The thesis concerns the artworks by Johan Sylvius in the staircase, upper vestibule, upper north guard room and upper gallery of the Drottningholm Palace, as painted performances. They are studied as performative cultural encounters with a historically situated beholder but will also be regarded in relation to their spatial and artistic surrounding. From the theoretical framework of performativity and reception aesthetics, the results indicate that the images have the potential to inscribe the beholder within certain postulates on power relations and politics of identity, through working with splendour, naturalism, narrative and the function of the rooms they are located in. The results further point to the images’ manners of effecting the beholder on several levels through an employed pluralism and lastly, that they both build upon and re-produce the relation between monarch/nobility, where the former is the sole figure who both grants status and can remove it in an instance.

The aim of the present dissertation is to investigate and discuss the political debate on female monarchs during the early modern era (principally circa 1600 to 1720), while specifically pro- blematizing the relationship between rhetoric and practice. The study consists of three sections. The first comprises a study of regulations concerning female succession in the era, highlighting the relationship between the principles of gender and consanguinuity. The second section studies the debate both for and against female monarchs in general, analyzing the arguments presented by Swedish and English debatteurs and European legislators. The third section discusses the perception of female monarchs in practice. Here the focus is on Queens Christina (1632-54) and Ulrika Eleonora (1719-1720), who are both compa­red with each another and other reigning monarchs, primarily the English Queens Elizabeth I (1558-1603), Mary II (1689-94) and Anna Stuart (1702-14). This section is divided into four the­matic subsections: female monarchs in relation to ascension to the throne; education; war; and marriage. Furthermore, the opinions of Christina and Ulrika Eleonora themselves on female monarchs and female succession are discussed. This study has attempted to show that the question of the gender of the monarch has had significance for both the rhetoric and practice of female monarchy. It has been shown that the arguments used against female rulers have mainly concentrated on the principle of gender by labelling "female/feminine" as the negative polar opposite of "male/masculine". In contrast, the arguments used in favour of female monarchs have attempted to tone down the signficance of the fact that the monarch was a woman. Instead, the matter of the monarch's gender was discu­ssed in relation to other, more overriding principles for the monarchy as an institution, inclu­ding birth, dynastic continuity, royal distinctiveness, education, the preservation of order and legitimate succession to the throne. At the same time, this study has shown that traditionally female characteristics could also have a positive effect. One particular problem, both in rhetoric and practice, seems however to have been how and indeed if a female monarch could coordinate her role as sovreign with that of traditionally subordinate wife. / digitalisering@umu

In 1704 Hedvig Eleonora, the dowager queen of Sweden, commissioned a portrait of herself and her great-grandson, Karl Fredrik, the duke of Holstein-Gottorp, four years of age. The portrait by court portraitist David von Krafft is quite formal in style, and alludes to other royal portraits in a number of dynastic symbols and visual conventions although it is unusual in its composition and subject-matter. There are two very similar copies of this painting, one in the collections of the Swedish National Museum, and one in Schloss Eutin in Germany. The Swedish painting has attracted little interest from art historians and has not been exhibited for many years. The aim of this study is to analyse the paiting in its historical, political and dynastic context. What was the purpose of the painting and what message was it to convey? A comprehensive comparision of royal portraits, commissioned in the late 1600:s and early 1700:s, reveals that many have visual conventions and status-enhancing details in common. However, the double-portrait differs from them in some important aspects. The composition of the portrait was most probably carefully considered. Hedwig Eleonora was an experienced art commissioner after 60 years of shaping the dynastic image-building of her son Charles XI and grandson Charles XII. She was also well versed in the visual use of symbolism and dynastic symbols. When the portrait was painted the unmarried king Charles II had been away in war for several years. The question of succession was pressing and the double-portrait can be read as a visual opinion piece on behalf of one of two possible heirs to the throne, the young Karl Fredrik. The young boy was the current duke of of Holstein Gottorp and the dowager queen herself was born a princess of Holstein-Gottorp. The double-portrait testifies to her life-long efforts to forward the cause of the dukedom. Perhaps it is also a testament to her failure. The king fought a long, wrenching war and when he died, another regent was chosen.

