Several contemporary art historians have been interested in exploring how their discipline could respond to the increasing globalisation of knowledge and information by encompassing global perspectives into the methodologies that underpin their approaches to art historiography. This dissertation aims to explore how, in developing their new approaches to world art history, they have drawn on a range of natural and social sciences, thus enabling their work to be placed in a wider social, political and indeed global context. While their individual approaches are many and varied it is important to identify commonalities between them so as to highlight unifying approaches across such diversity. The dissertation begins with literature review of the key concepts I want to explore. The work of the 19th century historian, Aby Warburg is highlighted to draw attention to his early pioneering attempts to provide an intercultural perspective to art history. Recent attempts to develop new approaches to world art history are then analysed. These include works by David Carrier, Ben-Ami Scharfstein, David Summers, Esther Pasztory and John Onians. The thesis concludes with a discussion on the recent exhibition at the British Museum entitled A History of the World in 100 Objects. The dissertation will show that despite the diverse methodologies used by all of these writers and the challenges of the different media employed, all utilise concepts of borders and objects in an explicitly geopolitical context.

<p>The Carmelite friars were the last of the major mendicant orders to be established in Italy. Originally an eremitical order, they arrived from the Holy Land in the 1240s, decades after other mendicant orders, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans, had constructed churches and cultivated patrons in the burgeoning urban centers of central Italy. In a religious market already saturated with friars, the Carmelites distinguished themselves by promoting their Holy Land provenance, eremitical values, and by developing an institutional history claiming to be descendants of the Old Testament prophet Elijah. By the end of the 13th century the order had constructed thriving churches and convents and leveraged itself into a prominent position in the religious community. My dissertation analyzes these early Carmelite churches and convents, as well as the friars’ interactions with patrons, civic governments, and the urban space they occupied. Through three primary case studies – the churches and convents of Pisa, Siena and Florence – I examine the Carmelites’ approach to art, architecture, and urban space as the order transformed its mission from one of solitary prayer to one of active ministry.</p><p>My central questions are these: To what degree did the Carmelites’ Holy Land provenance inform the art and architecture they created for their central Italian churches? And to what degree was their visual culture instead a reflection of the mendicant norms of the time?</p><p>I have sought to analyze the Carmelites at the institutional level, to determine how the order viewed itself and how it wanted its legacy to develop. I then seek to determine how and if the institutional model was utilized in the artistic and architectural production of the individual convents. The understanding of Carmelite art as a promotional tool for the identity of the order is not a new one, however my work is the first to consider deeply the order’s architectural aspirations. I also consider the order’s relationships with its de facto founding saint, the prophet Elijah, and its patron, the Virgin Mary, in a more comprehensive manner that situates the resultant visual culture into the contemporary theological and historical contexts.</p> / Dissertation

<p>The work of Japanese contemporary artist Aida Makoto (1965-) has been shown internationally in major art institutions, yet there is little English-language art historical scholarship on him. While a contemporary of internationally-acclaimed Japanese artists Murakami Takashi and Nara Yoshitomo, Aida has neither gained their level of international recognition or respect. To date, Aida?s work has been consistently labeled as otaku or subcultural art, and this label fosters exotic and juvenile notions about the artist?s heavy engagement with Japanese animation, film and manga (Japanese comic book) culture. In addition to this critical devaluation, Aida?s explicit and deliberately shocking compositions seemingly serve to further disqualify him from scholarly consideration. This thesis will argue that Aida Makoto is instead a serious and socially responsible artist. Aida graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts from Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music in 1991 and came of age as an artist in the late 1980s during the start of Japan?s economic recession. Since then Aida has tirelessly created artwork embodying an ever-changing contemporary Japanese identity. Much of his twenty-three-year oeuvre explores the culturally significant social sign of the shojo or pre-pubescent Japanese schoolgirl. This thesis will discuss these compositions as Aida?s deliberate and exacting social critiques of Japan?s first and second ?lost decades,? which began in 1991 and continue into the present.

This thesis focuses on the intrinsic relationship between nostalgia and vernacular photography, with specific attention to the networked vernacular photograph. Through an examination of early Kodak advertising and current in-phone digital editing and smartphone photography-sharing apps, this paper demonstrates the role of constructed aesthetic nostalgia in contemporary vernacular photography. This research argues that contemporary vernacular photography is a product of contemporary nostalgia, as evidenced through photographs born digital and shared publicly via social media sites such as Instagram and Snapchat, among others.

