Recently Completed M.A. Theses in Art History

Allison Hays
M.A. in Art History 2006
M.A. Thesis Advisor: Dr. Anna Brzyski

Lost in Translation: Eugene Delacroix's Visual Reconstruction of William Shakespeare's Hamlet

A chronology of Delacroix’s Shakespeare images reveals that Delacroix treated Hamlet differently than Shakespeare’s other plays, and that while Delacroix produced images based on Hamlet throughout his career, his engagement with this text was characteristically different over a ten year period between 1833 and 1843. During this period, the artist not only produced two oil paintings of Hamlet and Horatio in the graveyard, but also an extended set of lithographic illustrations of the full text of the play, which he published at his own expense in 1844. Although Delacroix produced paintings of subjects from a variety of Shakespeare’s plays, Hamlet was the only Shakespeare text that Delacroix attempted to illustrate in this manner. A review of the problems associated with translating Shakespeare’s language into French which occupied French writers and intellectuals in the nineteenth century reveals that Delacroix was influenced by contemporary French translations and secondary investigations written to interpret the play. These investigations of Shakespeare’s language and aesthetic were instrumental in eroding French perceptions of Classicism. A chronology of the paintings and the lithographs reveals that Delacroix produced the images at very different times in his career and ultimately incorporated this evolving secondary discourse into his approach. In addition, when he returned to and completed the set of lithographs in 1843, he was preoccupied with his large decorative projects, the Palais Bourbon and the Palais du Luxembourg. The thesis demonstrates a relationship between the way he organized his progression of images on the ceiling of the Palais Bourbon and his approach and choice of scenes when he returned to the Hamlet lithographs. His unconventional treatment of the lithographs was designed to make his images more autonomous and therefore more equivalent to the text.

Suzanne Dosal Gray
M.A. in Art History 2006
M.A. Thesis Advisor: Dr. Robert Jensen

Diego Rivera: Transition From Cubism

Elements of Cubism can be seen in much of Rivera’s later work, including many of his most famous murals. His transition from Cubism to Muralism, and his departure from Paris and return to Mexico, have often been attributed to a single incident that took place in March of 1917, “l’affaire Rivera.” However, this explanation is insufficient and does not adequately provide insight into this important artistic transition. An examination of this period in his life reveals that a combination of factors led Rivera from Cubism and Paris including his ambition, the increasingly restrictive nature of Cubism, Rivera’s desire to return to realism, and his frustration over his ability to succeed in Paris, a factor complicated by his nationality at a time of war.

Michael Ray Holdren
M.A. in Art History 2006
M.A. Thesis Advisor: Dr. Robert Jensen

John Sloan: Considerations of his Artistic Identity Revealed Through Technique, Subject and Personal Records Between the Years 1913-1916

The realism in John Sloan’s work was dramatically altered by the influence of European modernism exhibited through the Armory Show in 1913 and parallel events at that time in Sloan’s life. In this study, the contrast between his urban paintings from Philadelphia and New York prior to 1913 and some of his landscape and figurative work after 1913 form the basis of a study in relation to the influences he absorbed from the Armory Show as well as personal experiences in the years 1913-16. Along with the shift in his work I will also consider Sloan’s sense of personal, artistic, nationalist and historic identity. Evidence from Sloan’s preparatory, procedural and painting method prior to and after 1913, the differences in ‘woman’ as subject prior and after 1913, and personal records such as finances, criticism and instructional ideologies of Sloan will be examined. As a result, Sloan felt that, despite being perhaps the leading American realist of his day, he could suddenly, historically and aesthetically change his identity with success.

Lesley Chapman
M.A. in Art History 2005
M.A. Thesis Advisor: Dr. Jane Peters

Betwixt and Between: Problems in the Contextualization and Interpretation of the Photographs of Doris Ulmann

In the course of her brief career, photographer Doris Ulmann (1882-1934) produced tens of thousands of images, which historians and critics have variously interpreted as Pictorialist art photographs and as socially motivated documentary photographs. Placing Ulmann within the history of photography is complicated by the fact that her photographs have appeared in contexts that define them as art objects and in contexts that define them as documents or illustrations, leaving her authorial intent regarding their function and meaning difficult to discern.Yet in lieu of addressing the problematic nature of this contextual variety, recent critics and biographers have sought to establish a place for her in the history of photography by discerning her intentionality.An examination of the critical discourses regarding the function of Ulmann’s photography and her artistic identity reveals that the literature on Ulmann does not establish Ulmann’s intentionality, but instead mirrors the critics’ intentions.

David M. Riep
M.A. in Art History 2005
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Monica Blackmun Vi sona

Art on the Margins: A Reintroduction of the Art History of the Sotho of Southern Africa


Current surveys on the art of Africa include few, if any, Sotho objects, and often rely on the broad categorization of "Southern Africa," rather than highlighting objects from this particular culture. Throughout much of the written history of the Sotho, art appears to have been an understatement, a reflection of the melding of everyday life and culture with the arts. By gleaning the references to art objects from the existing literature, and paying close attention to the contexts in which Sotho art appears, a closer understanding of its meaning and place in Sotho society is found. After extracting the range of forms from the literature, I will take a closer look at the objects themselves. Through this analysis, I hope to highlight the quality found in these various pieces, and their significance within the Sotho culture as a whole. The goal of this paper is to provide an art historical background of the Sotho culture and offer a formal analysis of the culture's art objects, which would allow one to attribute specific pieces of art to the Sotho culture.

Kathleen S. Wheeler
M.A. in Art History 2005
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Alice Christ

Augustan Ideologies of Greek and Roman: Vitruvius on Theater Buildings

The study of Roman theater construction has traditionally begun with Book Five of the Vitruvian treatise (De architectura, written between 30 and 20 BC) which addresses the principles behind the layout and construction of public buildings. In chapters six through nine of Book Five, Vitruvius organized his discussion of theater design around two distinct theater types, Greek and Roman. Although the archeological evidence suggests that the majority of Roman theaters were not built according to the Vitruvian design, there has been a tendency in traditional scholarship to accept the Vitruvian types as literal, prescriptive methods of construction and the labels of “Greek” and “Roman” as antithetical. More recent scholarship suggests a long history in Rome of deliberate construction, use and manipulation of the labels “Greek” and “Roman” in order to both connect Roman culture to and distance it from Greek culture. Applying this more nuanced approach to the study of Augustan Age art and architecture history suggests that the Vitruvian types were constructs rather than prescriptive methods of construction. Accepting this, we can build upon our understanding of how the two Augustus-sponsored theater projects in Rome (the Theaters of Pompey and Marcellus) and the Vitruvian labels of Greek and Roman fit into the larger Augustan cultural renewal.