DOCSLIB.ORG

Clio-The Youngest of the Muses

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Clio-The Youngest of the Muses Rochester Institute of Technology RIT Scholar Works Theses 5-1-1998 Clio-The Youngest of the muses Denise Wellenstein Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.rit.edu/theses Recommended Citation Wellenstein, Denise, "Clio-The Youngest of the muses" (1998). Thesis. Rochester Institute of Technology. Accessed from This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by RIT Scholar Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of RIT Scholar Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Rochester I nstitute of Technology Clio-The Youngest of the Muses A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences in candidacy for the degree of Master of Fine Arts. by Denise Wellenstein May 1998 Approvals Chairperson: Patti Ambrogi Date 5---c--p---t Associate Advisor: Elliott Rubenstein Associate Advisor: Stephanie Maxwell Date ) J L 31-~=~:::.....----- Associate Advisor: Margaret Wagner Date___----jJ---l.--j_------ MFA Coordinator: Angela Kelly Date:__--J11...-1ng , (1 J'0 I, Denise Wellenstein, hereby grant permission to the Wallace Memorial Library of RIT to reproduce my thesis in whole or in part. Any reproduction will not be for commercial use or profit. Signature Date "To dance with one's own masterpiece represents the ultimate transference of creative energy, that narrow and frustrating art." barrier between life and -Leonard Mendelsohn, Toys in Literature1 INTRODUCTION It was not until I recently looked back at the work I have made in the past few years that I realized the common threads running through my first graduate projects culminating in thesis show "Clio Muses." my entitled, The Youngest of the My artistic process confronts the struggle to synthesize my different interests, my past experiences with the intuition and present, my imagination with logic and practicality, and ultimately my artistic self with all the other parts of my life. My work is inspired by my interest in Greek myths. I am driven by the challenge to incorporate the history, significance, and magical qualities of these stories into my work. Whether someone sees myth as real or fantasy, literal or allegorical, psychological, scientific, or spiritual, myth occupies a place in most people's minds. The fairy tales we hear as children are examples of stories whose significance sometimes evolve into the beliefs we adopt as adults to make sense of the world we live in. Contemporary culture has bred contemporary myths. Technology, including video and computers, is also a form of magic in many peo ple's lives. The way in which images are created and manipulated is often unseen (or behind-the-scene), and they are able to blur our understanding of reality. My work uses artistic illusions and technology to create a sense of wonder and to provoke the reconsideration of the role of myth and magic in our lives. My desire to make the photograph come to life through movement has been a part of my creative process since I began working with photography. Naturally, this led me to experiment with animation, film, and video. Video projection, black light, and miniature motorized elements are part of the technological magic featured in my thesis project, Clio The Youngest of the Muses. In my thesis work, I deal primarily with the character of the Muse from Greek mythology. I choose to accept the idea of the Muse into my own psyche as a part of myself and to recreate a personal definition for the Muse that works to empower myself as an artist. In this manner, I choose to reverse the position of the Muse as a product of patriar chal objectification of women. Literature," Leonard Mendelsohn, "Toys in in Sharing Literature with Children: A Thematic Anthology, 81-84; ed. Francelia Butler, (New York: David McKay, 1977). Quoted in Lois Rostow Kuznets, Wien Toys Come Alive: Narratives ofAnimation, 180. Metamorphosis, and Development (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1994), 0 E F O H I inc MlJSBS FROM A SARCOPHAOUS IN THE LOUVRE, Paris . >...<>. i,.. *.. ttlo. u. tultipe. Polyhymnia, f Cilllopt. 