to limit its scope. It explains how the meanings of theword "intimate" fluctuate throughout history, thereby moving the boundaries and challenging the opposition between thepublic and private spheres, between the individual and the collective, and between the personal and the universal. Thistheoretical development is intended to consider how the intimate is both the source and purpose of art. The works ofAnnie Ernaux and Chloe Delaume analyzed here can illustrate how the intimate shapes a literary text ; the works ofSophie Calle and Nan Goldin show the special relationship between the intimate, sometimes the text, and photography.The verbal and the iconic languages are examined to determine how the style of the work is imbued with the intimatesphere. Beyond the risk or provocation it entails, we see how the work intimate is deeply rooted in time with a specialrelationship with memory. It is also about showing how the intimate art is a struggle for existence, for being recognizedas art. The concepts of value and effect as part of a theory of reception, illuminate this debate. Finally, this thesis isinterested in discovering how the art of the intimate severs from former ethics to build a new one. The purpose of thisstudy is also to define the outline of an aesthetics of intimacy, rekindling issues of realism, beauty, and the sublime.

El presente trabajo busca comprender y explicar los procesos compositivos del ballet La delicadeza de lo sublime, de Gabriel Iwasaki. Para lograrlo, primero será necesario fundamentar la postura estética adoptada para esta obra, para lo cual se realizará una reflexión y crítica sobre la estética musical académica contemporánea. El resultado de dichos procesos reflexivos hará posible proponer una visión particular sobre cómo entender la apuesta estética del ballet. Por ser el amor un eje central en el guion del ballet, se reflexionará sobre la vigencia de temas como este en la composición musical. Se explicará hasta qué punto la composición de la obra ha sido influida por vivencias pasadas del compositor y ha constituido un mecanismo de maduración emocional frente a un proceso de duelo personal, razones por las cuales será necesario evaluar el rol del inconsciente a lo largo del proceso de composición. En cuanto a lo propiamente musical, se explicará el proceso de concepción de la música, su elaboración y subsiguiente desarrollo, así como la forma en la cual el compositor ha hecho uso de recursos musicales para representar y reforzar los conceptos planteados en el guion del ballet a través de la composición. / The aim of this study is to understand and explain the compositional processes of the ballet La delicadeza de lo sublime (The Delicacy of the Sublime) by Gabriel Iwasaki. In order to achieve this, it was firstly necessary to substantiate the musical aesthetics stance of this piece, for which a reflection and criticism of the aesthetics of academic contemporary music is needed. The result of these processes of reflection will enable to propose a particular vision on how to understand the musical aesthetics of the ballet. Since love is the focal point in the script of this ballet, it is necessary to reflect on how valid it is to touch on these topics nowadays. The study will explain to what extent the composition of the ballet has been influenced by past experiences of the composer and has worked as an emotional growth mechanism to deal with a personal grief process, which is why it will be necessary to assess the role the unconscious mind plays throughout the compositional process. In regards to the musical aspect, this study will show the conception process of the music, its elaboration and following development, as well as how the composer has made use of different musical resources to represent and reinforce the concepts established in the ballet script through composition. / Tesis

This paper addresses the aesthetic encounter from the perspective of the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty on the visible and the invisible. It begins with the premise that from time to time we encounter situations which precipitate a sense of slippage in our experience of the world. The paper proceeds to argue that the arts can provide a point of access to this experience, and that aesthetic theory has, for example, responded to it through the development of the notion of 'the sublime'. The writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and, in particular, aspects of his text The Visible and the invisible, are presented with a view to augmenting this aspect of aesthetic theory. Proceeding from a 'Merleau-Pontian' perspective, the paper explores how the arts can serve to disrupt our conventional sense of space and time - creating ripples in the substance Merleau-Ponty names as 'flesh' - so as to expose the chiasm or blind spot in our experience of the world. The methodology adopted is an experiential one, which draws on the writer's interaction with the selected works of various artists as well as her own practice in glass.

<p>The present dissertation deals with the artistry of the Swedish artist Vera Frisén (1910-1990). The emphasis is being put on her landscape paintings from Västerbotten, in the northern parts of Sweden, but also includes self-portraits from her early years as a painter. Vera Frisén was born in Umeå, but lived more than half her life in Stockholm. During springtime and summer, she did however return to Västerbotten and the vil¬lages of Stöcksjö and Kolksele, where she painted the majority of her landscape paintings.</p><p>The study has been given a chronological frame, where the first part sketches out the contexts and environments that came to have an influence on Vera Frisén and her artistic development. Consequently, the thesis starts with a brief biographical presen¬tation, but then moves forward to issues more central to the subject. Important as¬pects are for example her years as a student in the art academy of Otte Sköld in Stockholm during the late 1920’s, and her first separate exhibition at the gallery Färg & Form in 1941. Other issues that are being illuminated in the study are the artistic and cultural conditions in Vera Friséns hometown Umeå. The discussion mainly cen¬ters on issues that took place during the 1930’s and the 1940’s – the time when Vera Frisén established herself as an artist.</p><p>The second part of the dissertation includes analyses of Vera Friséns paintings. In the search of concepts that further can explain the more profound existential values in her work, the study also links the themes in her paintings to other painters in the his¬tory of landscape painting. Concepts central for discussion are for example the aes¬tethical and philosophical issue of the sublime, as it is formulated in the discourse of Immanuel Kant during the late 18th century. Thoughts expressed by other artists, writers and philosophers, linked to Vera Friséns own thoughts on the subject, are also valuable instruments in gaining a deeper understanding of her work.</p>

Devant une œuvre d'art qui porte sur l'art, le spectateur peut soit l'appréhender comme une œuvre d'art, soit l'appréhender comme un document portant sur l'art. En effet, l'imbrication existant entre l'art et le méta-art rend trop complexe l'appréhension simultanée des deux niveaux. Pourtant, si l'œuvre porte sur elle même en tant qu'œuvre d'art, le spectateur peut la considérer en un seul mouvement comme une œuvre d'art méta-artistique. Ce type de méta-articité suscite un sentiment spécifique, le sublime catastrophique. Ce sentiment est dû à l'ouverture infinie séparant le niveau imbriqué du niveau imbriquant et au passage de l'un à l'autre. Il semblerait que la logique soit apte à rendre compte de ces jeux de niveaux, elle s'avère pourtant stérile : une approche cognitive se révèle plus pertinente. Ainsi, si le méta-art plaît aisément c'est peut-être parce que sa structure complexe sans ordre arrêté est en accord avec la structure de pensée de l'Homme.