La marionnette, petite Marie d’après son étymologie, figure réduite à l’image de l’homme, être diminutif ou condensé, actrice « dramatico-végétale » selon l’écrivain Carlo Collodi, amuse, effraie ou fascine depuis toujours l’être humain. Nous en trouvons des traces dès l’Antiquité en occident. Telle l’automate Olympia dans L’Homme au sable d’Ernst Hoffmann, qui inspira à Freud le concept d’ « Inquiétante étrangeté », la marionnette fait douter le spectateur : celui-ci ressent une étrange impression à la vue d’un objet sans vie qui paraît animé, un malaise comparable à celui qu’il éprouve en voyant une personne se comporter en « Homme-machine » (La Mettrie).Ce travail propose d’explorer l’existence paradoxale des figures inanimées dans le but d’expliquer comment celles-ci semblent prendre vie, mourir ou ressusciter à l’envi. A quel projet artisanal ou fantasme démiurgique répond la fabrication des créatures artificielles ? Comment l’esprit vient aux objets ? Quelles parts occupent le mouvement impulsé par le manipulateur et les croyances et projections du spectateur dans ce mystérieux phénomène d’animation ? Ce travail qui s’inscrit dans le domaine des études théâtrales traverse d’autres champs disciplinaires, notamment la littérature, la psychanalyse, la philosophie, l’anthropologie et l’histoire. / The puppet, or marionnete, - little Marie etymologically –, a human model, in reduction, a diminutive or condensed creature, a « dramatico-vegetable » actor in the eyes of writer Carlo Collodi, has always amused, frightened or fascinated mankind. Traces of puppets are to be found early in western ancient times. In much the same way as the automaton Olympia, in Ernst Hoffmann's The Sand Man, inspired Freud's concept of « disquieting strangeness », (Unheimliche), the puppet creates doubt in the spectator's mind : the latter feels strange when viewing an inanimate object apparently gifted with life, an unease akin to that which one feels if confronted with a human behaving like a ' « Man-machine » (La Mettrie).This work aims at exploring the paradoxical world of inanimate figures in order to explain how those seem to acquire life, lose it or come to life again at will. To what craft project or demiurgic fantasy does the making of artificial creatures answer ? How does the soul come to those objects ? What are the shares of the motions impulsed by the puppet manipulator and the beliefs and projections of the spectators, in that mysterious phenomenon of animation. The present work, although fully belonging to the field of drama studies, crosses others, notably literature, psychoanalysis, philosophy, anthropology and history.

Actuellement, le concept « idole » a basculé dans la sphère triviale du culte de personnes et renferme, néanmoins, des traces du sens antique du mot. Le terme d’idole met l’accent sur le moment de la vénération et c’est précisément là que réside la difficulté : la combinaison de l’adoration et de la plasticité d'une image va à l’encontre de la théologie de l’Ancien Testament de la vénération unique et sans image de JHWH. Le point de départ de cette étude est le mot grec eidôlon, qui est ancré dans le sujet de l’image des divinités depuis la Septante et qui fait office de terme fixe pour désigner les déités étrangères. Il en ressort qu’il n’existe pas d’expression standard pour une image de culte dans la culture grecque. La comparaison et l’analyse exacte des équivalents hébreux et grecs forment la majeure partie de la thèse. Dans le cas d’eidôlon il n’existe pas d’équivalent standard mais un bon nombre de termes hébreux qui sont tous reproduits par le terme grec dans la LXX. Par ailleurs, le terme eidôlon apparaît dans des textes d’importance cruciale pour la foi israélite (voir sa fréquence dans le deuxième commandement du Décalogue et dans le Chant de Moïse). Il s’agit d’une manœuvre stratégique et théologique des traducteurs, car ce terme renferme tous les éléments majeurs des divinités étrangères. Il existe donc une différenciation claire entre le dieu d’Israël et toutes les autres divinités. / The concept “idol” derives from ancient Greek, which is still used today. Nowadays, an Idol designates first and foremost the cult of personality but the traces of the ancient meaning are partly preserved. The term idol focuses on the veneration of foreign deities and their pictorial representations. Therefore, idols contrast with the monotheism and an iconism of the god of Israel. This study elaborates the original meaning of the Greek word eidôlon which becomes the standard expression for divine images since its usage in the Septuagint and afterwards. It seems that there did not exist a major term for cult images in the Greek culture. The comparison and the exact analysis of the Hebrew and Greek equivalents form the major part of the thesis. In the case of eidôlon there does not exist a Hebrew standard equivalent but a variety of Hebrew lexemes which are all translated by the Greek word in the Septuagint. In general, eidôlon appears in important and authoritative texts (Exodus 20: the Second Commandment,Deuteronomy 32: The Song of Moses). Concerning the choice of terminology, eidôlon is astrategic and theological move of the translators because this Greek expression includes allmajor characteristics of foreign deities. A clear distinction between JHWH the god of Israel andall other deities becomes clear.

