Cover to be unveiled : how meaning is revealed with sheer veils in paintings by Lucas Cranach The Elder

While scholars have questioned the meaning of Lucas Cranach the Elder’s sheer veils when associated with sensual nude figures, research about sheer veils adorning women in a religious context in his paintings has not yet been developed. Through a primarily iconographical approach, I explore who dons each type of veil, and when, to better understand why the same sheer veil is worn differently by various individuals and what that could mean relative to Cranach’s body of work. These veils exhibit artistic prowess, but analysis of their placement on individual figures also reveals how Cranach’s repeated use of sheer veils in his paintings trains the eye on underlying messages, unlocking meanings of these works for Cranach and his patrons and broader themes present in sixteenth century visual culture. My paper initiates this important discussion about how sheer veils – often overlooked in Cranach’s works – are used in both religious and secular contexts.

Japanese virtual communication survey : a brief analysis of contemporary graphic designers from Japan

To research graphic design in a globalized context it is primordial to consider cultural, social, historical and even anthropological studies to fully understand the aesthetics’ choices made by the designer’s. Being the “Japanese graphic design” a topic still to be better understand in the West, it is mandatory to gather information from primary sources. These data will be analyzed with support of secondary sources of information about Japanese visual communication, social and cultural studies. This paper presents comments about the result of a survey applied to 105 Japanese graphic designers. The survey was designed with 44 questions. The original survey, to better follow this report can be found in www.studiohobo.com/CONVERGENCIAS/Flavio_Hobo_Survey.pdf

O insustentável desejo da memória : incursões na fotografia de teatro em Portugal (1868-1974)

Tese de doutoramento, Estudos Artísticos (Estudos de Teatro), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Letras, 2016

Oase: Tijdschrift voor Architectuur = Oase: Architecture Journal

In recent years, both architectural historiography and architectural design practice have been characterized by significant shifts. These new perspectives and methodologies did not merely bring about internal changes, but also called into question the boundaries and relations between the two disciplines. This issue of OASE investigates the impact of these changes for both disciplines in a series of dialogues between historians, architects, designers and photographers, exploring themes such as the everyday, the landscape, heritage and visual culture.

NARRATIVAS AUDIOVISUAIS NO PIAUI: Cultura e Sociedade na Linguagem do Cinema Universidade Metodista de São Paulo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Comunicação Social São Bernardo

O trabalho propõe uma investigação sobre a produção audiovisual piauiense, buscando entender como são negociadas as questões culturais e as especificidades das narrativas apresentadas no desenvolvimento histórico da cultura visual piauiense. Analisa-se, assim, as questões discursivas, imagéticas e tecnológicas que abordam aquela realidade cultural influenciada pelas vanguardas cinematográficas brasileiras, no caso o cinema novo e o cinema marginal. A pesquisa tem como corpus as produções superoitistas feitas a partir de 1972 até meados 1985, quando se encerra um segundo ciclo cinematográfico. Este estudo, de natureza qualitativa, emprega pesquisa bibliográfica e documental, com apoio em entrevistas e análise de documentos da época para o estudo das narrativas apresentadas pelas produções audiovisuais. Leva-se em consideração a influência das questões social, política, tecnológica e econômica do Piauí na construção desses filmes. Conclui-se que as práticas culturais e os recursos tecnológicos constituem uma cultura visual que representa as angústias e críticas locais e traduzem a tipificação do sujeito no Piauí.

