The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston owns ten oil sketches by Thomas Sully (1783-1872) which depict episodes from Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. The ten paintings represent different events in Crusoe's twenty-eight year stay on an uninhabited island from the shipwreck which landed him there to his departure. He dated the first sketch 1856, and they were probably the preparatory studies for ten larger paintings of the same subjects which he completed in 1858. On the back of the first sketch Sully acknowledged his source for the sketches, illustrations by the English artist, Thomas Stothard (1755-1834) which were published in an 1820 edition of Robinson Crusoe. In addition to the Robinson Crusoe series, Sully painted many other literary subjects which have never been studied in any detail. Although Sully is known as a portraitist, these examples of his subject paintings indicate that they should be studied further.

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Ariadne Abandoned by Theseus on Naxos was painted by the Swiss-born artist Angelica Kauffman in 1774, while she was living in England. Her work was an important factor in the development of the early Neoclassical style in England, and this painting embodies the ideas of noble simplicity and sedate grandeur put forth by her friend Johann Winckelmann as appropriate for such history paintings. One of her few single-figure, non-portrait history paintings, it is typical of the careful composition and rich Venetian coloring for which she was well-known. Angelica was a well-educated woman, and therefore she was able to draw on a wide variety of literary and visual sources when she chose the subject. The theme of abandoned and mourning women was often used by artists in the late eighteenth century, and Angelica may have had a particular identification with it, due to her unusual position as an artist and a single woman.

The way we see architecture, defined as the way space is organized, materialized and perceived, is questioned using the medium of screen images which make possible explorations involving the real and the imaginary. This is achieved primarily through video installations which create an "other" space where our conventional ways of seeing are inverted: the tangible loses its materiality and the virtual gains a physical presence. The subjective experience of the "other" space reveals a temporal and spatial aspect of architectural perception that lies outside of real time and real space informing us of possible new ways to form space.

The five oil paintings done by Paul Cézanne during the 1890's and entitled Les Joueurs de Cartes will be considered in this thesis both individually and collectively as a series. Certain developments in Cézanne's life are noted as likely reasons for his return to figure painting with the Joueurs series. One chapter is focused on Cézanne's artistic taste and art theory as well as the extent that both were influenced by various artistic and literary traditions. Other chapters are concentrated on the possible sources for these paintings, their formal features, chronology and interpretation. Central to the issues in several chapters is a stylistic division between the multi-figure versions in the series and the two-figure ones -- the latter bear nascent features of Cézanne's distinctive late style, developed largely from his increased use of the watercolor medium.

Connectivity is expanded through technological deve lopments converting the world into a global and interactive connectivity field. Each individual finds him- or herself to be a link in this network of connectivity. Using certain visual projects as an example, this particular project argues that man has, on the one hand, become entrapped in this network through technological developments, and is liberated by them, on the other, through the global mobility they facilitate. The applicability of âconnectivity,â the mathematical loanword, to the visual arts is explored and depicted through art projects. In this project, representations of illustrations, paintings, photographs, installations and video art are employed as a form of artistic visualization of the experience of connectivity in post- modern society. Technological phenomena as extensions of the human body and central nervous system, and the implications of this for visual culture and the society of connectivity are explored. The spatial expansiveness of the network is visualized in the texture of Jackson Pollockâs paintings, which in this project are referred to as a metaphor for connectivity. The series of photographs by Danwen Xing, âdisCONNEXION,â are described as the antithesis of connectivity, where computer parts are arranged separately from one another, eliciting the notion of a living organism. In representations of connectivity the symbiotic relationship between man and machine is brought to the fore. The mutual dependency of man and machine are symbolized in Eduardo Kacâs Teleporting an unknown state. Herein an attempt is made to foster a critical consciousness which sufficiently takes into consideration the man- made nature of the new media. Man builds technological information systems which creep across the earth, enfolding it in a web. In the photographic and installation-type depictions of Frank Thiel, Dan Graham and Peter Weibel, the omnipresence of the surveillance camera is fore grounded. It surrounds, captures and reads man into databases, forming a categorized, typified data image of the individual. In a more positive light, the media of connectivity creates an immediate though virtual presence through mobilization, where man is an absent presence who is simultaneously here and at the site of communication. Connectivity enables the immediate connections between individuals who are physically separated from one another, and is visualized in Draadwerk, where the implied communicator is overwhelmed and drawn in by the scale and mass of tin can telephone wires. Man is simultaneously here, physically, and, in thought, in the conversational space (i.e. cyberspace), where communication takes place through technological communication media. The greatest liberation of technological means is facilitated by the virtuality it creates. James Turrellâs light installations visualize illusory virtual spaces where the viewer enters a light-drenched space and the actual boundaries of the space are faded. In my own installation, Immersie, a virtual space is entered which becomes a connective plane between top/bottom and inside/outside. Ties which limit and entrap man are left behind as the virtual space is entered, and man creates, through technological media, new spaces in which freedom or liberation may be experienced.

