A critical analysis of South African underground comics
- Authors: Breytenbach, Jesse-Ann
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: Underground comic books, strips, etc. -- South Africa -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2396 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002192
- Description: In a critical analysis of several independantly produced South African comics of the 1980s and early 1990s, close analysis of the comics leads to an assessment of the artists'intentions and purposes. Discussion of the artists' sources focuses on definitions of different types of comics. What is defined as a comic is usually what has been produced under that definition, and these comics are positioned somewhere between the popular and fine art contexts. As the artists are amateurs, the mechanical structure of comics is exposed through their skill in manipulating, and their initial ignorance of, many comic conventions. By comparison to one another, and to the standard format of commercial comics, some explanation of how a comic works can be reached. The element of closure, bridging the gaps between frames, is unique to comics, and is the most important consideration. Comic artists work with the intangible, creating from static elements an illusion of motion. If the artist deals primarily with what is on the page rather than what is not, the comic remains static. Questions of quality are reliant on the skill with which closure is implemented. The art students who produced these comics are of a generation for whom popular culture is the dominant culture, and they create for an audience of peers. Their cultural milieu is more visual than verbal, and often more media oriented than that of their teachers. They must integrate a fine art training and understanding into the preset rules of a commercial medium. Confronted with the problem of a separation of languages, they evolve a new dialect. Through comparative and critical analyses I will show how this dialect differs from the language of conventional comics, attempting in particular to explain how the mechanics of the cornie medium can limit or expand its communicative potential.
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An exploration into the photo-transformation of the human form, through a research of its contemporary influential imagery and diversity within our culture
- Authors: Murphy, Alexandra Christina
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: Photography, Artistic Photography of the nude Human figure in art Portrait photography
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2416 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002212
- Description: The purpose of this study is to look at how the figure is imaged through the photographic medium today. Through this purpose I aim to explore the individual expression of the photographer in his photographic medium; the expression of the figure within the medium and the diverse practises of this medium in society - to build up an awareness and understanding of the diverse representations of the human form. The general aims of study are: 1 - to study how these three photographers choose to photograph the figure, through their technical, compositional and individual approach. 2 - to show how diverse the usage of the photographic figure is in the visual world. 3 - to expose an awareness of the photographic figure as transformation of an expression of self. 4 - to show the relationship between the photographer and the figure, the camera and the photographer, the camera and the figure, and the photographic figure and the viewer. 5 - to study my own photographic imagery in relation to the other imagery discussed. My research information was collected through: observations, discussions, literature and practical exploration. This study will attempt to draw conclusions, from its explorations, that will highlight the importance of the individual eye: that it is the individual eye that becomes the vehicle of transformation.
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The inner image: an examination of the life of Helen Elizabeth Martins leading to her creation The Owl House and A Camel Yard as outsider art
- Authors: Ross, Susan Imrie
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: Sculptors -- South Africa -- Biography Martins, Helen Elizabeth, 1897-1976 Owl House (Nieu Bethesda, South Africa) Art brut Women artists -- South Africa Nieu bethesda (South africa) -- Description and travel Primitivism in art Creation (Literary, artistic, etc.) Artists -- Psychology Symbolism in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2430 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002227
- Description: The Owl House is situated in the Karoo village of Nieu Bethesda, and the person responsible for its creation, Helen Elizabeth Martins (1897-1976), is South Africa's best known Outsider artist. A number of newspaper and magazine articles, television programmes, radio interviews, play, films, short stories, theses and art works have resulted directly from her work. Interest in The Owl House continues to grow, with visitors coming from all over South Africa, and various parts of the world,to visit it. The Owl House was Helen Martins' home for most of her 78 years. During the last 30 or so years of her life she devoted all her time and energy to transforming the interior of her house into a glistening fantasy world of colour and light, using crushed glass stuck to almost every surface, coloured glass pane inserts in the walls, mirrors of many sizes and shapes, and countless paraffin lamps and candles. She called her garden' A Camel Yard', and filled it with over 500 cement statues, structures and bas reliefs. All the labour involved, apart from crushing and sorting the coloured glass, was provided by at least four different men, who assisted her over the years, Johannes Hattingh, Jonas Adams, Piet van der Merwe and Koos Malgas, though Helen Martins was the inspiration and director behind it all. Through a study of Helen Martins' background and life, and their effects upon her psyche, a rigorous attempt has been made to reach some understanding of why she became a recluse, and what caused her to create this unique body of work comprising her entire domestic environment. She became increasingly asocial as her life progressed, and ultimately ended it by committing suicide in 1976. Through the universality of symbolism, the meanings of the subjects, themes and concerns which she chose to depict are studied. Then, together with some knowledge of her life and personal influences, an attempt has been made to deduce what it was that Helen Martins was trying to express and work through in her creations. This study also led to an awareness of the fact that, although each one is unique, there are many examples of Outsider Art throughout the world. Fundamentally, creators of Outsider Art remain asocial in relation to their cultural milieu and cultural context. Some other examples of Outsider Art, both in South Africa as well as in Europe and India, were visited, and are described and compared with The Owl House as well as with one another. The way in which society reacts or responds to Outsider Art and its creators is studied through the comprehensive records of one specific case which caused great controversy in Johannesburg during the 1970s. Ultimately, working alone or with assistance, it is the Outsider artist who is the driving force behind these unique works, and whose indefinable inner fire of passion alone makes it possible to bring them into being. It would seem that the fascination with Outsider Art is that through their work, creators allow others a glimpse into a different sense of reality which is both mysterious and inexplicable.