Écfrasis y Lecturas Icono-textuales en las "Leyendas" de Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

The relationship between literature and the visual arts is ancient and it has been studied from different conceptual frames. Scholars agree that both have a descriptive function and therefore share the common goal of portraying a fictional or nonfictional reality. Based on this correspondence between two different modes of artistic expression, the Roman poet Horace coined the well-known simile ut pictura poesis --as is painting so is in poetry-- which in turn functions as the theoretical underpinning of ekphrasis, a rhetorical device through which one medium of art tries to describe the essence and form of another medium of art, with the purpose of enhancing the original work described. Spanish post-romantic poet and writer Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870) mastered this rhetorical strategy by expertly weaving all of his artistic interests into his prose. The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze how Bécquer makes his readers both see and hear through his prose. My semiotic research encompasses the various forms of ekphrasis used by Bécquer in the “Leyendas”. It shows how both images and symbols produce in readers sensory experiences that enhance their role as active participants in the creation of meaning. Thus, Bécquer´s prose is like a painting which not only tells a story, but also reflects reality through the eyes of the reader’s imagination. By using these ekphrastic strategies in his collection of short stories, Bécquer makes words, paintings, and music converge and collide with iconography, visual culture, and intertextuality. These components must be read, seen, heard, and understood to be more than just complementary to the text, but rather crucial elements, equal in importance to verbal expression. This analysis shows how Bécquer’s “Leyendas” not only tackle notions such as fantasy, figuration, and imagination, but also the importance of the reader´s gaze. Bécquer integrates processes such as imaginative action, iconization and visualization, into a semantic web whereby the reader creates his own particular hermeneutic image.

AS NARRATIVAS VISUAIS E RELIGIOSAS DO VALE DO AMANHECER

O Vale do Amanhecer é um movimento religioso genuinamente brasileiro que surgiu a partir da década de 1960 no Distrito Federal. A pesquisa tem como objetivo investigar a cultura visual religiosa do Vale do Amanhecer como elemento-chave da sua interpretação e construção da sua narrativa religiosa pós-moderna. Parte-se da hipótese de que a sua iconografia enquanto se utiliza elementos da ficção científica representa uma forma nova e rara de se situar na contemporaneidade considerando aspectos da cosmologia do século XX, para construir uma narrativa religiosa adaptada. Como referencial teórico utilizamos a abordagem de Edgar Morin sobre a intersecção de cinema e imaginário, a reflexão de Joseph Campbell como modelo da jornada do herói ou monomito. Como metodologia propõem-se partir da proposta por Gillian Rose para a interpretação da cultura visual. Espera-se evidenciar a importância das narrativas literárias espíritas e cinematográficas de ficção científica na constituição da narrativa pictórica do Vale do Amanhecer e como isso transformou este movimento em um dos principais fenômenos religiosos que assuiram a nova cosmologia

Freedom of thought in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo attacks

Peer reviewed

Study protocol of European Fans in Training (EuroFIT) : a four-country randomised controlled trial of a lifestyle program for men delivered in elite football clubs

Funding The EuroFIT study is funded by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program for research technological development and demonstration under Grant Agreement no: 602170. The Health Services Research Unit, University of Aberdeen, is core funded by the Chief Scientist Office of the Scottish Government Health Directorates.

Orpheus and Eurydice in the Middle Books of The Faerie Queene

Peer reviewed

"Living So Far From Words" : Intertextuality, Trauma and the Post-Shoah World of Medbh McGuckian’s Blaris Moor

