This thesis is a study of important trends in Natal art of the period 1910-1940, with a section on related architectural developments. In Chapter One Natal's colonial background and continued dependence on Britain for cultural guidance is discussed. The foundation of art galleries and the Natal Society of Artists is followed by an examination of artworks produced until 1917. These were found to be mainly Victorian in character. Reliance on British art and an admiration for and emulation of the Royal Academy of Arts strongly influenced the organisation and development of the Natal Society of Artists. Chapter Two examines the desire, during the 1920s and 1930s, to break away from foreign influence and the conscious attempts to establish a "national" style. This phenomenon is traced through the development of landscape painting in Natal. Chapter Three, Survival versus progress, explores the relationship between the artist and the Natal public, in particular those artists who experimented with what were then held to be avant-garde styles. An uninformed public and, consequently, a pronounced hostility towards modernism bad a profound effect on the careers of many artists. Chapter Four concerns the status of the practising artist in Natal. Amateurs outnumbered professionals at all major exhibitions, and the majority of these amateurs were women. Professionalism and amateurism are defined in the text.) The history of the Durban School of Art and its role in the promotion of professionalism ends this survey on art trends. Architectural development during this period is summarised in Chapter Five with reference to the correspondences between art and architecture. Examples are architectural decoration (especially sculpture and faience), stylistic trends, the response to modernism, and the professional status of the architect. Artists and architects active in Natal during the period are identified and listed. This section includes lists of representative works and detailed references. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 1986.

This study examines the means by which four South African woman artists, namely Penny Siopis, Jo Ractliffe, Lien Botha and Tania Kühl use memory and history as themes to represent social and political events in South Africa. The foundation of this investigation is a critical study of the meaning of history and memory within the context of the candidate’s contemporary social and political milieu. This investigation is facilitated by a number of published and unpublished works by various authors relating to the issues in visual arts; particularly social and political history as applied to personal memory and history. Chapter one explores these terms particularly in relation to the visual arts. Chapter one identifies terms that are vital to the dissertation and some of the literature and methodologies used in the research. These are divided into the subheadings of: terms; women, politics and art; art and documentary photography; literature review; methodology and conclusion.. Examples of each artist’s work are selected for a comprehensive analysis in chapter two. These examples are methodically studied by media and techniques used to produce the artworks and include a critical analysis of the subject matter of the artwork. The examples were selected primarily for their content in connection with the candidate’s own productions of practical work towards the MAFA degree. Chapter two is divided into four main sections, one dedicated to each artist: Penny Siopis, Jo Ractliffe, Lien Botha and Tania Kühl. These four sections are divided into three subsections: medium and techniques; subject matter and conclusion. Chapter three points out similarities and differences in the work of the four selected artists in order to conclude the candidate’s findings during the dissertation. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

Eritrean art and material culture has not been accorded its rightful pace, neither has it been sufficiently isolated from its Ethiopian counterparts. Like the other reconstruction challenges facing Eritrea, following the 30 years' war for independence, the field of art and culture is in need of reconstruction. This study aimed to contextualize selected Eritrean material culture in terms of social, cultural, historical, art-historical and iconographic values. The selected artefacts have been studied in terms of construction, tactility of materials, iconography and functionality of the objects' form and surface. This dissertation provides a photographic documentation of the study samples. Results of this study indicate that makers of Eritrean material culture primarily aimed at the functional values of most of the objects instead of the aesthetic values. This is clearly shown on the form of the objects which describe the function. The makers produced the material culture to their own taste, reflecting the culture or religion they represent. The study samples are taken from the Ethnographic Section of the National Museum of Eritrea (NME). This study investigated museum practices, including challenges and limitations, as well as future plans of the NME. Information was elicited from knowledgeable individuals, fieldwork data collection, secondary sources and visual analysis of the study sample. The study recommended that this young institution (NME) needs to be empowered by the Government and solve its problems, so as to play a major role in reconstructing Eritrean cultural identity and preserving cultural heritage. In addition, research centres should be established to work on the process of the documentation and construction of Eritrean art history. Besides training individuals, the research centre should organize national and international conferences, conduct workshops and organize, recognize and encourage artists. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

The depiction of blackness in the visual arts is located in the complex discourse of representation. Blackness within western visual art has been, and continues to be viewed as oppositional to representations of whiteness, and is constantly perceived as other. This dissertation analyses the process of othering and the impact of such a process on the production of artwork in southern Africa, where the representation of the black male, in particular has been subjected to racist ideology, supported by its props, stereotype, generalization and the homogenization of black experience. Using poststructuralist theories of identity construction and power, I analyse stereotype, racism and masculinity in the colonial and postcolonial periods, focussing especially on the internalization of white constructions of blackness within black visual culture. I discuss the work of Baines as representative of colonial constructions of black masculinity, the work of Bhengu, Mapplethorpe and Makhoba as illustrative of the internalization of stereotypic identities, and the work of Voyiya, Harris and Nyoni as representative of resistant discourses of representation of the black male body. I situate the latter within the contemporary debate on questions of subjectivity and agency within the Foucauldian concept of power. I have deliberately chosen works by two American artists (Mapplethorpe and Harris) in order to situate discourses of blackness within a wider context. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2006.

