Georges de La Tour : the Status of Scholarship

Seventeenth-century French painter, Georges de La Tour, was a forgotten artist. His rediscovery in the nineteenth century set off a firestorm of research and a hunt to find more works by the artist. One problem after another arose as scholars attempted to define the artist by his works, his style, and the remnants of his personal history. There remains a volume of contradictory reports, authentication issues, and new scientific techniques which continue to influence study on the artist.

Modern Classics : Andy Warhol and the Renaissance Masters

"This paper explores Warhol’s final and largest series entitled the Last Supper series in which the artist appropriated the work of Leonardo da Vinci’s original fifteenth century painting, replicating the image through repetition, radical cropping, and washes of neon color. While many scholars conclude this group of works is inspired by Warhol’s religious beliefs, others interpret these paintings as typical Warhol appropriation without religious association, but consistent with the artist’s interest in the cultural commodity of famous images"

The execution of the mural arts of the West

"This thesis describes and explains the execution of the casein mural, 'Arts of the West'. The artist's project was to prepare a casein mural for the Pioneer Room of the New Student Union at the University of Denver."

Influences of psychological and experiential processes in paintings of Sheila Sobol

"For a number of artists, the activity of making. art is an inquiry into: the nature of art, the true nature of reality, and the execution of artistic ideas. This inquiry ·is benefited by recognizing psychological processes and theories, subjectl.ve and external experiences, and technical and aesthetic knowledge. The "creative process" contains this inquiry and can be likened to a hinge which connects the art produced and the artist"

The energy of Beverly Rosen artist, professor, risk taker

"This paper takes a look at Beverly Rosen’s artistic work, providing an overview of the various periods and styles she explored, while introducing new details and expanding established interpretations of her work. It is an attempt at documenting Rosen’s many activities in addition to her personal art and professional development. Special attention is given to exhibitions and programming held at Rosen’s gallery, St. Charles on Wazee"

An Independent Art Movement: The Independent Artist, Community Television, and the Age of Information

The history of community television shows that it has been a home to activist and non-profit organizations that have created programs focused on freedom of speech. This project proposes that community television is also a place where artists can have freedom of artistic expression. The reflective paper reviews the creation of my film designed to inform and attract artists to community television. In it I critically reflect on the artistic, technical, artistic/technical, and production changes made throughout my journey from being a visual artist to becoming a video-artist. The reflective paper, along with the film, act as a wake-up call to artists who are unaware of community television and the advantages it has to offer them.

On Becoming a Working Visual Artist: Opportunities and Challenges Along the Path

Thousands of students graduate from colleges and art schools every year with the goal of becoming working visual artists. The majority of them, however, find that earning a living as a working artist is a tough and competitive career path. This Capstone Project, through an extensive literature review and interviews, examines the factors and characteristics that influence whether an individual will make the leap to becoming a working visual artist. Research results indicate that primary factors in achieving the status of working visual artists include specific personality traits, experiential and career-oriented arts education, and development of strong business skills.

Representational Subversions and the Limits of Postcoloniality: Shahzia Sikander's Strategic Contemporaneity

Transnational artist Shahzia Sikander challenges the limitations of Edward Said's postcolonial emphasis on secular humanism by deploying the heterogeneous traditions of South Asian miniature painting while strategically drawing on tradition to critique contemporaneity. Through a palimpsest process of composition, Sikander reincorporates the unknown and silenced histories implicit in the tradition of miniature painting to create social imaginaries with motifs that draw on the diverse traditions of South Asian religions and aesthetics to create a subversive politics of remembering wherein alternative images of cosmopolitanism emerge. Through a sustained analysis, this dissertation demonstrates how these alternative traditions interrogate and critique the limitations of postcolonial theory. Particularly important to this critique are some recent approaches of Third World feminists that highlight the limitations of secular humanism implicit in much of postcolonial critique. Sikander's compositions mirror these approaches as her motifs of the feminine become an intervention into the spiritual emptiness and ethical confusions of contemporaneity. In effect, Sikander's work is an intervention, a warning, and a plea for the re-invention of positive alternatives as her images embody and facilitate a critical and daring consciousness that is necessary to both our social and spiritual well-being.

Maddening the Minotaur : Dora Maar'a power over Pablo Picasso

Dora Maar is primarily viewed as Pablo Picasso’s mistress and muse in art historical scholarship, and scholars frequently analyze her work in terms of its evolution as a consequence of her relationship with Pablo Picasso, therefore asserting the power Picasso had over Maar. Through comparative analysis and socio-historical investigation, I assert that Maar’s strong personality, political awareness, and artistic vision profoundly influenced Picasso during the Spanish Civil War and World War II.

Lonnie Holley exploration and analysis of his artworks in two settings : the yard and the museum

The contemporary artist, Lonnie Holley, creates assemblage sculptures using found objects that he then places in his multi-layered yard art environment. With the rise in prestige of folk art, many art galleries and museums have displayed the works of Holley, removing them from the yard art environment and placing them in the gallery setting. This paper addresses how meaning changes when the context of Holley’s artworks changes.