0. Ttrpslchore H urjnln. /. Mti^., THE MUSE In Greek mythology, there are nine Muses, daughters of Mnemosyne, or Memory, each of whom preside over a specific art or science. These Muses inspire2 artists and poets forgotten.3 with their mother's memories so that the past is not However, the more traditional concept of the Muse, emerging from the early Greek myths, is one of an ethereal female who gives inspiration and knowledge unconditionally to the male poet or artist. As the meaning of the word, Muse, changes with cultural influence, Memory, the mother of forgotten.4 the Muses, is The image of the Muse is personified as a female form used primarily by men for access to creativity. In Modernist art practice, the Muse had been reinvented as a mortal woman who provides constant encouragement and inspiration for the artist; usually a male; most often her lover or husband. Since the Romantic era, no other artistic period has used the image of the Muse so heavily as the Surrealist movement. This movement includes artists such as Man Ray, Diego Rivera, Max Ernst, and Andre Breton. Most of these men found the Muse outside themselves in real-life women: their lovers or friends who were artists themselves; Meret Oppenhiem, Leonora Carrington, and Frida Kahlo. The Surrealists were very interested in accessing artistic inspiration. Since feminine,5 inspiration is often related to the the Surrealists sought to access this world through the feminine aspect, the anima of Jungian psychology, which can also be seen as a kind of Muse who conveys the female qualities associated with thefemme-enfant. Qualities valued by the male Surrealists in their Muses were beauty, innocence, and 6 woman- intuition. These qualities embody what they called thefemme-enfant, or literally, child. Thefemme-infant, the immature woman, provided inspiration without the threat of 2 into" To inspire meaning, literally, "to breathe 3Mary K. DeShazer, Inspiring Women: Reimagining the Muse (Elmsford, New York: Permagon Press, 1986). 4Originally, the Muse was a triad, the Triple Goddess of Goddess religions. Unconscious," 5Carl G. Jung, "The Relations Between the Ego and the in Violet S. de Laszlo, ed., The Basis Writings ofC. G. Jung, (New York: The Modern Library, 1959), 158. Surrealism" 6 Gwen Raaburger, "The Problematics of Women and in Mary Ann Caws, ed., Surrealism and Women, 2 (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1990), 33. artistic competition. For if she were an immature woman, how could she produce mature works of art? Thefemme-enfant also embodied an insight and openness which was in tune with the subconscious, and the male Surrealists used her as a liaison between themselves and the magical, dreamy imagery of the subconscious world. These women occupied split both objectified women as roles, being Muse by the male artists and working artists in their own rights. Most of these women underwent a trying transitory period during which they integrated themselves as artists, women, and sources of their own inspiration. Through bodies,7 their self-portraits and art depicting their they integrated their inner (that of the personal and the psyche or subconscious) and outer (that of the physical, the persona, the self that others are welcome to see) realities, which have historically tended to be kept separated within our culture.8 Frida Kahlo was one of the female artists of this period whose work depicts this transformation through the exploration of the her body. She suffered from polio during childhood, and when she was sixteen, she was in a bus accident that left her injured.9 permanently and painfully After this accident, she began making art. Her art, which addresses her physical condition, was her journey toward insight, reclaiming the physical or outward self to gain access to the inner or subconscious reality. In Kahlo's painting, Henry Ford Hospital, she depicted her miscarriage and inability to have children. Surrounding her, bleeding in a hospital bed, is the fetus she lost, the broken pelvis which caused the miscarriage, a machine (perhaps to the bus accident), an referring Henry Ford Hospital, 1932 orchid given to her by Rivera, and a snail's shell symbolizing the slow process of the mis carriage. Kahlo used concrete, physical symbols to express what was she was experiencing on the inside.10 Through the integration of two very related selves, Kahlo and other women Surrealists came to accept both their physical selves (external) and psychic selves (internal) as valid realities. Women Bodies as a Source of 7 Louisa Buck, "Faceless Femme Fatales: Louisa Buck Unearths the Surrealists Using Subject," Women's Art Magazine, 19 (Nov./Dec. 1992), 16-17. 