Department: Art History ![[clear]](close-x.png "Remove this limiter")
19 matches in the database.
These are records: 1 - 19.
1.
Corretti, Christine.
Cellini’s Perseus and Medusa: Configurations of the Body of State.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 2011, Case Western Reserve University
► In one respect Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus and Medusa (Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence,…
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▼ In one respect Benvenuto Cellini’s Perseus and Medusa (Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence, Italy) legitimized the patriarchal power of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici’s Tuscany. The bronze statue symbolizes the body of the male ruler as the state overcoming an adversary personified as female, but the sculpture’s androgynous appearance (the heads of Perseus and Medusa are remarkably similar) emphasizes the fact that Perseus, Cosimo’s surrogate, rose to power through a female agency – the Gorgon. Though not a surrogate for the powerful women of the Medici family, Cellini’s Medusa may have reminded viewers of the fact that Cosimo’s power stemmed in various ways from maternal influence. In this fashion the statue suggests that female power was palpable in the Medicean state. Under the Loggia dei Lanzi maternal power assumes, specifically, the form of Medusa as Mother Goddess. In the preceding context it is telling that additional works of art celebrating the duke’s political greatness align Cosimo’s image with maternal agency. The Perseus’ androgynous nature problematizes the Greek subject’s role as an epitome of virtù (virility). Thus, the statue points up the contingent nature of patriarchal power, which in Cellini’s day was synonymous with virtù. I discuss the Perseus as a reflection of Niccolo Macchiavelli’s theory that virtù depends upon adversary in the form of Fortuna, a version of the Mother Goddess, for political purposes. The similarity between the heads of Cellini’s Perseus and Medusa suggests that Cellini (as Perseus) identified with the Gorgon as a hunted figure. Thus, the statue reminds one of social, cultural, and legal restrictions imposed upon men who lived in Cosimo’s Florence. Here, the cult of honor and virtù bred more divisions in the absolutist state by perpetuating violence. Similarly, Cellini’s statue implies that violence may turn against itself by appealing to the aggression of its viewers. My study concludes with an analysis of Duchess Eleonora di Toledo’s image in art as Mother Goddess, a force who rivals the power of her husband, Cosimo I. Thus, the duchess’ image ultimately served as Medusa’s counterpart.
Advisors/Committee Members: Olszewski, Edward.
Subjects: Art History
Keywords: Cellini; Perseus and Medusa; Cosimo I de' Medici; Loggia dei Lanzi; Eleonora di Toledo
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2.
Deka, Mark Stanley.
Images of Scylla and riding Nereids in tondo reliefs of the Hellenistic period.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 1992, Case Western Reserve University
► Within the repertoire of forms and shapes used by Greek artists, one…
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▼ Within the repertoire of forms and shapes used by Greek artists, one of the most pervasive is the tondo. In painted designs, and particularly when a relief sculpture is added within its borders, the tondo challenges the artist's compositional abilities. Initially adapted to the medium of vase-painting, the tondo quickly became a favorite format in bronze, terracotta and the precious metals. Two specific subjects: the monster Scylla and the riding Nereids atop sea creatures, are incorporated into the tondo format beginning in the fifth century B.C. But it is in the fourth century, and throughout the Hellenistic period that both motifs are encountered in their greatest numbers. The popularity of both throughout the Greek world is evident by the material remains, especially from South Italy. The development of their imagery and iconography on tondo reliefs in later Greek art is the subject of this dissertation. The study will identify and isolate separate groups or "types" of artistic depictions, concentrating on the typological distinctions between these manifestations of Scylla and the riding Nereids, and the dissemination of their imagery throughout the classical world. The purpose of this focus is to investigate the relationship between the motifs and the tondo format. It will be demonstrated that the size and portability of the objects incorporat ing tondo reliefs into their designs are a factor in the iconography of both subjects until the late Hellenistic period, when large-scale sculptures played a role in augmenting the existing iconographical treatment. More than other areas in the classical world, it will be shown that Magna Graecia, and in particular Tarentum, had an impact on the use and the spread of the imagery and the iconography of Scylla and the riding Nereids, an influence that encompasses several centuries and vast geographical distances.
Advisors/Committee Members: Neils, Jenifer.
Subjects: Art History
Keywords: Scylla Nereids tondo reliefs Hellenistic period
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3.
Drozdek, Justyna.