Peer reviewed

O ensino de arte pós-moderno na arte de Daniel Francisco de Souza

This thesis presents a research that links cultural history and visual culture in a sociobiographical approach. It gives a “political treatment” to the educational experience in the transition of art teaching from the modern to the postmodern. By taking into account my experiences as an educator and the poetic practice in Daniel Francisco de Souza’s visual art, I propose a dialogue with his art and a series of visual narratives this artist/student produced at the time of his education and recently. Such visual narratives were taken as research source and research subject. They were created in a rural setting in dialogue with formal art teaching in two phases: 1992–6, when Daniel Fran cisco attended elementary school in the rural area of Uberlândia, MG; and 2008–10, when he attended Visual Arts graduation at Federal University of Uberlândia city. I analyze historical processes related to art and teaching, from the early sixteenth century to the present times, to realize residues in students’ poetic experiences. I relate Brazilian educational public policies with experi- ences in that rural school. I try to show the extent to which our educational practices triggered experiences — from ones common to intense ones — and promoted forms of “emancipation-knowledge” or “regulation-knowledge” and how the “selective tradition” was and how art predetermined history images gave way to everyday visual references, pointing to the “broad field” of visual culture. I make an effort to show Daniel Francisco’s work as an adult by tak- ing it according to different approaches. In a poetic reading, first, I emphasixe the material and the symbolic in his art. In a second look, I approach his work through the intertwining experiences of three characters from different times and places that participated in the making of his art: the artist farmer, the artist teacher and the teacher researcher. I assume the existence of a mutual cultural incompleteness in these three characters; which means that parts of their “structures of feeling” built on the interrelationship among them are part of the artist’ work as a historical content decanted. Thirdly, I demonstrate how the artist sees his place as a key re ference to his poetic creation. His work does not reflect the rural bucolic as something untouched. In showing the difficulty in distinguishing the archaic residual, I identify emerging issues in his work. I conclude that the artist — Daniel Francisco — and the researcher — myself — present maverick features: both are scavengers; their productions approach the working with scraps in art and in the academy; even momentarily, they live in exile in the warmth of the borders or the edges, from where one sees the center clearly. In these spaces, when certain structures and normative codes enter into coalition, they fragment pre-established strategies and stimulate the creation of survival tactics.

Diversity, difference and nation: indigenous peoples on screen in Mexico

This paper draws on constructivist theories of identity that regard the self as, paradoxically, coming into existence through interaction with the other, to investigate the discursive formation of indigenous people in the forging of Mexican national identity. The aim of the essay is to show how difference has been managed and deployed in the establishment of national Mexican identities from independence until the present. This is done with reference to visual culture and film and illustrated with examples from the ‘Golden Age’ as well as ‘the New Mexican Cinema’.

Mount Carmel in the Commune: Promoting the Holy Land in Central Italy in the 13th and 14th Centuries

The Carmelite friars were the last of the major mendicant orders to be established in Italy. Originally an eremitical order, they arrived from the Holy Land in the 1240s, decades after other mendicant orders, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans, had constructed churches and cultivated patrons in the burgeoning urban centers of central Italy. In a religious market already saturated with friars, the Carmelites distinguished themselves by promoting their Holy Land provenance, eremitical values, and by developing an institutional history claiming to be descendants of the Old Testament prophet Elijah. By the end of the 13th century the order had constructed thriving churches and convents and leveraged itself into a prominent position in the religious community. My dissertation analyzes these early Carmelite churches and convents, as well as the friars’ interactions with patrons, civic governments, and the urban space they occupied. Through three primary case studies – the churches and convents of Pisa, Siena and Florence – I examine the Carmelites’ approach to art, architecture, and urban space as the order transformed its mission from one of solitary prayer to one of active ministry.

My central questions are these: To what degree did the Carmelites’ Holy Land provenance inform the art and architecture they created for their central Italian churches? And to what degree was their visual culture instead a reflection of the mendicant norms of the time?

I have sought to analyze the Carmelites at the institutional level, to determine how the order viewed itself and how it wanted its legacy to develop. I then seek to determine how and if the institutional model was utilized in the artistic and architectural production of the individual convents. The understanding of Carmelite art as a promotional tool for the identity of the order is not a new one, however my work is the first to consider deeply the order’s architectural aspirations. I also consider the order’s relationships with its de facto founding saint, the prophet Elijah, and its patron, the Virgin Mary, in a more comprehensive manner that situates the resultant visual culture into the contemporary theological and historical contexts.

