This thesis is an investigation of the way in which the painter May Stevens (b. 1924) synthesizes her personal experiences and political philosophy to form complex and enduring works of art. Primary data was accumulated through an extended interview with May Stevens and by examining her works on exhibit in New York and Boston. An analysis of selected works from her "Big Daddy" and "Ordinary/Extraordinary" series revealed how her personal feelings about her own family became entwined with larger political issues. As an important member of the feminist art movement that evolved during the 1970s, she celebrated this new kinship among women in paintings that also explored the contradictions in their lives. In more recent work she has explored complex social issues such as teenage prostitution, sexism, and child abuse in a variety of artistic styles and media. This study investigates how May Stevens continues to portray issues of international significance in works that consistently engage the viewer on a personal, almost visceral level.

Through this study I intended to analyze and determine the significance of the recurring imagery that emerged as an integral part of my compositions. Furthermore, I attempted to discern the importance and over all the effects of the small scale upon my work and determine how vital is the spontaneity that is used to obtain each composition.

The purpose of this thesis is to give a concise view of stylistic, iconographical, and iconological trends in Southern genre paintings and illustrations between 1830 and 1890 by native Southern artists and artists who lived at least ten years in the South. Exploration of artworks was accomplished by compiling as many artworks as possible per decade, separating each decade by dominant trends in subject matter, and researching to determine political and/or social implications associated with and affecting each image. Historical documents and the findings of other scholars revealed that many artworks carried political overtones reflecting the dominant thought of the white ruling class during the period while the significance and interpretation of other artworks was achieved by studying dominant personal beliefs and social practices.

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate the feasibility of developing an art curriculum in Qatar, using the principles of the DBAE curriculum in conjunction with technology. Many of the challenges facing art educators and the art curriculum in Qatar can be approached through the multimedia applications of DBAE, which will provide instructors and students with an opportunity to more readily interact with visual art and to discover its educational relevance. Additionally, this study attempted to discover whether teachers are engaged in implementing technology in the art classroom and whether they are given the opportunity to engage in art to their satisfaction.

This was an ethnographic study of the woven tent objects produced by the Bedouin Otaibah tribe in Najd, central Saudi Arabia; the study examines origin, techniques, character and significance of their weavings. A major objective of the researcher was to discern the relationship between the weavers' development of traditions and the factors of technique, medium and perceived meaning. The method used was investigative fieldwork that included techniques of face to face interviews and participant observation. Interviews with 50 Bedouin female weavers in Najd were conducted for 8 months. Background information on the Otaibah tribe and their traditional way of life was provided. The review of the literature of traditional arts, folk arts and art education illustrates that there is limited accessible information concerning the general history of traditional arts in Saudi Arabia. A discussion of the aesthetic value, definitions and roles of traditional art, tribal art and the differences between art and crafts was included. Analysis of data answered the study's questions through a presentation of the findings of the fieldwork. The Otaibah tribe has its own unique style of weaving. Information gathered from participant observation and documents from the Haifa Faisal Collection of Saudi Arabian Traditional Arts in Chicago …

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze and discuss the relationship between the images and texts concerning Amazons and warrior-women in the collected works of Christine de Pizan. It evaluates Christine's interpretation of the ancient story in light of her career as an author and publisher, and it compares her imagery to other representations of Amazons and warrior-women. This study indicates that Christine reworked the myth in a way that reflects her positive of women and her desire to influence the queen of France, Isabeau de Baviere, who was the original owner of the manuscript.

My work has developed to the point where it exists within the grey area between painting and sculpture. These hybrid works necessitate the transition from creating objects to that work singularly to installations of various works that operate as a whole. The purpose of this study is to identify successful methods of making this transition through the use of the computer. The computer should provide new strategies to integrate sculpture and painting into a hybrid form.