L’histoire d’Ellis Island, de l’ouverture de la station d’immigration en 1892 jusqu’à la restauration du site dans les années 1980 après une période d’abandon et d’oubli, reflète les interactions entre les discours sur l’immigration et la construction de l’identité politique et culturelle de la nation américaine. Le musée de l’immigration qui a ouvert sur l’île en 1990, dans le bâtiment même où sont passés douze millions d’immigrants entre 1892 et le milieu des années 1920, est devenu le lieu de mémoire de l’immigration américaine. En partant du postulat que les sociétés construisent leur représentation du passé et leur mémoire collective pour répondre à leurs besoins dans le présent, cette thèse entend montrer comment et à quelles fins la nation américaine a choisi de mettre en avant, à un moment donné, certains éléments de son histoire pour s’affirmer « nation of immigrants ». La création du musée d’Ellis Island, qui a consacré l’immigration et l’ethnicité comme composantes essentielles de l’identité américaine, était en effet aussi un choix de mémoire de l’Etat fédéral, témoignant d’une manière d’interpréter et de représenter l’Histoire. / The story of Ellis Island, from the opening of the immigration station in 1892 to the restoration of the site in the 1980s after a period of neglect and oblivion, reflects the interactions between discourses on immigration and the building of the political and cultural identity of the American nation. The immigration museum that opened on the island in 1990, in the building where twelve million immigrants were processed between 1892 and the mid-1920s, has become the site of memory of American immigration. Starting from the postulate that societies build their representation of the past and their collective memory to meet their demands in the present, this thesis aims at showing how and for what purposes the American nation chose to put forward, at a certain time, selected pieces of its history to assert itself “ nation of immigrants”. The setting-up of the Ellis Island museum, which affirmed immigration and ethnicity as essential components of the American identity, was indeed also a choice of memory by the Federal government, testifying to a way of interpreting and representing History.

Traversant un ample corpus textuel rédigé en de nombreuses langues, ce travail interroge les rapports peu explorés entre littérature et sculpture, à partir d’un objet, le monument, « fait social total » mêlant enjeux politiques, idéologiques, religieux et esthétiques. Dispositif autoritaire, le monument exerce une efficace pour dominer et transformer celui qui le rencontre. La littérature accompagne, s’approprie, contre au moyen de stratégies d’iconoclasme textuel, dévoie, et renouvelle les actes accomplis par les monuments : glorifier les héros, signifier l’histoire, édifier la société, répondre à la détresse. Dans l’épreuve du réel, le monument se montre pourtant incapable de tenir ces promesses exorbitantes. La littérature l’en délie et l’allège via l’ouverture d’une finitude et d’une compassion. Le monument est réinventé jusqu’à devenir le lieu d’une nouvelle magie ou d’un élan vers le sacré. La littérature rend ainsi un dispositif monosémique à un pluriel des significations. / Bringing together a broad corpus of texts written in many different languages, this dissertation explores the intersections between literature and sculpture. The starting point is the monument, an object that stands as a “social total fact”, condensing politics, ideologies, religion and aesthetics. Literature can help monuments to alter their beholders, to glorify heroes, to signify history, to build up and edify society, or to respond to distress. More often, it appropriates, subverts or debunks those acts via strategies of “textual iconoclasm”, proving that monuments cannot withstand the test of reality and fail to keep their promises. Literature aims therefore at renewing monuments, making them lighter by opening them to compassion and finitude. Thus recreated, statues in cities can point the beholders towards the sacred, or accommodate magic. Literature manages so to reinvent a polysemy around devices designed to hold an authority, and that were supposed to reinforce a monosemy.