This dissertation explored visual representations of death in the photographic work of Andres Serrano and Joel-Peter Witkin, as well as the MAFA candidate's (David Buchler) own art practice. It looked at historical overviews of representations of death from the Middle Ages to present, as a means of contextualising and locating the reasons as to how images came to be the way they are in the present. Selected artworks were examined with particular theoretical reference to Phillipe Ariès' investigation into the changing attitudes towards death in Western society and Julia Kristeva's abjection theory. This dissertation focuses on the abjection of death and more specifically the corpse and the treatment of it in the work of Serrano and Witkin. This project explored some of the reasons why the images in this dissertation may be seen as disturbing and confrontational. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2010.

This study examines the means by which Clive van den Berg (b.1956) presents and explores the South African landscape and recent past, and in so doing examines the evolution of van den Berg's process of looking and interpretation. Seminal to such an investigation is a Critical examination of what history, memory and landscape are or might be perceived to be. Chapter.One centres on an evaluation of these terms and comprises a discussion of their perceived meanings particularfy as they relate to the visual arts, and especially in terms of South African art history. The investigation is facilitated by an examination of key works produced by van den Berg between 1983, which marks the commencement of the Views from the Oasis Series, and 1998, the year in which van den Berg produced the sculptural piece that comprises his contribution to the !Xoe Site Specific Project. In addition, it was in 1998 that van den Berg added the medium of video to his range of materials. Selected examples of van den Berg's earlier works, those executed in the1980s, are examined in Chapter Two. The works that are discussed here are: selected works from the Views from the Oasis Series (1983), the Large Oasis Series (1985) and the Sacred Site Series (1985). Reference is also made in this chapter to selected images from van den Berg's series of Invocations (1987). These images are examined primarily in terms of the challenge they present to conventional definitions of landscape and history. In subsequent v.urks of the 1980s van den Berg has presented the landscape more overtly as a symbol of self and personal experience. Central Park: Durban (1987) serves as an early example of work of this type and is. discussed here as it well illustrates a transition in terms of van den Berg's approach to the landscape. In Chapter Three selected vvorks produced by van den Berg in the 1990s are discussed. The works under review here are: the drawings that form part of van den Berg's Mine Dump Project (1994), his installation Men Loving (1996) executed for the Faultlines Project and the sculptural piece created for the !Xoe Site-Specific Project (1988). With these works van den Berg explores not only the marks left on the land by South African recent and colonial history or memory, but also those aspects of South Africa's past which remain hidden- and are unrecoverable. Van den Berg's more recent use of video is also referred to in Chapter Three as his use of, and approach to, this medium may be seen to add a further dimension to his investigations into history. Special attention is paid to the significance of the medium, or kinds of materials used in the creation of these 'HOrks, and condusions are drawn in terms of van den Berg's selection of subject and approach to medium in the period under study. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2000.

This dissertation will contextualize and analyse selected works of the South African ceramist Marietjie van der Merwe (bl935 dl992; known professionally as Marietjie, aka Mariki, Marikie) between 1960-1988. The text consists of three chapters. The first chapter will outline the life of Marietjie van der Merwe, discuss her political and religious affiliations and ends with a chronological outline of her ceramics. This introductory chapter will help the reader to gain an insight into her character and personality which influenced the work she produced. The second chapter comprises two main sections. The first deals with the ceramists who influenced Marietjie's work. In her early art training years Laura Andreson, her teacher, played a key role in inspiring and influencing Marietjie's work. The Natzlers influenced Marietjie indirectly through Laura Andreson who in turn had been taught by them. Rudolf Staffel manipulated aspects in porcelain inspired Marietjie's later works of the 1980s. The second half of this chapter deals with the influence that Marietjie had on institutions and her students. The works of Katherine Glenday, a student and later colleague, are discussed and comparisons made. Marietjie van der Merwe's contributed significantly to the modernist foundations of South African studio ceramics, was mentor and studio advisor to the ceramists of Rorke's Drift Art and Craft Centre and was a lecturer at the former Department of Fine Art and History of Art, University of Natal. Links with Nordic countries and Malin Lundbohm (now Sellmann) are drawn. Throughout this chapter the artist's work is compared and discussed with that of Marietjie's. This dissertation concludes with a documentary study of six selected pieces. Original photographs facilitate visually what is been discussed in the text. These samples are found in Iziko South African National Gallery, Tatham Art Gallery and from the private collection of Lara Du Plessis. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

This dissertation comprises the documentation and theoretical component of a practice-led Master of Arts in Fine Art. The illustrated text focuses in four chapters on a critical explication of contemporary South African ceramists namely, Juliet Armstrong, Betsy Nield, Liza Firer and Leanne Frisinger. The dissertation includes significant discoveries about the creative use of paperclay in contemporary South African ceramics and provides documentary record of the candidate’s materials and processes. A conclusion briefly compares productions referred to in the text. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2012.