Life and Chimera: Framing Modernism in Poland.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 2008, Case Western Reserve University
► Little magazines, literary and/or artistic periodicals that were self-consciously branded as avant-garde,…
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▼ Little magazines, literary and/or artistic periodicals that were self-consciously branded as avant-garde, proliferated in late-nineteenth-century Europe and were crucial in circulating concepts of modernism. This dissertation focuses on two little magazines, Krakow’s Life (1897-1900) and Warsaw’s Chimera (1901-1907), and their editors’ promotion of Polish artists as integral participants of an international artworld.Both periodicals were published during a period in which Poland, having been partitioned among Russia, Prussia, and Austria in the late eighteenth century, did not exist. These partitions fueled a nationalist discourse in which art functioned as a tool for patriotic expression. However, the members of the artistic and literary movement of Young Poland challenged the notion of an instructive art. They strove instead to redefine national art by arguing that patriotism should be internalized rather than didactically conveyed and, furthermore, insisted that Polish art had to become modern to thrive internationally. Life and Chimera reinforced these goals through a deliberate visual and rhetorical program that underscored the supremacy of modernism. This dissertation examines the chief polemical essays and visual programs of both journals to demonstrate their editors’ efforts to frame modernism in Poland and legitimize Polish art within the international artworld. Ludwik Szczepanski and Artur Gorski, Life’s first two editors, maintained that art could be both modern and national and configured the journal’s visual program around various national, and simultaneously universalist, tropes. Life’s last editor, Stanislaw Przybyszewski, however, argued that national identity did not belong in conversations about art since only pure, subjective expression should occupy artists. He structured Life around various artistic and literary "personalities," whose inclusion in the journal reflected his elevation of artistic identity. Like Przybyszewski, Chimera’s Zenon Przesmycki insisted that artists express their "inner states" but also argued for the artistic conveyance of metaphysical "truths" and beauty, which pointed not to some agreeable appearance but signified an attuned aesthetic sensibility. Both Przesmycki’s polemical essays and visual program emphasized these ideas while epitomizing the artist as a priest-seer, a distinctly modernist program. This dissertation emphasizes that modernism’s international character cannot be fully grasped without considering Polish art and periodicals within the modernist discourse.
Advisors/Committee Members: Helmreich, Anne.
Subjects: Art History; Slavic literature
Keywords: Chimera; Zycie; Life; Przesmycki; Przybyszewski; Young Poland; Mloda Polska; Szczepanski; Polish periodicals; modernism; symbolism
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4.
Edwards, Karen Victoria.
Rethinking the Reinstallation of the Studiolo of Francesco I de' Medici in the Palazzo Vecchio.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 2007, Case Western Reserve University
► The Studiolo of Francesco I in the Palazzo Vecchio is a testament…
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▼ The Studiolo of Francesco I in the Palazzo Vecchio is a testament to the changing styles at the end of the Cinquecento, and has been called a perfect example of Mannerist art. This dissertation considers the original invenzione of the Studiolo as intended by Don Vincenzo Borghini and Giorgio Vasari, and provides compelling new evidence to challenge the current re-installation of the room. Dismantled prior to Francesco’s death in 1587, the Studiolo was rediscovered and renovated more than three hundred years later by Giovanni Poggi and Alfredo Lensi. In 1976, Scott Schaefer became the first scholar to question Poggi’s and Lensi’s installation. Critical thinking regarding the Studiolo changed five years later with Michael Rinehart’s discovery of additional notes written by Borghini, who devised the room’s visual program in 1570. The recent exhibition, Magnificenza! The Medici, Michelangelo, and the Art of Late Renaissance Florence, has once again renewed interest in the small room. One of the exhibition’s curators, Larry Feinberg, has offered an alternative rearrangement of the Studiolo’s works, based on Rinehart’s findings. Despite these attempts, aspects of the original invenzione have been overlooked, including the importance of thematic relationships, the influence of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium. This dissertation concentrates on the correlation between the Studiolo’s iconography and the theme of the four elements. The analysis offers a new arrangement of the room based on reinterpretations of its small end walls. Moreover, these findings provide insight into the diverse array of artists working on the commission, as well as Borghini’s and Vasari’s collective vision for Francesco’s Studiolo.
Advisors/Committee Members: Olszewski, Edward.
Subjects: Art History
Keywords: Studiolo, Medici, Vasari, Palazzo Vecchio, Mannerism
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5.
Finkel, Jennifer H.