The problem I have addressed this year revolves around my search for a means to visually challenge mankind's present concepts and ideology concerning the wolf and the cheetah. At the same time, it was essential that I find a way to visually challenge previous artistic interpretations of these animals. This involved the discovery of a new form of animal representation relevant to modern societies' problems concerning the future of wildlife and the significance of the predator.

This thesis investigates the iconography, iconology, and style of Juan Bautista Maino s Adoration of the Shepherds (1615-1620) located at the Meadows Museum, Dallas, Texas. The study begins with an overview of general information on Maino and his works. Chapter 2 explores the evolution of the Adoration of the Shepherds depiction in art, while examining social and political factors which may have influenced Maino's iconographical choices. Chapter 3 is a comparative analysis of the Meadows Adoration of the Shepherds to two other Adoration of the Shepherds by Maino, revealing a stylistic progression and presenting an argument for the dates the Meadows painting was rendered. Chapter 4 reviews the findings and suggests further study on this and other paintings by Maino.

In this proposed study, I hoped to discover compositional elements that once added to the work would convey my conceptual ideas. I was interested in exploring the addition of deep pictorial space and increasing the size disparity between the figures as possible solutions for injecting a level of irony and/or eluding to the subverted agenda of the content. I wanted to see if these two secondary compositional adjustments subtly conveyed not only a strategic contradiction of the art historical concept of expressionism but the numerous accepted truths in society.

This Problem in Lieu of Thesis documents the thought processes that led to the completion of a series of five interactive sculptures. Each piece incorporates a part of the human body taken from its normal context and placed into the context of children's playground equipment.

This thesis examines Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Fortitude, 1560, a print from the Seven Virtues series. Fortitude stands out as an anomaly within the cycle because it contains several allusions to the Book of Revelation. The linkage of Fortitude to the writings of St. John is important because it challenges previous iconographic and iconological analyses of the composition. Analysis of Fortitude's compositional elements is provided, along with an examination of the virtue tradition. Additionally, an exploration of sixteenth-century apocalypticism is included, as well as an examination of the artistic influences that may have inspired Bruegel. This thesis concludes that Fortitude's apocalyptic allusions do not seem unusual for an artist familiar with St. John's prophecies, influenced by Hieronymus Bosch, and living in an age of apocalypticism.

This thesis examines the portraiture of Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun and Adélaide Labille-Guiard within the context of their time. Analysis of specific portraits in American collections is provided, along with an examination of their careers: early education, Academic Royale membership, Salon exhibitions, and the French Revolution. Discussion includes the artists' opposing stylistic heritages, as well as the influences of their patronage, the French art academy and art criticism. This study finds that Salon critics compared their paintings, but not with the intention of creating a bitter personal and professional rivalry between them as presumed by some twentieth-century art historians. This thesis concludes those critics simply addressed their opposing artistic styles and that no such rivalry existed.

The content of my work focused on examining the relationship between certain elements of nature and of human beings and was also based on the question of what true life is. The woodcut process - combined with the other printing techniques such as intaglio, collagraph, and monotype - was adopted as a potentially successful medium for conveying the content of the work. Overlay printing techniques and repeated textures were utilized as well.

Using this conflict between death and dying versus hope and new life, I searched for an undogmatic way to convey a Christian antidote to the despair and ugliness of post modern art. The struggle was to find the imagery, format, and media combinations to express a vision, with realism and hope, for the late twentieth century, in a unique and interesting context.

The images that I sculpt deal with reflections of human traits. Wood lends itself to this endeavor, offering minimal resistance to manipulation. Keeping the origin and qualities of the material while manipulating it into another object is a statement within itself. Letting the wood do what it does naturally keeps the viewer in touch with the fact it is still just an object of nature. Wood does not make itself any less real because of the relationship of the sculpture to it as wood.