8 (Boston: and Company, 1985), 92. Whitney Chadwick, Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement, Little, Brown, (New York: 290. 9 Mora R. Witzling, Voicing Our Visions: Writings by Women Artists, Universe, 1991), 10 Sarah M. Lowe, Frida Kahlo, (New York: Universe, 1991), 67. Through practice of the feminism, women are gaining a sense of confidence needed to identify and reject some of the limiting stereotypes under which they have been classified. The women Surrealists tended to reject the label of Surrealist for themselves. Frida Kahlo said that even though she was thought of as a Surrealist, she wasn't "I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality."11 Whitney Chadwick suggests better Realists" descriptions of these women artists as "Magic or "Neo-Romantics."12 When Leonora Carrington, an artist working within the Surrealist realm, was asked about "Bullshit."13 women's role as Muse for the Surrealist artists, her response was, Poet Susan Griffin calls the idea of the male-defined Muse "a cop-out,"14 and contemporary poet, "uninteresting."15 feminist, and critic, Adrienne Rich describes it as However, in completely rejecting the limiting stereotype of the male-defined Muse, women risk losing, along with it, the chance to reclaim or reinvent the concept of the original Muse as source of their own creative inspiration.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Photography As Metaphor and Material Object in Victorian Culture
    "MIRROR WITH A MEMORY": PHOTOGRAPHY AS METAPHOR AND MATERIAL OBJECT IN VICTORIAN CULTURE Sarah Worman A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2017 Committee: Piya Pal-Lapinski, Advisor Kim Coates © 2017 Sarah Worman All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Piya Pal-Lapinski, Advisor In the Victorian period, photography was associated with the ghosts of history, con artists in the streets of London, and cultural anxieties about the future of Victorian society. The Victorian practice of photographing ghosts, or spirit photography, showed how Victorians viewed the past, present, and future. By examining the cultural artifact of Georgiana Houghton’s Chronicles of the Photographs of Spiritual Beings (1882), it becomes clear how photography affected Victorian literature as well as Victorian culture. In the short stories, “Oke of Okehurst” (1886) and “A Wicked Voice” (1887), Vernon Lee compared Victorian produced art to art from history. For Lee, the fast paced and highly commercialized art, which was influenced by photography, was not as powerful as art with historical context. An earlier work, Thomas Hardy’s A Laodicean: A Story of To-Day (1881), also showed the connections between photography, history, and uncertainty. The characters try to use photography to try and preserve a crumbling medieval castle, but their attempts end in failure. While technology like telegraphs gives Paula a sense of power, the novel leaves her wishing she had a more stable connection to the past and the future. These examples of Victorian literature show that photography affected Victorian culture at a deeper level than previously thought.
    [Show full text]
  • Download Notes 10-04.Pdf
    Can you kill a god? Can he feel pain? Can you make him bleed? What do gods eat? Does Zeus delegate authority? Why does Zeus get together with Hera? Which gods are really the children of Zeus and Hera? Anthropomorphic Egyptian Greek ἡ ἀμβροσία ambrosia τὸ νέκταρ nectar ὁ ἰχώρ ichor Games and Traditions epichoric = local tradition Panhellenic = common, shared tradition Dumézil’s Three Functions of Indo-European Society (actually Plato’s three parts of the soul) religion priests τὀ λογιστικόν sovereignty 1 kings (reason) justice τὸ θυμοειδές warriors military 2 (spirit, temper) craftsmen, production τὸ ἐπιθυμητικόν farmers, economy 3 (desire, appetite) herders fertility Gaia Uranus Iapetus X Cœus Phœbe Rhea Cronos Atlas Pleione Leto gods (next slide) Maia Rhea Cronos Aphrodite? Hestia Hades Demeter Poseidon Hera