Michelangelo at San Lorenzo: The “Tragedy” of the Façade.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 2005, Case Western Reserve University
► This dissertation considers Michelangelo’s intended sculptural program for the never-realized façade of…
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▼ This dissertation considers Michelangelo’s intended sculptural program for the never-realized façade of the Medici parish church of San Lorenzo in Florence, and how its iconography related to the Medici, the Papacy, and the city of Florence. In 1516, Pope Leo X de’ Medici commissioned Michelangelo to complete both the sculpture and the architecture of the façade. This project, which Michelangelo claimed would be the “mirror of architecture and sculpture of all Italy,” was to be the most prestigious commission of the sixteenth century and Michelangelo’s most ambitious creation. But, for the Medici patrons, the sculptural program for the façade would have been the ultimate expression of Medici propaganda. Chapter one is a study of the history of San Lorenzo and generations of Medici patronage at their parish church. The sculptural program for the façade would have visually communicated the Medici dynasty and their destiny, and thus, the account of the San Lorenzo façade project starts here. Chapter two provides an overview of the façade commission and Michelangelo’s involvement on the project from 1516 to 1520. Chapter three is dedicated to Michelangelo’s architectural façade drawings for San Lorenzo, and his figural drawings for statuary that have been previously unassigned to a known project or connected to his other sculptural projects. These drawings are considered afresh in conjunction with the vast extant correspondence from this period, with the primary focus on Michelangelo’s concern for the sculptural decoration of the façade. Chapters four and five use the methodologies of iconography and iconology to reconstruct the intended plan for the sculptures on the façade. Michelangelo greatly enlarged the original sculptural program from ten over-life-sized marble statues, to eighteen freestanding over-life-sized marble and bronze statues, and nineteen relief panels. This expanded sculptural program relied on a calculated arrangement of the saints and their placement on the façade, which had specific meanings and connotations for the Medici, for Florence, and for the Medici in the papal court in Rome. Appendix A of the dissertation is a detailed chronological account of the façade project as extrapolated and compiled from more than three-hundred extant letters.
Advisors/Committee Members: Olszewski, Edward J.
Subjects: Art History
Keywords: Michelangelo; Medici; San Lorenzo; facade; Pope Leo X de'Medici
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6.
Gelfand, Laura Deborah.
Fifteenth-century Netherlandish devotional portrait diptychs: Origins and function.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 1994, Case Western Reserve University
► Devotional portrait diptychs, those which contain a donor in prayer on one…
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▼ Devotional portrait diptychs, those which contain a donor in prayer on one wing and the Virgin and Child on the other, are a unique form of devotional painting. These works attained popularity in the Burgundian Netherlands between c.1430 and c.1540. Their production stopped as quickly as it had begun and their limited geographical distribution is striking. This dissertation identifies the origins of the devotional portrait diptych, traces the history of the paintings, and identifies their function. The Book of Hours was, like the devotional diptych, an accessory to private devotions, and became popular in the years just before the devotional diptych was first created. The iconography of owner portraits found in Books of Hours and the prayers with which these portraits were associated elucidate the origins of the devotional diptych. The Valois Dukes played an important role in Flemish art and their impact on the commissioning of devotional portrait diptychs was no less impressive. Evidence from the Chartreuse of Champmol, as well as from the ducal inventories, shows that the dukes were the first to commission and possess devotional portrait diptychs. Philip the Good was particularly important in the inception of the form and it is in Jan van Eyck's Virgin in a Church, Berlin, that we find evidence of the first portable devotional portrait diptych. Rogier van der Weyden popularized the half-length devotional diptych in his commissions for the members of the court of Philip the Good. Later artists, beginning with Memling and ending with Jan Gossart, utilized the devotional diptych form. The development and changes of the form which occurred in the decades between these artists are investigated. Some devotional portrait diptychs were intended as tomb paintings and the implications of this are discussed in the final chapter. The vanitas and memento mori devices that appear on the backs of devotional diptychs images are evidence of this practice. Finally, the importance of donor portraits in other religious art is connected with the portraits found in devotional diptychs. The desires of the donors are the common link among tomb sculptures, manuscript illuminations, and public and private paintings.
Advisors/Committee Members: Gibson, Walter S.
Keywords: Fifteenth-century Netherlandish devotional portrait diptychs: Origins function
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7.
Geschwind, Rachel L.