<p> For eight centuries, from 711 until 1492, a unique combination of political, cultural, and faith traditions coexisted in the mostly southern region of the Iberian Peninsula now called Spain. From the thirteenth century through the fifteenth century, two key production centers of luster glazed ceramics emerged in this region: Islamic-ruled M&aacute;laga and Christian-ruled Valencia. Muslim artisans using Islamic decorative motifs on reflective luster glaze ceramics created objects that patrons, including nobility and Christian royalty, clamored to collect. Initially, traditional Islamic decorative motifs dominated luster glazed ceramic production by Muslim artisans in M&aacute;laga; eventually, these artisans used combinations of Islamic and Christian motifs. As wars raged near M&aacute;laga, Muslim artisans migrated to Valencia&mdash;some converting to Christianity. Here, luster glazed ceramics evolved to include combinations of Islamic and Christian motifs, and, in one example, Islamic and Jewish motifs.</p><p> This investigation of Iberian luster glazed ceramics examines religious decorative motifs and their meaning by using a methodology that combines material culture studies and art history. Material culture studies seeks: (1) To find value and meaning in everyday objects; and (2) To introduce the understanding that visual motifs communicate in a different way than texts. Additions from art historians augment the conceptual framework: (1) Alois Riegl&rsquo;s concept of <i>Kunstwollen</i>&mdash;that every artistic expression and artifact that is produced is a distillation of the entirety of creator&rsquo;s worldview; and (2) Oleg Grabar&rsquo;s definition of Islamic art as one that overpowers and transforms ethnic or geographical traditions. In this dissertation, religious decorative elements on Iberian luster glazed ceramics are categorized as: (1) Floral and vegetative motifs; (2) Geometric symbols; (3) Figurative images; (4) Christian family coats of arms; and (5) Calligraphic inscriptions.</p><p> This dissertation will demonstrate how Muslim, Christian, and Jewish artisans used and combined the visual expressions of their respective faith traditions in motifs that appear on luster glazed ceramics created in the Iberian Peninsula under both Islamic and Christian ruled territories. Investigation of objects previously deemed not worthy of scholarly attention provides a more nuanced understanding of how religious co-existence (<i>convivencia </i> in Spanish) was negotiated in daily life.</p>

This thesis provides a detailed analysis of an Isolario, or a printed book of maps of the Aegean Islands, created in 1485 by an anonymous author called Bartolommeo da li Sonetti. Through a thorough analysis of the material properties and content of the book, this thesis seeks to revise previous scholarly interpretations of this long under-studied work of cartography. Examination of five extant copies of the 1485 Isolario and the alterations made to the pages by their owners reveals much about how the volume was consumed, read and utilized in fifteenth and sixteenth century. In opposition to previous conceptions of this work as a functional travel guide used by mariners to navigate the Aegean, this thesis argues that instead, the information contained in the book only provides superficial resemblances to functionally useful content and was instead consumed by an elite audience of ‘arm chair travellers.’

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / This dissertation analyzes American World War II propaganda generated by the Office of War Information (OWI), the nation's primary propaganda agency from 1942 to 1945. The visual rhetoric of printed OWI propaganda, including posters, brochures, newspaper graphics, and magazine illustrations, demonstrated affinities with advertising and modern art and exhibited an increasingly conservative tone as the war progressed. While politically progressive bureaucrats initially molded the OWI's graphic agenda, research reveals how politicians suppressed graphics that displayed the war's violence, racial integration, and progressive gender roles in favor of images resembling commercial advertisements. To articulate the manner in which issues of American self-representation evolved during the war, this study examines the graphic work of artists and designers such as Charles Alston, Thomas Hart Benton, Charles Coiner, Ben Shahn, and Norman Rockwell. The investigation unfolds across four chapters. The first chapter examines the institutional origins of American World War II propaganda by exploring the shifting content of New Deal promotional efforts during the 1930s and early 1940s. This analysis is critical, as government agencies used propaganda not only to support economic recovery during the Great Depression, but also to prepare Americans for war before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The second chapter analyzes the ways OWI increasingly suppressed depictions of violence as the war progressed. While the agency distributed traumatic images of Axis hostility early in the war, such work was later deemed "too aggressive" by former advertising executives turned federal bureaucrats who preferred more friendly, appealing graphics. The third chapter focuses on propaganda intended for African Americans, whose support for the war was divided due to racist Jim Crow legislation. This section analyzes OWI efforts to address the nation's largest racial minority through posters, brochures, and newspaper graphics. The fourth chapter examines the OWI's efforts to influence middle-class white women, a demographic of consumers whose influence grew as the war progressed. This includes an examination of the OWI's role in modifying the "Rosie the Riveter" mythology in contemporary advertising to encourage women to pursue jobs outside of factory work.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University. / The purpose of this dissertation is to investigate the relationship between art and religion as found int he thought of Jacques Maritain and Paul Tillich in order to throw light upon the problems of the emergence of tensions and conflicts when art and religion confront each other. Tillich and Maritain are considered separately in the first two parts; in the last part they are brought together for comparison and evaluation. Tillich's position is considered in relation to his notion of the symbol since it is this notion which permeates the whole of his thought and provides the key to his entire system. Religion provides the most significant meaning of, and types of, symbolism; art is one of the most illuminating of all cultural creations in providing insights into ultimate reality. Maritain's concept of art is related especially to his consideration of infused contemplation although other facets of religion are included. Infused contemplation and art are alike in their mode of knowledge (connaturality), superiority, self-sufficiency, and operation by love [TRUNCATED]