Devenu soudainement roi de France en 1498, Louis XII entreprend de reconstruire le château familial de Blois. L'aile Louis XII du château royal présente un programme iconographique sculpté exceptionnel réalisé de 1498 à 1503 environ, qui comporte plus de deux cents culots, gargouilles, masques grotesques, rosaces, monogrammes et emblèmes, entourant la figure équestre du roi et le décor de l'escalier. Les sources manuscrites relatives à la réalisation du décor sculpté ayant disparu presque en totalité, le parti pris a été de considérer dans la première partie les événements qui, du cadre historique aux restaurations des XIXe et XXe siècles, ont forgé l’identité actuelle du château. L'étude iconographique est abordée en seconde partie, incluant le décor sculpté du château de Blois, les enjeux ignorés du décor du grand escalier et de la voûte en relation avec la figure équestre, l'emblématique royale de Louis XII. La troisième partie permet d’insérer le décor sculpté dans le contexte de création de la sculpture dans les chantiers et ateliers de 1450 à 1520. De la seconde moitié du XVe siècle à 1520 / As soon as he become king of France in 1498, Louis XII undertake to rebuild the family castle of Blois. The Louis XII wing of the royal castle of Blois shows an exceptional iconographic and carved program done from 1498 to about 1503, which consists of more than two hundred culots, gargoyles, grotesques, masks, medallions, monograms, and emblems, surrounding the equestrian statue of the king and the staircase. As the manuscript archives relating to the carvings have almost completely disappeared, the objective has been to consider firstly the historical events up until the restorations of the 19th and 20th century that have contribued to the current identity of the château. An iconographic study is approached in the second part, including the sculpted decoration of the château, the relationship between the decoration of the grand staircase and the vault with the equestrian statue. The third part relate to the role of the carved decoration within the artistic context of buiding sites and workshops between 1450 to 1520

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

This diploma paper is divided into two parts, a practical and a theoretical part. The practical part portrays dance in a set of five figures of dancers created using the method of ceramic sculpture made of ceramic clay. The figures of dancers are chosen as representatives of five various dances that stand for the historical era and the continent where they originated. The theoretical part follows the set of sculptures with information about historical and local contexts of the individual dances as well as stylizations of each dancer and the working methods used.

The topic of violence in Late Antiquity is a heavily debated subject and many scholars have focused on this issue, as evidenced by the many studies published within the last ten years. The perception of Late Antiquity as a period of widespread religious violence is mainly influenced by Christian literary sources, who document accounts of violence against temples, statuary, and people alike. Egypt, in particular, has often been used as an example to demonstrate the destructive nature of religious violence that existed in the ancient world. However, the concept of religious violence is a complicated and nuanced topic. In Egypt, the many accounts by the Christian sources were written with specific intentions and the events documented in the texts were often exaggerated. The objective of this thesis is to provide a study of statue destruction by Christians between the fourth to seventh centuries CE in Egypt, and determine whether these destructions were acts of religious violence or were carried out for another reason in order to provide a more nuanced understanding of violence in Late Antiquity. By juxtaposing accounts from literary sources and archaeological evidence, the study seeks to determine whether the literary sources are accurate in their documentation of widespread statue destruction, or whether the violent discourse present in the literary sources is the result of Christian polemical purposes.

This study consists of an analysis of the artwork Conversazioni, by the artist Oliviero Rainaldi. It is a monumental bronze sculpture  situated in Rome, Italy, portraying the pope John Paul II. The initiative for the monument honouring the late pope was taken for the official celebrations of his beatification in 2011. This contemporary artwork is executed in a stylized form with very few details. The study aims to put in evidence the multiple layers of meaning which can be found, in opposition to the visible simplicity of its shape. The major narrative context emerges through an in- depth investigation of possible interpretations. This pope had a well known devotion to the Virgin Mary, a character strongly connected with the concept of mercy, being mercifulness a characteristics of Cristian faith. The artist has expressed this concept by focalizing on the opened cloak of the pope referring to the Virgin of Mercy, a Marian model of medieval origin. Furthermore it is possible to find and interpret other biblical quotations.  The theoretical framework consists in the one built around the art historian Erwin Panofsky’s iconographical three-step method. Referring to Panofsky this study could best be classified as an iconological analysis since  the intrinsic meanings of  rather vague and complicated  symbolisms have been sought. The method has consisted in field studies of the sculpture and its context as well as literature studies in order to create a background for major comprehension of the subject. An interview with the author of the artefact has also been made.  The work became immediately heavily critiziced in mass media both because of its supposedly unflattering shape and the  lack of resemblance with the portrayed person. The debate came to the point where the artist agreed to modify it. The study contains opinions from both people and institutions collected from  italian newspaper articles written after the unveiling of the statue.  An attempt has been done to try to better understand the negative reception it received. The answers can only be suppositions. Nevertheless, some valid hypothesis can be formulated: contemporary artworks easily seem out of context in Rome since they are quite unfrequent; The pope’s statue is out of context twice, being one of its kind in a profane and in modern history anticlerical environment; the iconography is not easily readable for an average beholder, a circumstance that could contribute to the initial low grade of comprehension;  The statue doesn’t live up to people’s expectations of likeness; John Paul II  is not immediately recognizable which is experienced by the viewer as disturbing as it is dealing with an homage to a famous person. It seems though, that the appreciation of it, after overcoming the initial disappointment, generally has grown. A plausible theory is that the sculpture Conversazioni however, manage to visualize universally valid religious concepts such as mercifulness and protection, a welcoming gesture readable and perceptible to everyone.

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