MAGDALENE IMAGERY AND PROSTITUTION REFORM IN EARLY MODERN VENICE AND ROME, 1500-1700.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 2011, Case Western Reserve University
► This dissertation focuses on the development of devotional images of Mary Magdalene,…
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▼ This dissertation focuses on the development of devotional images of Mary Magdalene, in Venice and Rome during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, pertaining to the reform of prostitution. Although the Magdalene has a rich history in Christian tradition and art, my examination focuses on images of the Penitent Magdalene, both alone and in a group, related to the campaign against prostitution in early modern Italy. Images discussed in this dissertation include: Religious chapbooks dedicated to the subject of the Conversion of the Magdalene (Figs. 1, 2), analyzed in conjunction to their secular counterparts, prints and moralizing broadsheets dedicated to the Lives and Miserable Ends of Prostitutes (Fig. 3); Carlo Caliariʼs Madonna and Child, Saint Mary Magdalene and Convertite for the Venetian Casa del Soccorso (Fig. 4), examined in opposition to Gaulliʼs frescoes at the Casa Marta in Rome (Fig. 5) and Guliegmo Corteseʼs Christ in the House of Mary and Martha (Fig. 6); and two prominent versions of Titianʼs Penitent Magdalene created for Vittoria Colonna and Cardinal Federico Borromeo (Figs. 7, 8). The cities of Venice and Rome are the focus of my analysis, representing in microcosm the Italian peninsula and efforts to reform prostitution there through the use of Magdalene imagery. The approach of my dissertation emphasizes a range of patronage, including the open market, corporations, and influential individuals. My purpose in this dissertation is to present a comprehensive study of the complex purposing of the Magdaleneʼs image as a religious model and a social model for the reformation of prostitution in Venice and Rome from 1500 to 1700. The years 1500 and 1700 are the parameters of this investigation, coinciding with the introduction of syphilis in the early sixteenth century and the incarceration of prostitutes at the end of the seventeenth century. It is my conclusion in this dissertation that Magdalene imagery in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries can be inextricably linked to prostitution reform, and that the images presented in this study were created in order to persuade, reinforce, and assist the intended viewer to participate in the popular campaign to decrease prostitution in early modern Venice and Rome.
Advisors/Committee Members: Olszewski, Edward.
Subjects: Art History
Keywords: Mary Magdalene, prostitution reform, chapbooks, convents, courtesan, meretrice
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8.
Kiefer, Geraldine Wojno.
Alfred Stieglitz and science, 1880-1910.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 1990, Case Western Reserve University
► Alfred Stieglitz’s interests and his activities, both creative and catalytic, in the…
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▼ Alfred Stieglitz’s interests and his activities, both creative and catalytic, in the field of early twentieth century American art have already been documented and analyzed, but his equally important status as a photographic chemist and philosopher of science has not yet been given its due. Stieglitz’s formative years, c. 1880-1900, straddled a period of intense discovery and theoretical formulation in the sciences. A student of chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann and physiologists Emil du Bois-Reymond and Hermann von Helmholtz in Berlin, during this period Stieglitz was also an independent reader in the physical, physiological, and biological sciences. His grasp of empiricist perceptual theory and empirio-criticism (a late nineteenth century philosophy, associated with the physicist Ernst Mach, that criticized the narrowness of empiricism when not integrated into original structures of thought) reveals that he was not a dilettante but was cognizant of key developments and figures in the history and philosophy of science. Stieglitz’s drive to excel as both a laboratory technician and proponent of Wissenschaftideologie, an ethical ideal of research fostered by German academic scientists, shows that his was a philosophy of impassioned research and discovery. His well-known intense preoccupation with his own internal drives and with sensation in general takes on new significance in light of experimental ideas that were “in the air” and known to his scientific colleagues, particularly progressive and experimental psychologists. Stieglitz formed a part of this avant-garde movement, verifying his own conclusions in the Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession – his “experiment station” also called “291” – as well as in his own photographs from c. 1890 to 1910. It is from this scientific rather than strictly aesthetic vantage point that Stieglitz’s early career will be chronologically and thematically assessed. Although esoteric and speculative concerns are treated in this study, its intent is to clarify an issue in turn-of-the-century thought, not to muddy it. Such a multi-disciplinary approach is appropriate for scholarship related to this period in American art and criticism, justifiable because of the artistic, scientific and philosophical bent of some of its greatest minds, including Alfred Stieglitz.
Advisors/Committee Members: Landau, Ellen G.
Keywords: Alfred Stieglitz science 1880-1910
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9.
Lippert, Ellen J.