Encounters between the Portuguese explorers of the fifteenth-century and the people living on the southern tip of Africa initiated interaction and trade between Europeans and Africans. My Portuguese heritage within a family of shopkeepers has provided me with a selective point of view from which to investigate the complexities involved in cross-cultural exchange, visual perception and image interpretation. The analysis of appropriated surveillance footage collected from CCTV cameras installed in the shop and the investigation of my own videos captured with hidden digital hand-held video camcorders, elucidates concerns related to intercultural interaction and exchange. In the shop the exchange of goods occurs, concomitantly with an exchange of vision and cross-cultural perception; the video camera surveys this exchange and translates it into images. It is argued that visual and intercultural processes have, with the aid of visual technologies and mediums (such as the panorama and digital video), become central to the ways in which cultures are perceived. This study proposes that interpreting images (for example in the photographs of Pieter Hugo and Zwelethu Mthethwa), like intercultural exchange, is paradoxical and ambiguous, as often these images evoke associations with conflicting meanings. It is argued that iconoclasm complicates image interpretation and visual perception further, as it is related both to destructive strategies and the vulnerability of the image. While the study argues that visual exchanges are by nature inconsistent and distorted, they still expose a common reciprocity and human vulnerability.

Processes of pattern making in recent painting This dissertation is an extension of my studio research. In my studio research I use the processes usually associated with the making of decorative patterns as an integral part of my work as a painter. In my paintings and in my dissertation those actions of pattern making that create an interplay between surfaces charming to the eye, and the menacing hidden meanings of degeneration, destruction and underlying aggression is investigated. This research focuses on the manifestation of the visual impact of decorative patterns on formal as well as the semantic levels. The meaning of patterns and motifs in patterns emerges and changes constantly as a result of formal creative making processes. These processes are influenced by cultural forces. Thus the transformations in patterns and pattern motifs point to the dynamic cultural forces in current South Africa. Decorative patterns from popular South African culture, in which pattern-creating processes are linked to the creative processes involved in recent visual art by contemporary artists, Beatriz Milhazes, Ghada Amer, Bronwen Findlay and Leora Farber as well as to my own paintings are analyzed. The research focuses on the ways in which patterns change and in which meanings are assigned to them. The importance of purposeful exchange of ideas in order to bring about transformations in patterns, is stressed. Writers such as Alois Riegl and William H. Goodyear have seen the exchanges of motifs and meaning in patterns as an organic and orderly pocess. In reality the meanings of pattern fluctuate and is constantly being transferred in a chaotic way. It is also fundamental that it should be considered within a specific social and cultural context as done by Alfred Gell. The ongoing and dynamic cultural influences will then become clear. This dissertation is structured in three sections, in which patterns and pattern motifs which are prominent and meaningful in the popular South African culture of the day are investigated. The âVictorian Rose patternâ, the Springbok motif and âNdebele patternsâ are discussed. In each of these three sections meanings and transformations of meaning in pattern motifs are closely scrutinized. The âVictorian Rose patternâ underwent numerous transformations in South African culture. Yet, the strong associations with its British origins still cling to it. The Springbok motif, which became part of South African heraldry during the British colonial period, on the contrary, has transformed into a symbol of Afrikaner nationalism. The underlying aggressiveness which developed to the motif led to its degeneration and later a come-back as a kitsch motif in current popular culture. In the case of the visually powerful Ndebele patterns, the ethnic connotations they carried led these patterns to become artificial constructions subject to political manipulation and power struggle. Key

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