Zeus Ares (et al.) Maia Leto Hephæstus Hermes Apollo Artemis Athena ZEUS Heaven POSEIDON Sea HADES Underworld ἡ Ἐστία HESTIA Latin: Vesta ἡ Ἥρα HERA Latin: Juno Boōpis Cuckoo Cow-Eyed (Peacock?) Scepter, Throne Argos, Samos Samos (Heraion) Argos Heraion, Samos Not the Best Marriage the poor, shivering cuckoo the golden apples of the Hesperides (the Daughters of Evening) honeymoon Temenos’ three names for Hera Daidala Athena Iris Hera Milky Way Galaxy Heracles Hera = Zeus Hephæstus Ares Eris? Hebe Eileithyia ὁ Ζεύς, τοῦ Διός ZEUS Latin: Juppiter Aegis-bearer Eagle Cloud-gatherer Lightning Bolt Olympia, Dodona ἡ ξενία xenia hospitality ὁ ὅρκος horcus ἡ δίκη oath dicē justice Dodona Olympia Crete Dodona: Gaia, Rhea, Dione, Zeus Olympia:
    [Show full text]
  • Antigone by Sophocles Scene 4, Ode 4, Scene 5, Paean and Exodos
    Antigone by Sophocles Scene 4, Ode 4, Scene 5, Paean and Exodos By: Anmol Singh, Kesia Santos, and Yuri Seo Biographical, Cultural, and Historical Background The Greek Theater - Sophocles was one of the prominent figures in Greek theater. - Plays were performed in outdoor areas. - There were a limited number of actors and a chorus.6 - Antigone was mostly likely performed in the same fashion. AS Family Tree YS What do Scene 4, Ode 4, Scene 5, Paean and Exodos of Antigone focus on? - Family Conflict (internal and external) - Death (tragedy) - Poor judgment - Feeling and thinking - Fate - Loyalty - Love YS Genres & Subgenres Tragedy - Not completely like modern tragedies (ex. sad & gloomy). - Tragedies heavily used pathos (Greek for suffering). - Used masks and other props. - Were a form of worship to Dionysus.7 AS Tragic Hero - Antigone and Creon are both like tragic heros. - Each have their own hamartia which leads to their downfalls.8,9 AS Family Conflict & Tragedy in Antigone - Antigone hangs herself - Haimon stabs himself - Eurydice curses Creon and blames him for everything - Eurydice kills herself YS Dominant Themes Family: The story of Niobe - Antigone relates her story to the story of Niobe. - Antigone says “How often have I hear the story of Niobe, Tantalus’s wretched daughter…” (18) - Chorus tells Antigone that Niobe “was born of heaven,” but Antigone is a woman. YS Womanhood - Antigone defies the place a woman is supposed to have during this time period - Antigone and Ismene contrast each other - Creon is the prime example of the beliefs that males hold during this period KS Power and Corruption: Dryas and Lycurgus - A character the chorus compares to Antigone is Lycurgus.
    [Show full text]
  • Symbolism of Surface and Depth in Edvard
    MARJA LAHELMA want life and its terrible depths, its bottomless abyss. to hold on to the ideal, and the other that is at the same Lure of the Abyss: – Stanisław Przybyszewski1 time ripping it apart. This article reflects on this more general issue through Symbolist artists sought unity in the Romantic spirit analysis and discussion of a specific work of art, the paint- Symbolism of Ibut at the same time they were often painfully aware of the ing Vision (1892) by Edvard Munch. This unconventional impossibility of attaining it by means of a material work of self-portrait represents a distorted human head floating in art. Their aesthetic thinking has typically been associated water. Peacefully gliding above it is a white swan – a motif Surface and with an idealistic perspective that separates existence into that is laden with symbolism alluding to the mysteries of two levels: the world of appearances and the truly existing life and death, beauty, grace, truth, divinity, and poetry. The Depth in Edvard realm that is either beyond the visible world or completely swan clearly embodies something that is pure and beautiful separated from it. The most important aim of Symbolist art as opposed to the hideousness of the disintegrating head. would then be to establish a direct contact with the immate- The head separated from the body may be seen as a refer- Munch’s Vision rial and immutable realm of the spirit. However, in addition ence to a dualistic vision of man, and an attempt to separate to this idealistic tendency, the culture of the fin-de-siècle the immaterial part, the soul or the spirit, from the material (1892) also contained a disintegrating penchant which found body.