George Ohr in His Nineteenth Century Context: The Mad Potter Reconsidered.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 2008, Case Western Reserve University
► George Ohr (1856-1917) was regarded as an eccentric in his lifetime but…
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▼ George Ohr (1856-1917) was regarded as an eccentric in his lifetime but has emerged as a major figure in American art since the discovery, in 1965, of thousands of examples of his work. Since that date research on Ohr has increased exponentially as has his cult figure status. Scholars and collectors alike are attracted to his manipulated and deformed pots as much as to his eccentric personality and legendary rediscovery. As a result Ohr has come to be canonized as a prophetic and mythical figure untouched by late nineteenth century societal and cultural concerns of both Biloxi, Mississippi and the United States. Ohr's career (1880-1908) was coincident with the last quarter of the nineteenth century, which was a time of cultural, social and spiritual upheaval. This dissertation examines specific issues of this time period with which Ohr would have been involved. In response to the development of new forms of advertising and visual display some artists created personas which would attract attention to their work. James McNeill Whistler and Elbert Hubbard are apt examples. Ohr also adopted this strategy and portrayed himself as an eccentric, uneducated, and uncultivated potter. Ohr's persona was specifically fashioned to establish himself as a Southern character in order to appeal to his dominant Northern client base. Also in response to a changing economy which had enabled individuals to claim vast accumulations of wealth over a short period of time, Ohr seemed to have embraced the notion of socialism and the importance of the individual. Ohr was particular attracted to this humanitarian side of socialism. Related to this idea is the somewhat subversive empowerment of the grotesque popularized by the Symbolists and such writers as J.K. Huysmans and Oscar Wilde. Ohr's highly individualized pots, I assert, are abstractions of abject nature. His forms, of which he proclaimed there were "no two alike," appear to ooze and melt with glazes that suggest bodily fluids, disease and decay. After studying the ways in which Ohr related to specific issues of his nineteenth-century milieu, this dissertation uses these conclusions to provide a new interpretation of Ohr's art. Rather than viewing his works as purely formalist, his pots become expressions of his sensitivity to underlying tensions of late nineteenth and early twentieth century culture. His art explored very similar, essentially parallel themes to those of his life: the divide between crude craft and "real art," between the salable commercial commodity and the priceless work of art, between the common or low-class and the refined, between the ugly and deformed (or even the obscene) and the beautiful.
Advisors/Committee Members: Adams, Henry.
Subjects: American history; American studies; Art History
Keywords: George Ohr; Biloxi; Mad Potter; Gilded Age
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10.
Morford, Michael David.
CARVING FOR A FUTURE: BACCIO BANDINELLI SECURING MEDICI PATRONAGE THROUGH HIS MUTUALLY FULFILLING AND PROPAGANDISTIC “HERCULES AND CACUS”.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 2009, Case Western Reserve University
► CARVING FOR A FUTURE: BACCIO BANDINELLI SECURING MEDICI PATRONAGE THROUGH HIS MUTUALLY…
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▼ CARVING FOR A FUTURE: BACCIO BANDINELLI SECURING MEDICI PATRONAGE THROUGH HIS MUTUALLY FULFILLING AND PROPAGANDISTIC “HERCULES AND CACUS”Abstract by MICHAEL DAVID MORFORD Baccio Bandinelli’s Hercules and Cacus was a tool used by both the patron and artist to fulfill their own personal goals. For the Medici, the colossus was to be a statement (and warning) of their renewed power in Florence, as well as developing the idea that Florence was the “New Rome” due to Medici rule. For Bandinelli, it was proof of his undying loyalty to the Medici, and an acknowledgement that his style would provide the Medici with the proper voice with which to display their new power. My own goals are to provide not the usual Vasari or Cellini based critical analysis (favored by most scholars and writers since the sixteenth century), but a new interpretation of the moment depicted by Bandinelli for this Virgilian narrative. The political significance of my interpretation for the sculpture helps to understand how this marble directly led to further Medici patronage. To substantiate my interpretation, I consider Bandinelli’s own drastic changes throughout the preparatory process, his sources and influences, and other contemporary Medici projects. The significance of his use and understanding of classical influences over the Michelangelesque to create his own “Bandinellesque” style enforces the need for my re-evaluation since most critiques rely on what I perceive as a false assumption that Bandinelli’s goal was to mimic Michelangelo.
Advisors/Committee Members: Olszewski, Edward.
Subjects: Art History
Keywords: Baccio Bandinelli, Hercules, Cacus, patronage, Florence, sculpture, Medici
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11.
Morris, Anthony J.