Being Isadora is a story of possession. Isadora Duncan, the founder of modern dance, was an intensely creative, free-spirited woman. Her life experiences early last century were as fascinating and tragic as her achievements. In New York in 1985, Isadora's last surviving pupil and adopted daughter, ninety-year old Anna Duncan, is searching for a way to fulfill a long held promise. Isadora wished to control the way she was remembered and had made Anna promise that any remaining film of her dancing would be destroyed. But one film survives and Anna is running out of time to find it. A young Australian journalist, Tamsin Doyle, attends a dance class at the Isadora Duncan Studio and meets Anna, unknowingly becoming part of the quest. Initially the stories of Isadora and Tamsin run parallel, then as Tamsin gets to know Anna, she becomes immersed in a dream world of dramatic incidents from Isadora's life. The dreams become waking experiences and she fears her will is gradually being taken over. She ends up in places - in fact other countries - that she had no intention of being, pursuing an agenda that is not her own. In the second part of the book, she finds herself in Russia, where Isadora lived after the Revolution. She meets and falls in love with Vladimir, the grandson of Isadora's former dance collaborator. Unable to prevent herself being possessed while visiting the school Isadora founded, Tamsin is arrested by the authorities. A Russian KGB officer has his own plans and abducts her, keeping her prisoner in a dacha outside Moscow. He shows her a film of herself dancing and then the surviving film of Isadora. The two are almost identical and a dramatic climax ensues. Themes in the book explore the nature of memory and how it is influenced by photographic and filmic record, love and loss and the way patterns repeat in people's lives in an attempt to change outcomes.

For many centuries, humans have used portraits as a tool to understand our surroundings, a way to anchor what has happened. The portrait acts as a mirror of the changes in society, and the message of the portrait changes according to the conditions of society. But the basic purpose of the portrait remains the same, to tell something about the person portrayed and a way of documenting it for posterity. The purpose of this study is to examine of the symbolic use in four Swedish queen portraits between 1654 and 2020. It examines how Queen Hedvig Eleonora, Queen Lovisa Ulrika, Queen Victoria and Queen Silvia are represented in official portraits to enhance their credibility by using visual symbols in relation to their roles as Swedish queens. Through biographical research and semiotic image analysis, the four portraits of the study are examined in relation to their society. The material is then studied with the support of a theoretical perspective focusing on the social context and visual culture. The study shows that a certain symbolism is timeless, the symbolism that is based on human genetic understandings of social relations. Other symbolism, however, is more time-specific, that which is based on contemporary cultural norms. However, it is not possible to see any real progress in the function of the four portraits. They can rather be seen as snapshots representing the time of their production. What has changed, however, is the medium and semiotics. The way the portraits are produced according to the chosen audience and which visual symbols are used for which message. However, this is not a linear development either, but a constant process of change that today is going faster and faster thanks to today’s society. The study also shows that the selected four portraits reflect their own society and have adapted to their respective target audience, as the portrait loses its point if the viewer does not understand the message. It does not matter how much the queens try to influence their surroundings with their portraits if the viewer does not understand the intention. A portrait does not live its own life, but lives thanks to the viewer.

Diploma thesis "Neo-Gothic rebuilding of chateau Hluboká nad Vltavou" first provides a brief summary of basic literary and archival sources, followed by description of terminology in the field of 19th century architecture together with the explanation used by the author. After that there is mentioned a situation in Czech architecture at the end of 18th and in the 19th century. Next point is the Gothic Revival phenomenon - its establishment, ways of its spreading and its influence in middle Europe including Czech countries. Own topic of this thesis is introduced by a general and building history of chateau Hluboká nad Vltavou. After that there are introduced prince Jan Adolf II. of Schwarzenberg and his wife, who managed the rebuilding of the chateau. There is also a description of their personal contacts with British culture and architecture. Main part of the thesis is dedicated to Neo-Gothic rebuilding of chateau Hluboká nad Vltavou. This chapter is divided into several subchapters, where are described changes in the chateau interior and exterior including the effort of document the direct influence of Gothic Revival, and also the adaptation of the close surroundings of the chateau. Keywords Neo-Gothic architecture, Great Britain, Gothic Revival, chateau Hluboká nad Vltavou, prince Jan Adolf II....