    [Show full text]
  • STONEFLY NAMES from CLASSICAL TIMES W. E. Ricker
    ZOBODAT - www.zobodat.at Zoologisch-Botanische Datenbank/Zoological-Botanical Database Digitale Literatur/Digital Literature Zeitschrift/Journal: Perla Jahr/Year: 1996 Band/Volume: 14 Autor(en)/Author(s): Ricker William E. Artikel/Article: Stonefly names from classical times 37-43 STONEFLY NAMES FROM CLASSICAL TIMES W. E. Ricker Recently I amused myself by checking the stonefly names that seem to be based on the names of real or mythological persons or localities of ancient Greece and Rome. I had copies of Bulfinch’s "Age of Fable," Graves; "Greek Myths," and an "Atlas of the Ancient World," all of which have excellent indexes; also Brown’s "Composition of Scientific Words," And I have had assistance from several colleagues. It turned out that among the stonefly names in lilies’ 1966 Katalog there are not very many that appear to be classical, although I may have failed to recognize a few. There were only 25 in all, and to get even that many I had to fudge a bit. Eleven of the names had been proposed by Edward Newman, an English student of neuropteroids who published around 1840. What follows is a list of these names and associated events or legends, giving them an entomological slant whenever possible. Greek names are given in the latinized form used by Graves, for example Lycus rather than Lykos. I have not listed descriptive words like Phasganophora (sword-bearer) unless they are also proper names. Also omitted are geographical names, no matter how ancient, if they are easily recognizable today — for example caucasica or helenica. alexanderi Hanson 1941, Leuctra.
    [Show full text]
  • Letter from the Education and Public Engagement Department
    Letter from the Education and Public Engagement Department A team of artists, art historians, educators, interns, librarians, and visitor relations staff comprise the award-winning Education and Public Engagement Department at The San Diego Museum of Art. We work with staff from within the Museum as well as with colleagues from cultural and educational institutions throughout the world to provide programs that enhance the exhibitions presented. Through lectures, tours, workshops, music, film, events for educators, and art-making programs for visitors of all ages, we invite you to inspire your creativity and to learn about art and its connection to your life. We hope you find yourself appreciating the wide array of art culture that is presented within the Museum and its encyclopedic collection. Whether you are new to art, or a long-time member who visits the Museum frequently, we invite you to bring your family, grandchildren, and friends, and to participate at The San Diego Museum of Art. We look forward to meeting you and hearing about any ideas you may have about the Museum and our programming efforts. We hope to see you often! The Education and Public Engagement Department The San Diego Museum of Art SDMArt.org Young visitors are participating in a Museum camp program. THE SAN DIEGO MUSEUM OF ART Learning through the Museum The San Diego Museum of Art first opened its doors on February 28, 1926, as the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego, and since that time has been building an internationally renowned permanent collection that includes European, North American, Modern Mexican, Asian, Islamic and contemporary art.
    [Show full text]
  • The Pleiades: the Celestial Herd of Ancient Timekeepers
    The Pleiades: the celestial herd of ancient timekeepers. Amelia Sparavigna Dipartimento di Fisica, Politecnico di Torino C.so Duca degli Abruzzi 24, Torino, Italy Abstract In the ancient Egypt seven goddesses, represented by seven cows, composed the celestial herd that provides the nourishment to her worshippers. This herd is observed in the sky as a group of stars, the Pleiades, close to Aldebaran, the main star in the Taurus constellation. For many ancient populations, Pleiades were relevant stars and their rising was marked as a special time of the year. In this paper, we will discuss the presence of these stars in ancient cultures. Moreover, we will report some results of archeoastronomy on the role for timekeeping of these stars, results which show that for hunter-gatherers at Palaeolithic times, they were linked to the seasonal cycles of aurochs. 1. Introduction Archeoastronomy studies astronomical practices and related mythologies of the ancient cultures, to understand how past peoples observed and used the celestial phenomena and what was the role played by the sky in their cultures. This discipline is then a branch of the cultural astronomy, an interdisciplinary field that relates astronomical phenomena to current and ancient cultures. It must then be distinguished from the history of astronomy, because astronomy is a culturally specific concept and ancient peoples may have been related to the sky in different way [1,2]. Archeoastronomy is considered as a quite new interdisciplinary science, rooted in the Stonehenge studies of 1960s by the astronomer Gerald Hawkins, who tested Stonehenge alignments by computer, and concluded that these stones marked key dates in the megalithic calendar [3].