The Censored Paintings of Paul Cadmus, 1934-1940: the body as the boundary between the decent and obscene.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 2010, Case Western Reserve University
► American painter Paul Cadmus was censored five times between 1934 and 1940.…
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▼ American painter Paul Cadmus was censored five times between 1934 and 1940. His most famous censored painting is The Fleet’s In! which the Assistant Secretary of the Navy removed from an exhibition in Washington, DC, but four other paintings were censored in some fashion as well: Coney Island, Aspects of Suburban Life, Sailors and Floozies, and The Herrin Massacre. While there is much scholarship written about The Fleet’s In!, the remaining censored paintings have received only cursory attention. This dissertation examines not only The Fleet’s In! but also these under-researched paintings to more completely define what angered people at the time. Because Cadmus was a homosexual and he often represented gay characters, in recent decades his work has appealed to queer historians and theorists, who have focused on the homosexual aspect of his work. These historians have argued a causal relationship between Cadmus’s censorship and his representation of homosexual figures. But this dissertation questions the completeness of such a history. Because homosexuality could not be openly discussed in this period, contemporary viewers may well have missed many of the homosexual references in Cadmus’s work. Studying The Fleet’s In! in conjunction with the other paintings in their broader cultural contexts demonstrates that homosexuality was largely invisible at the time. Viewers clearly recognized that something was amiss, but focused on the artist’s representation of alcohol, promiscuous women, and what seemed to be unsympathetic depictions of the working class. Overall, what seemed to disturb viewers was the unconventional social critique found in Cadmus’s paintings. As opposed to traditional satire in which unpalatable figures face terrible consequences, Cadmus employed what Mikhail Bakhtin called the “carnivalesque.” This controversial form of satire was based on Medieval festivals in which the conventions of society were temporarily halted. Cadmus’s compositions stand in opposition to traditional morality, without consequence and were therefore scandalous in the 1930s.
Advisors/Committee Members: Adams, Henry.
Subjects: Art History
Keywords: Paul Cadmus; censorship; american art; the fleet's in; coney island; aspects of suburban life; sailors and floozies; herrin massacre
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12.
Porter, Mary Allen.
The draftsmanship of Jacopo Chimenti da Empoli.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 1995, Case Western Reserve University
► This study examines the draftsmanship of Jacopo Chimenti da Empoli (1551-1640). As…
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▼ This study examines the draftsmanship of Jacopo Chimenti da Empoli (1551-1640). As an artist working during the years of the Counter Reformation, Empoli's drawings and paintings reflect his awareness and response to the dictates of the Council of Trent as interpreted by Charles Borromeo. Adhering to the Tridentine decrees relevant to church decoration, Jacopo created simple compositional arrangements portraying devotional themes easily understood by the populace. Rejecting the intellectual and decorative artifices of the High Maniera, and, following the artistic reforms of Santi di Tito, Empoli fervently studied the figure from life. His drawings are characterized by a pronounced linearity articulating the contours of the human form. His studies of the nude figure reveal little anatomical definition while aggressive strokes of chalk describe the volumetric form of the figure. Empoli's practice of tinting the surface of the paper with colored washes was singular among his contemporaries and a hallmark of his graphic style.
Advisors/Committee Members: Olszewski, Edward J.
Subjects: Art History
Keywords: Jacopo Chimenti da Empoli, draftsman; Counter Reformation
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13.
Rarick, Holly Marguerite.
Pinturicchio's Saint Bernardino of Siena frescoes in the Bufalini Chapel, S. Maria in Aracoeli, Rome: An Observant Franciscan commentary of the late fifteenth century.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 1990, Case Western Reserve University
► This dissertation explores the early career of the fifteenth century painter Bernardino…
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▼ This dissertation explores the early career of the fifteenth century painter Bernardino di Betti, called Pinturicchio, focusing on his earliest project as an independent master: the fresco series illustrating the life of San Bernardino of Siena in the Bufalini Chapel, Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Rome. The dissertation proposes a new theory for an earlier dating of this first project and explores relationships among patrons, ecclesiastics, and the papacy in Rome during the last quarter of the fifteenth century. It begins with a survey of Perugian painting in the Trecento and Quattrocento to assess its influence on Pinturicchio's early style, than investigates Pinturicchio's contributions to the Sistine Chapel frescoes created between 1479 and 1483. Information on the patrons of the chapel in the Church of the Aracoeli, the Bufalini family, provides the basis for a new framework for dating this fresco cycle in the early 1480s rather than the mid-1480s as is commonly accepted today. This new chronology for the Bufalini Chapel frescoes is further supported by an investigation of the relationship between the imagery in the chapel and the political controversies raging between the Observa nt Franciscan brothers of the Aracoeli and the Conventual Franciscan papacy of Sixtus IV, which ended with that pontiff's death in 1484. Instead of a series of random historical events pertaining to the Franciscan order, the Bufalini Chapel is revealed as a coherent program with a pro-Observant message.