My objective was to create a body of work using various printing processes. I wanted to communicate my emotional responses to the fertility and childbearing of older women. I wanted to address the realities that become problems for women who wait to have children at an older age and related feelings. Some of these problems were infertility, early menopause, "sticky eggs," and birth defects. There are current medical practices that help these problems such as the freezing of eggs, artificial insemination, and multiple births. I wanted to incorporate ideas about the panic I began to feel about having a child at an older age and my frustration over the lack of open discussion about such feelings. I have combined the use of realism and abstraction in my work. I included dyed and torn paper to lend organic and tactile qualities to the humanistic subject matter. The end result has consisted of various forms of collage and an assembly of the dyed, torn and printed paper.

The purpose of this study was to provide a basis for understanding among Tech Prep and School-to-Work change agents, and educational leaders, of the role that Discipline-Based Art Education (DBAE) can perform as a part of the core curriculum, within the framework of these reform movements. The literature indicated that the federally supported Tech Prep and School-to-Work reform movements were not acquainted with DBAE reform initiative which were supported by the Getty Education Institute for the Arts through the work of Regional Institutes. Therefore, they had no ideas about the possible worth of art as an education core component. Also, DBAE was not acquainted with Tech Prep and School-to-Work and therefore had established no common terminology to communicate the power of what they do in a manner which was relevant to that audience. The DBAE Regional Institutes provided individuals to assist in the development and validation of the study tools, and to participate in the pilot study. The Regional Institutes also identified the 10 Discipline-Based Art Education experts who composed the national Delphi panel for the study. The findings were reported according to research questions. They show the national Delphi panels' perceptions of which SCANS skills can be developed by …

This thesis analyzes the destruction of imagery dedicated to Saint Thomas Becket in order to investigate the nature of sixteenth-century iconoclasm in Reformation England. In doing so, it also considers the veneration of images during the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Research involved examining medieval and sixteenth-century historical studies concerning Becket's life and cult, anti-Becket sentiment prior to the sixteenth century, and the political circumstances in England that led to the destruction of shrines and imagery. This study provides insight into the ways in which religious images could carry multifaceted, ideological significance that represented diversified ideas for varying social strata--royal, ecclesiastical and lay.

The focus of the problem was to challenge the more traditional. Western approaches to jewelry as adornment in respect to areas such as placement and scale. Approaching adornment as sculptural forms interacting with the human body could possibly challenge the individual's awareness of jewelry as wearable art. This approach brought up the issue of using the human body as a pedestal for adornment.

It was those problems and possibilities I wished to explore in my problem in lieu of thesis. While the simple, geometric images were very satisfying to that part of myself that craves order and rationality, it was all too easy to make work that was dull and uninteresting. I wanted to find a way to produce rich, sensuous, engaging work using only simple geometric forms.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the use of alchemy within the work of Rebecca Horn, to elucidate its presence in her work, and to illuminate its purpose as a personal philosophy and as a creative tool. The use of alchemy within Horn's work occurs as a process of revelation and transformation. Alchemy is revealed as a spiritual philosophy and as an interpretative system through the changes that occur in Horn's oeuvre. Throughout Horn's career, alchemy has developed into an interpretive system, a type of spiritual and cosmic perspective, that allows the artist to study, access, and meld diverse realities (sacred and profane) and diverse social systems (religious and scientific) into a more holistic and spiritually infused reality for herself and society-at-large. The purpose of her work is to help reinvest contemporary life with a spiritual presence by offering a model and a means of bringing the sacred into the profane.

It was my intent to find objects that were both historically symbolic and symbolic of the times we live in, and that could be melded into a nineteenth century interior where their presence would be secondary to the overall atmosphere. I wanted to incorporate objects that would function as metaphors or personal symbols as well as historical icons.

I intend to explore various canvas sizes and many formal issues, focusing on space and the application of paint are paramount in my work. I used closely cropped photographs to aid in this study and my exploration addressed the following questions: 1) How does the speed of execution affect the spontaneity and authority of the piece? 2) How important is the unexpected for the success of my painting in regards to formal issues?