    [Show full text]
  • Water in Mythology
    Water in Mythology Michael Witzel Abstract: Water in its various forms–as salty ocean water, as sweet river water, or as rain–has played a major role in human myths, from the hypothetical, reconstructed stories of our ancestral “African Eve” to those recorded some ½ve thousand years ago by the early civilizations to the myriad myths told by major and smaller religions today. With the advent of agriculture, the importance of access to water was incorporated into the preexisting myths of hunter-gatherers. This is evident in myths of the ancient riverine civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China, as well as those of desert civilizations of the Pueblo or Arab populations. Our body, like the surface of the earth, is more than 60 percent water. Ancient myths have always rec- ognized the importance of water to our origins and livelihood, frequently claiming that the world began from a watery expanse. Water in its various forms–as salty ocean water, as sweet river water, or as rain–has played a major role in human tales since our earliest myths were re - corded in Egypt and Mesopotamia some ½ve thou- sand years ago. Thus, in this essay we will look to - ward both ancient and recent myths that deal with these forms of water, and we will also consider what influence the ready availability (or not) of water had on the formation of our great and minor early civi- lizations. Many of our oldest collections of myths introduce the world as nothing but a vast salty ocean. The old - MICHAEL WITZEL, a Fellow of the est Indian text, the poetic Ṛgveda (circa 1200 BCE), American Academy since 2003, is asserts: “In the beginning, darkness was hidden by the Wales Professor of Sanskrit at darkness; all this [world] was an unrecognizable Harvard University.
    [Show full text]
  • Forms of Atheism Michael Polanyi
    Forms of Atheism Michael Polanyi [Editor’s Note: Neither the Key Words nor the Abstract were part of the original article. We have preserved the spelling, capitalization, and punctuation of the original typescript even when there are questions about its correctness.] Key words: Michael Polanyi, the development of modern social ideas, Polanyi on religion and society, modern atheism and social philosophy ABSTRACT This brief and provocative 1948 essay by Michael Polanyi was produced for discussion by a group of religious intellectuals convened by J. H. Oldham. Polanyi outlines the sources and contours of mod- ern social and political ideas in terms of the interaction of four types of “substitute deities” that have emerged in modern society and displaced what Polanyi identifies as the “God manifested in the Bible.” (1) I agree with Pére Lubac in his “Drame de l’Humanisme Athée” that we need not concern out- selves with the atheism that is merely verbal. There were always people who made fun of priests or doctors, and yet continued to fear the gods and take medicines. We are concerned with the convinced repudiator in modern times of God as manifested in the Bible, rejecting him in favour of other gods. There is a wide range of these substitute deities, but they can be reduced for convenience to four types: Athene, Clio, Dionysus and Prometheus. Belief in the God of the Bible was first overthrown by the followers of Athene, the goddess of reason. They were horrified by the religious wars and disgusted with clerical obscurantism. They be- lieved that the spirit of doubt would destroy fanaticism and establish the rule of tolerance.