Advisors/Committee Members: Olszewski, Edward J.
Keywords: Pinturicchio Saint Bernardino Siena frescoes Bufalini Chapel S. Maria Aracoeli Rome Franciscan fifteenth century
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14.
Sbisa', Tiziana.
The Cathedral at Nicosia in the Age of Frederick II and Louis IX: Issues of Patronage, Structure, and Meaning.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 2009, Case Western Reserve University
► This dissertation provides a new perspective in understanding the patronage, structure, and…
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▼ This dissertation provides a new perspective in understanding the patronage, structure, and meaning of the Cathedral at Nicosia. It undertakes a wider review than has hitherto been undertaken of the cultural and historical context of the Cathedral in the age of Frederick II and Louis IX and approaches the topic from an interdisciplinary perspective. Through a reconsideration of documentary evidence and the reexamination of the Cathedral’s relationship to the kingdom of Cyprus, this study questions the prevailing scholarly assumption of the importance of ecclesiastical patronage and presents material evidence about the lay patronage of the Cathedral.Until now the Cathedral has been much discussed in the context of French Gothic architecture. This dissertation instead highlights the way in which the kings of Cyprus drew upon or even appropriated local Eastern Mediterranean architectural models. In particular, it suggests that the elaboration of the Cathedral’s plan was a consistent attempt to revive early Christianity and had an intrinsic capacity to emphasize continuity between early Christian and medieval Cyprus. Furthermore, the research presented here seeks to demonstrate that the Cathedral communicated a message of power and authority and that much of its meaning derives from being a funerary shrine. Finally, the liturgical program of the Cathedral proves that the rituals and relics were intended to solidify the authority of the kings over the island and to promote a peaceful modus vivendi between the Latin and Greek communities.
Advisors/Committee Members: Burroughs, Charles.
Subjects: Art History
Keywords: Cathedral Nicosia; Medieval Cyprus; Crusades; Frederick II; Louis IX
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15.
Thomas, Cathy Ann.
Domenico Cresti, Il Passignano (1559-1638), and the Roman Rinascità: Studies in his religious paintings for Rome between 1589 and 1616.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 1995, Case Western Reserve University
► This project examines Passignano’s major Roman commissions as a corpus that deals…
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▼ This project examines Passignano’s major Roman commissions as a corpus that deals with the central issues of Roman Catholic faith and tradition. These works merit examination because they underscore the Tridentine dicta in Rome. This study investigates Passignano’s special reform style of painting to identify new stylistic precedents, contemporary associations, and influences, as well as to investigate iconographical issues in the context of early Seicento Rome. Domenico Cresti (1559-1638), called Il Passignano, studied with the students of Vasari, Girolamo Macchietti and Giovan Battista Naldini. When Federico Zuccaro came to Florence, Passignano joined his studio. In 1580, Passignano traveled to Rome with Zuccaro, and in 1581 he went with him to Venice, where he remained for the rest of the decade. The influence of late sixteenth century Venetian painting and sculpture had a strong impact on his style. In the 1590s, Passignano produced many works for the Florentine nobility and Tuscan churches. According to Baldinucci, Passignano and Santi di Tito obtained most of the commissions in Tuscany in these years. During this period, Passignano became a member of the Accademia del Disegno. His reputation helped to bring him back to Rome in 1602, when he was summoned to execute an altarpiece in San Pietro. The success of this work brought him many important Roman commissions, including the decoration of the Barberini family chapel in Sant’Andrea della Valle for the rising star, Cardinal Maffeo Barberini – later Pope Urban VIII.
Advisors/Committee Members: Olszewski, Edward J.
Keywords: Domenico Cresti
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16.
Ulak, James Thomas.
Fukutomi zoshi: The genesis and transmutations of a medieval Japanese scatological tale.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 1994, Case Western Reserve University
► The Fukutomi zoshi is a medieval Japanese illustrated narrative painting which recounts…
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▼ The Fukutomi zoshi is a medieval Japanese illustrated narrative painting which recounts the folly of competing neighbors in their efforts to perfect the art of musical farting. This dissertation proposes that the Shumpo-in (Kyoto) version of the scroll, the oldest complete version, was produced during the second or third decade of the fifteenth century and bears the calligraphy of Gosuko-in, noted courtier and connoisseur. In a comparative analysis with the virtually contemporary but incomplete Cleveland Museum of Art version, the story is demonstrated to be both a general wry observation of social disarray caused by the upward mobility of the lower classes in Muromachi society as well as a specific satire aimed at the playwright and theorist, Zeami.