This dissertation restores the validity of an interdisciplinary use of the term "Mannerism" to the student of the Humanities interested in Italian sixteenth-century visual arts, music, and literature. The concept is not advocated as a movement (an -ism), but as a necessary critical category, a definable style, and a rich cultural period. Mannerism as a period style is most polemical, and more recent critical approaches have discredited the study of "style" in general. Still, the awareness of--and desire for--radical departure from the the High Renaissance ideals among mid-to-later Cinquecento painters, writers, and musicians testifies to the existence of Mannerism. Powerful evidence to this effect is located in specific shared attributes of many paintings, poems, and madrigals--as well as theoretical writings--of the second half of the sixteenth century. A correct understanding of these art works is tied to establishing the historical and stylistic context, which is best described by the concept of Mannerism. / Specific and contrasting definitions of Mannerism are documented in the first part of the study, which also discusses the etymology of the concept, the language of interart studies, and the fall from grace of Zeitgeist within cultural history. A survey of modern criticism of the term/category reveals multiple problems of definition and approach, but none powerful enough to warrant a call to abandon the term. The analysis of criticism offered spotlights concepts which are intended to free art works from the traditional strictures of "Renaissance" and "Baroque." / These broad concepts are then tested for their usefulness in three chapters, and each art form addressed speaks in differing but clear ways of Mannerism. A focus on the fresco painting in Florence and Bologna in the 1580s by Bernardino Poccetti and Annibale Carracci serves to approach Mannerism through the "back door." The lesser-known Poccetti represents the fading stages of Mannerism in the visual arts, while Annibale is one of the first spokesmen for anti-Mannerism. Correspondences between the Gerusalemme Liberata by Torquato Tasso and the Maniera then provide the avenue for a discussion of shared Mannerist aesthetics in painting and literature. Finally, significant similarities in the theory, language, and function of Cinquecento art and music point to the limited role, yet very real presence, of Mannerism in music. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-10, Section: A, page: 3621. / Major Professor: David Darst. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.

The Harlem Renaissance was an important cultural event in African-American history. A great amount of work exists that showcases the talents of both visual and literary artists. Yet, unlike the literary artists, the Harlem visual artists have not been validated by modern art critics. Therefore, this study raises pertinent questions about the omission of these artists: (1) What are the reasons for exclusion of Harlem artists from major American modern art texts? (2) What criteria or standards contributes to modernism's absolutism? (3) Are the tools and assumptions of the modernist critique sufficient to define and evaluate Harlem Renaissance art? (4) If not, what critical, interpretative and theoretical approaches provide the most useful ways of defining that movement's art and its artists? / With reference to the first and second questions, this study will argue that the exclusion and depreciation of Harlem Renaissance art results from an unwillingness in art historical discourse to come to terms with "otherness." Also, certain aspects of primitivism, which received cult status in the 1920s, will be examined. / In addressing the third question, I will acknowledge the debt of African-American artists to European and American models. However, the choice of subjects and themes, iconography, and stylistic development were dictated by modes and ideologies specific to the black experience. / My methodology for exploring the fourth question will be based on apost-modernist critique. This post-modernist perspective will encompass post-structuralism, pluralism and multiculturalism. At the center of post-modernist methodology is protest. My argument will be aimed specifically at the absolutism of modernism. This argument for a pluralistic approach to art historical discourse will rest on "co-equality." Only through the existence of "co-equality" will these artists be properly validated in the history of art. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-09, Section: A, page: 3245. / Major Professor: Lauren Weingarden. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.