    [Show full text]
  • Mythology in Poetry
    Mythology in AP Poetry Andromeda sorrowing father was close at hand, and her mother too. They were Andromeda was the princess of Ethiopia, daughter of Cepheus and both in deep distress, though the mother had more cause to be so Cassiopeia. Cassiopeia was a boastful woman, and foolishly bragged (Metamorphoses IV 674-692) Perseus said to her parents that he that she was more beautiful than Juno, the queen of the gods, and the would kill the monster if they agree to give him their daughter's hand Nereids. In order to avenge the insult to his nymphs, Neptune sent a in marriage. They of course gave their consent, and Perseus killed the sea monster to ravage the Ethiopian coast. (Some accounts state that monster. (His exact method of doing so varies in different versions of the constellation Cetus represents the sea monster, but a more the myth. Ovid has Perseus stab the monster to death after a drawn- common view of Cetus is that he is a peaceful whale.) out, bloody battle, while other versions have the hero simply hold up the head of Medusa, turning the monster to stone.) Andromeda was The horrified king consulted Ammon, the oracle of Jupiter, who said freed, and the two joyously marry. that Neptune could be appeased only by sacrificing Cassiopeia's *Andromeda is represented in the sky as the figure of a woman with beautiful virgin daughter, Andromeda, to the monster. Andromeda her arms outstretched and chained at the wrists. was duly chained to a rock on the coast, fully exposed to the monster.
    [Show full text]
  • Jw-8507 the Artistic Presentation of Scientific
    Project Number: JW-8507 THE ARTISTIC PRESENTATION OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AS A MEANS TO INCREASE PUBLIC AWARENESS An Interactive Qualifying Project Submitted to the Faculty of the WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE In partial fulfillment of the requirement for the Degree of Bachelor of Science By ____________________________ Ian Anderson ____________________________ Andres Lopez ____________________________ Mark Lindblad Date: April 24, 2008 _____________________________________ Professor George Pins, Major Advisor _____________________________________ Professor Jennifer Wilcox, Co Advisor _____________________________________ Professor Andrew Klein, Co advisor 1 Acknowledgements We thank the all the researchers at WPI who shared their time and knowledge with us and with out whom this exhibit wouldn‟t have been possible. They devoted time to interviews and email correspondence with students whom for the most part they had had no previous contact. This is a testament to the quality and enthusiasm of the faculty at WPI and their generosity in sharing their research and labs with us made this project the success that it was. The guidance of our advisors throughout the conception and execution of the project kept the team productive and on track. Their enthusiasm and support helped the team persevere through the tremendous workload an exhibit and project of this nature requires. We also would like to thank: Vangy Tool Co., Worcester,MA National Glass Works, Worcester MA D.B. Cotton, Putnam, CT EcoTarium, Worcester, MA A special thanks goes to
    [Show full text]
  • La Lorraine Artiste: Nature, Industry, and the Nation in the Work of Émile Gallé and the École De Nancy
    La Lorraine Artiste: Nature, Industry, and the Nation in the Work of Émile Gallé and the École de Nancy By Jessica Marie Dandona A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History of Art in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, Chair Professor Anne Wagner Professor Andrew Shanken Spring 2010 Copyright © 2010 by Jessica Marie Dandona All rights reserved Abstract La Lorraine Artiste: Nature, Industry, and the Nation in the Work of Émile Gallé and the École de Nancy by Jessica Marie Dandona Doctor of Philosophy in History of Art University of California, Berkeley Professor Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, Chair My dissertation explores the intersection of art and politics in the career of 19th-century French designer Émile Gallé. It is commonly recognized that in fin-de-siècle France, works such as commemorative statues and large-scale history paintings played a central role in the creation of a national mythology. What has been overlooked, however, is the vital role that 19th-century arts reformers attributed to material culture in the process of forming national subjects. By educating the public’s taste and promoting Republican values, many believed that the decorative arts could serve as a powerful tool with which to forge the bonds of nationhood. Gallé’s works in glass and wood are the product of the artist’s lifelong struggle to conceptualize just such a public role for his art. By studying decorative art objects and contemporary art criticism, then, I examine the ways in which Gallé’s works actively participated in contemporary efforts to define a unified national identity and a modern artistic style for France.
    [Show full text]