Advisors/Committee Members: Lee, Sherman E.
Subjects: Art History
Keywords: Fukutomi zoshi genesis transmutations medieval Japanese scatological tale
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17.
Watkins, Catherine Bailey.
Rembrandt's 1654 Life of Christ Prints: Graphic Chiaroscuro, the Northern Print Tradition, and the Question of Series.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 2011, Case Western Reserve University
► This dissertation examines four New Testament prints by Dutch artist Rembrandt van…
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▼ This dissertation examines four New Testament prints by Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn from about 1654: the Presentation in the Temple, Descent from the Cross by Torchlight, Entombment, and Christ at Emmaus. These prints have occasionally been discussed as a stylistically and thematically related group because of their similar size, vertical format, expressive use of light, and narrative subject matter. This dissertation explores how Rembrandt’s use of dramatic chiaroscuro and technical experimentation with printmaking inform our understanding of these four prints. Further, this dissertation investigates the relationship of these four prints to Rembrandt’s oeuvre, the Northern print tradition, and one another, exploring the question of whether these images constitute a series.
Advisors/Committee Members: Scallen, Catherine.
Subjects: Art History
Keywords: Rembrandt; prints; Northern print; chiaroscuro; impression; print series; Life of Christ; Presentation; Descent; Entombment; Emmaus
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18.
Wolken, Christine Chiorian.
Beauty, Power, Propaganda, and Celebration: Profiling Women in Sixteenth-Century Italian Commemorative Medals.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 2012, Case Western Reserve University
► In the sixteenth-century, commemorative medals served as some of the most popular…
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▼ In the sixteenth-century, commemorative medals served as some of the most popular objects depicting the ideas and ideals of men and, as I contend, women from Italy. This dissertation considers the personal, cultural, and social significance and function of a select group of medals depicting women in Italy from approximately 1550 to 1620. My examination of this sample group of medals of women can be used to construct a general understanding of the meaning and functions of medals of women in mid to late sixteenth-century Italy which signify the themes and subjects of beauty and chastity, power and propaganda, and the celebration of women as vital members of the Renaissance family as well as individuals in their own right. I further assert that the text and images depicted on the medals both reinforces and contradicts the prescribed behaviors expected of women during this period. All of the medals examined in this dissertation were commissioned by men, but as I explain, many of the women who appear on them most likely took an active role in their own self-fashioning which is reflected in the meaning of the medals.
Advisors/Committee Members: Olszewski, Edward.
Subjects: Art History
Keywords: sixteenth-century medals; Renaissance women; Renaissance medals
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19.
Woodall, Dena Marie.
SHARING SPACE: DOUBLE PORTRAITURE IN RENAISSANCE ITALY.
Degree: PhD, Art History, 2008, Case Western Reserve University
► My dissertation is a comprehensive study of a neglected aspect of Italian…
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▼ My dissertation is a comprehensive study of a neglected aspect of Italian Renaissance art, the double portrait, as a document of Italian Renaissance life. I define the "double portrait" as a work in which two adults are represented for a secular purpose within the same frame. This is the first systematic study of the double portrait in scholarship on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian art. The previous lack of attention to this topic is due in part to the comparative rarity of this portrait type. However, my research indicates that this type exists in sufficient number to offer an understanding of broader societal trends. The interactive dialogue between the two sitters in a double portrait is not only a visual representation of individuals but re-presents a type of cultural exchange within the picture plane. In other words, double portraits embody issues related to late fifteenth- and sixteenth-century society and artistic production. The minimal literature on Italian double portraiture focuses either on a single double portrait or on one particular artist's oeuvre. This close study of double portraiture in Italy questions what the genre can tell us about the general nature of Italian portraiture and the societal constructs of Renaissance Italy. I bring a thematic approach to the subject. By focusing on adult relationships of individuals with similar social status, I analyze themes of marriage, love and allegory, friendship, and commemoration. Because double portraits present a nexus of two individuals at a specific time for different situations, my study encompasses nuanced examinations of the genre in light of gender roles, same sex interpersonal relationships, economic status, and societal rank, among other cultural issues. In my study, the double portrait is shown to be a singularly revealing document of Renaissance courtly life.
Advisors/Committee Members: Olszewski, Edward.
Subjects: Art History
Keywords: Renaissance; Double Portraiture; Italy; Marriage; Friendship; Lovers; Commemoration; Role-playing
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