This thesis draws upon recent, art historical scholarship in iconography and semiotics to identify and analyze key images in an iconographic program associated with murals, paintings, and posters related to the Austin, Texas music venue, the Armadillo World Headquarters, 1970-1980. Resources include South Austin Museum of Popular Culture, the Center for American History at the University of Texas, Austin, personal communications, and publications concerning the artists, music and history of Austin and the Armadillo World Headquarters. There are five chapters as follows: Introduction, History of the Armadillo World Headquarters, Analysis of the Armadillo Mural and Freddie King Painting, Analysis of Posters for the Grand Opening and the Michael Murphey Cosmic Cowboy Concert, and Conclusion.

I investigate why gendered images of Hatshepsut influenced androgynous images of Nefertiti in New Kingdom Egypt and how Nefertiti and Akhenaten used their images in the promotion of their monotheistic religion; through a contextual, stylistic and feminist examination of the images. Hatshepsut cultivated images of herself to legitimize her rule in relation to canonical kings before her. Similarly, Nefertiti represented herself as a figure indiscernible from Akhenaten, creating an image of female co-rulership. Although the visual representations of both Hatshepsut and Nefertiti differ, the concepts behind each are analogous. They both manipulated androgyny to create images displaying powerful women equal in status to male Egyptian kings.

This thesis examines images of women shopping in the art of Kenneth Hayes Miller and Reginald Marsh during the 1920s and 1930s. New York City's Fourteenth Street served Kenneth Hayes Miller and Reginald Marsh, respectively, as a location generating the inspiration to study and visually represent its contemporaneity. Of particular interest to this thesis are relationships between developments in shopping and the images of women shopping in and around Fourteenth Street that populate the paintings of Miller and Marsh. Although, as Ellen Todd Wiley has shown, the emerging notion of the New Woman helped to shape female identity at this time, what remains unstudied are dimensions that geographically specific, historical developments in shopping contributed to the construction of female identity which, this thesis argues, Marsh and Miller related to, by locating in, the department store and bargain store.

This thesis argues that art criticism published during Soutine's lifetime emphasizes ethnicity, nationalism and geography in discussions of the artist's style. These critical discussions have influenced the historiography of Soutine published after his death, resulting in a continued emphasis on style that includes references to ethnicity. Ethnicity, nationalism and geography are identified in the critical reception and historiography by noting references, both specific and implied, to Jewishness, French art, and foreign status (among others). These references are analyzed in terms of existing scholarship that addresses concepts of ethnicity and nationalism, and with consideration to how the critical reception has impacted the historiography.

The working cowboy remains part of the contemporary culture of Texas. A visual record of him appeared early in the state's history, in daguerreotypes, followed by representations in contemporary black and white as well as color photographs, film and video. Although the way of life for the Texas cowboy has changed, it remains a thriving part of the Texas economy, society, and culture. Moreover, the image of the cowboy has permeated popular culture and fine art. This paper explores what late twentieth century popular culture and fine art images of the cowboy signify, emphasizing aspects of how they signify in relation to an existing tradition of photographic representations. Using Barthes' "Myth Today," it considers how the documentary aspect of early photographic representations of cowboys is transformed in contemporary popular culture and fine art to become mythology, for example, by the exaggeration of features of dress to connote ideals allegorically.

The Universalis Ecclesiae of 1508 authorized Spanish colonization of the Americas in return for the conversion of native populations to Christianity. From its inception therefore, the Mexican nation lived an alliance between Church and State. This alliance promoted the transfer of Castilian Catholicism to American shores. Catholic practices, specifically the ex-voto tradition, visualize this intermingling of religion and politics. The ex-voto is a devotional painting that expresses gratitude to a religious figure for his/her intervention in a moment of peril. It is commissioned by the devotee as a means of direct communication to the divine. This project analyzes 40 Mexican ex-votos for their reflection of political issues in Mexico. I assert that the Mexican ex-votos engage discussions of social politics. To support this argument, visualizations of socio-political discourses such as the Virgin of Guadalupe as a national religious symbol, police action and economic disparity were examined.

The primary objective of this thesis is to identify patterns of appearance among the flora and fauna of selected eighteenth-century New Spanish casta paintings. The objectives of the thesis are to determine what types of flora and fauna are present within selected casta paintings, whether the flora and fauna's provenance is Spanish or Mexican and whether there are any potential associations of particular flora and fauna with the races being depicted in the same composition. I focus my flora and fauna research on three sets of casta paintings produced between 1750 and 1800: Miguel Cabrera's 1763 series, José Joaquín Magón's 1770 casta paintings, and Andrés de Islas' 1774 sequence. Although the paintings fall into the same genre and within a period of a little over a decade, they nevertheless offer different visions of New Spain's natural bounty and include objects designed to satisfy Europe's interest in the exotic.

This thesis examines Rogier Van Der Weyden's two unique fifteenth century Crucifixions, The Crucified Christ Between the Virgin and Saint John and The Diptych of the Crucifixion, in light of Carthusian beliefs, practices and relevant devotional texts. The specific text used to support this examination is the Vita Christi by Ludolph of Saxony, which in part deals specifically with the Hours of the Passion. Ludolph's text is given visual form in Rogier's paintings and supports the assertion that Rogier and Ludolph were connected by a shared belief and worldview. Key aspects of Rogier's life, supported by original documentation- familial ties, associates, patrons, use of finances, and his close involvement with the Carthusians-- support this assertion. Other models of connections of belief, evidenced through artist's work, are corroborated in the work of Grunewald, Sluter and Durer.