▼ The artists of the Baroque, rejecting the traditional conception of Sebastian, portray the formerly invincible saint as wounded, suffering, no longer victoriously partaking of the fruits of his glorious martyrdom, but being found and cared for by Irene, the widow of the Christian martyr Castulus. Such a change in iconography involves both a shift of the outward and visible as well as the intrinsic content of the pictorial matter. the significance of this thematic revolution has often been overlooked because it parallels the stylistic developments of the age, which, until recently, have captured more fully the imagination of art historians. Therefore, it is the purpose of this paper to deal specifically with this iconographic change which involves the portrayal of the moment when the saint is found and cared for by Irene. Advisors/Committee Members: Stechow, Wolfgang.

▼ This study is based on interviews with the painters, the limited literature which has been published in English or Chinese on art topics in Taiwan, and mainly on the study of the works in the painters' studios and at exhibitions. Basic to such an investigation are certain questions regarding the relation of these young artists to traditional Chinese painting: on what basis can these painters be aligned with Chinese tradition; is it not possible that they are so influenced by the western 'isms' that they should simply be called Chinese who paint western style pictures; is it necessary to make such distinctions on cultural lines; is there agreement that certain qualities are inherently Chinese? There is no agreement among the painters themselves or their critics about the issue of whether they can legitimately claim to be the rejuvenators of Chinese painting. To some the desire to be accepted as contemporary and Chinese is the major goal; to others it is a meaningless debate for the literary magazines and should be kept out of any criticism of their work, which they believe is valid and strong no matter how it is labeled. The latter feel that they themselves are Chinese, so of course, their painting is Chinese painting. Another equally complex problem we must try to come to grips with in this study is western influence. The sociological factors of western influence should be distinguished from purely art influences. The problem concerns what has happened since a culture with a tradition of thousands of years has felt the impact of western ways. Today the contact has been deepened to the point of dependence. Ideally, since my thesis is that western influence has been a constructive one in Taiwan, the same kind of study should be done on the influence of western-rooted Communism on the Mainland of China. Since it is impossible to move freely on the Mainland, we can only examine those publications and reproductions of contemporary painting which the Mainland authorities allow to be sold in Hong Kong bookstores and try to piece together general trends which can be compared with the Taiwan study. Advisors/Committee Members: Arnold, Paul.

▼ At the beginning of the last decade of the nineteenth century, amidst lively experimentation in the graphic arts, there emerged in Paris an artist whose striking woodcuts soon brought him the recognition and the esteem of his contemporaries . Félix Vallotton's woodcuts represented to many a uniquely modern application of the venerable technique of printing from a carved block of wood . Within a year of his first experiments in the medium, Vallotton was highly praised in print by Octave Uzanne in an article entitled "La Renaissance de la gravure sur bois : un néoxylographe" as the progressive figure in the field. Vallotton (1865-1925) was not the first artist to revive the practice of carving in the side grain of the woodblock. instead of in the endwood,as professional wood engravers had been for years; a revival of sorts of the technique by artists was already underway by 1891 when Vallotton cut his first blocks. However, he quickly developed a personal style . sensitive to the inherent character of the technique, based on broad areas of pure black and white, and produced some of the most original woodcut prints of the period. His break with convention and with those contemporaries who were also experimenting with woodcut was dramatic enough to earn him Raymond Bouyer's praise, in 1899, as the "Robespierre" of a woodcut revolution. Advisors/Committee Members:  .

▼ The character of this thesis has been controlled to a great extent by the material which has been available to me. My original intention had been to recreate a picture of the life in court during Federigo da Montefeltro's rule, to describe the fabric of the building, its decorations and furnishings and the people who frequent it. I found, however, after I had begun my research that much of the material which I needed was either non-existent or unavailable. In the following chapters I have tried to bring out the important role which the court of Urbino played in the artistic life of Italy during Federigo's rule and the succeeding period. To devote one chapter out of five to the architect of the palace may seem to be giving undo emphasis to a minor matter. However, in the course of my work I found that little had been written about Luciano Laurana and that his importance in the formation of the style of High Renaissance architecture has been scarcely recognized. Advisors/Committee Members: Ward, Clarence.