Globalizing the Sculptural Landscapes of the Sarapis and Isis Cults in Hellenistic and Roman Greece

“Globalizing the Sculptural Landscape of Isis and Sarapis Cults in Roman Greece,” asks questions of cross-cultural exchange and viewership of sculptural assemblages set up in sanctuaries to the Egyptian gods. Focusing on cognitive dissonance, cultural imagining, and manipulations of time and space, I theorize ancient globalization as a set of loosely related processes that shifted a community's connections with place. My case studies range from the 3rd century BCE to the 2nd century CE, including sanctuaries at Rhodes, Thessaloniki, Dion, Marathon, Gortyna, and Delos. At these sites, devotees combined mainstream Greco-Roman sculptures, Egyptian imports, and locally produced imitations of Egyptian artifacts. In the last case, local sculptors represented Egyptian subjects with Greco-Roman naturalistic styles, creating an exoticized visual ideal that had both local and global resonance. My dissertation argues that the sculptural assemblages set up in Egyptian sanctuaries allowed each community to construct complex narratives about the nature of the Egyptian gods. Further, these images participated in a form of globalization that motivated local communities to adopt foreign gods and reinterpret them to suit local needs.

I begin my dissertation by examining how Isis and Sarapis were represented in Greece. My first chapter focuses on single statues of Egyptian gods, describing their iconographies and stylistic tendencies through examples from Corinth and Gortyna. By comparing Greek examples with images of Sarapis, Isis, and Harpokrates from around the Mediterranean, I demonstrate that Greek communities relied on globally available visual tropes rather than creating site or region-specific interpretations. In the next section, I examine what other sources viewers drew upon to inform their experiences of Egyptian sculpture. In Chapter 3, I survey the textual evidence for Isiac cult practice in Greece as a way to reconstruct devotees’ expectations of sculptures in sanctuary contexts. At the core of this analysis are Apuleius’ Metamorphoses and Plutarch’s De Iside et Osiride, which offer a Greek perspective on the cult’s theology. These literary works rely on a tradition of aretalogical inscriptions—long hymns produced from roughly the late 4th century B.C.E. into the 4th century C.E. that describe the expansive syncretistic powers of Isis, Sarapis, and Harpokrates. This chapter argues that the textual evidence suggests that devotees may have expected their images to be especially miraculous and likely to intervene on their behalf, particularly when involved in ritual activity inside the sanctuary.

In the final two chapters, I consider sculptural programs and ritual activity in concert with sanctuary architecture. My fourth chapter focuses on sanctuaries where large amounts of sculpture were found in underground water crypts: Thessaloniki and Rhodes. These groups of statues can be connected to a particular sanctuary space, but their precise display contexts are not known. By reading these images together, I argue that local communities used these globally available images to construct new interpretations of these gods, ones that explored the complex intersections of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman identities in a globalized Mediterranean. My final chapter explores the Egyptian sanctuary at Marathon, a site where exceptional preservation allows us to study how viewers would have experienced images in architectural space. Using the Isiac visuality established in Chapter 3, I reconstruct the viewer's experience, arguing that the patron, Herodes Atticus, intended his viewer to inform his experience with the complex theology of Middle Platonism and prevailing elite attitudes about Roman imperialism.

Throughout my dissertation, I diverge from traditional approaches to culture change that center on the concepts of Romanization and identity. In order to access local experiences of globalization, I examine viewership on a micro-scale. I argue that viewers brought their concerns about culture change into dialogue with elements of cult, social status, art, and text to create new interpretations of Roman sculpture sensitive to the challenges of a highly connected Mediterranean world. In turn, these transcultural perspectives motivated Isiac devotees to create assemblages that combined elements from multiple cultures. These expansive attitudes also inspired Isiac devotees to commission exoticized images that brought together disparate cultures and styles in an eclectic manner that mirrored the haphazard way that travel brought change to the Mediterranean world. My dissertation thus offers a more theoretically rigorous way of modeling culture change in antiquity that recognizes local communities’ agency in producing their cultural landscapes, reconciling some of the problems of scale that have plagued earlier approaches to provincial Roman art.

These case studies demonstrate that cultural anxieties played a key role in how viewers experienced artistic imagery in the Hellenistic and Roman Mediterranean. This dissertation thus offers a new component in our understanding of ancient visuality, and, in turn, a better way to analyze how local communities dealt with the rise of connectivity and globalization.