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Art marketing and management
- Authors: Anderson, Larna
- Date: 1995
- Subjects: Art -- Marketing Art portfolios Art -- Finance Art -- Economic aspects Community arts projects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2392 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002188
- Description: Formal art education equips students with skills to produce artworks. A formal art education may increase the opportunity for employment, however, art-related employment is very limited. Art graduates would be better equipped to market and manage art establishments or their own careers if art education were to be supplemented with basic business skills. Artists who wish to earn unsupplemented incomes from their art should undertake to acquire business acumen. This includes being presentable to the market place in attitude and appearance. It also includes aptitude in art, marketing and management. Role models and non-models of success and failure in business should also be observed. Art graduates should adopt applicable tried and tested business methods. Good marketing is a mix of business activities which identifies and creates consumer needs and wants. Marketing activities involve research, planning, packaging, pricing, promoting and distributing products and services to the public to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organisational objectives. Art products include artworks, frames, art books and art materials. Art-related services include the undertaking of commissions, consulting, teaching, free parking, convenient shopping hours, acceptance of mail or telephone orders, exhibitions, ease of contact, approval facilities, wrapping, delivery, installations (picture hanging), quotations, discounts, credit facilities, guarantees, trade-ins, adjustments and restorations. Good management is a mix of business activities which enables a venture to meet the challenges of supply and demand. There is a blueprint for management competence. The three dimensions of organisational competence are collaboration, commitment and creativity. Self-marketing and management is an expression of an artist's most creative being. It is that which can ensure and sustain recognition and income. Artists, like other competent organisations and entrepreneurs from the private sector, should operate with efficient manufacturing, marketing, management and finance departments. They are also equally important and therefore demand equal attention. Artistic skill together with business acumen should equip the artist to successfully compete in the market place. There are no short-cuts to becoming an artist but there are short-cuts to becoming a known and financially stable artist. Understanding marketing and management could mean the difference between waiting in poverty and frustration for a "lucky break" (which may only happen after an artists's death) and taking control. Success should be perpetuated through continuous effort.
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"The word as image": survey with special reference to the twentieth century
- Authors: Edworthy, S
- Date: 1991-03
- Subjects: Uncatalogued
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/191247 , vital:45075
- Description: This essay is intended, firstly for those who at some time have had the urge to include words into their otherwise conventional representational images, but are deterred by the suspicion that such elements have no place in the picture plane. Secondly, it is hoped, that this dissertation will provide some understanding concerning the motivations and aims of artists, using "verbal symbols" in their visual images. At this point, I offer some explanation of the term "verbal symbols". The alphabet that we are accustomed to today differs vastly from the first writing that was invented. The naming of items nowadays is arbitrarily established and all we are left with is a name that bears no visual resemblance to the object it represents in real life. The word "house", for example, tells us nothing of the physical nature of a house. However, owing to our conditioning, the word evokes in us a mental picture of a house, even if the details of this picture will vary amongst individuals. Words then are symbols which denote, broadly speaking, objects that exist in our daily lives, without being in any way visual representations of these objects. Of course there are also words which are dependent on other words for their meaning, such as prepositions, conjunctions or suffices, but this is irrelevant to this essay. , Thesis (MFA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Fine Art, 1991
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Art and authority : aspects of Russian art since 1917
- Authors: Thompson, Rowan Douglas
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Authority in art Art, Russian Art, Russian -- 20th century
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2450 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007298
- Description: From Introduction: The Artist was denied any role in Plato's Republic because of his ability to impair reason by imitating reality through his works. Aristotle, however, welcomed the artist because of his ability to express ideas about society through artistic form. Ernst Fischer agrees with the latter view, "Art enables man to comprehend reality, and not only helps him to bear it but increases his determination to make it more human and more worthy of mankind. Art is itself a social reality, society needs the artist ... and it has a right to demand of him that he should be conscious of his social function" (Fischer: 1963:46). Fischer adds to Aristotle's view by stating that society has a right to demand a social function from the artist. This issue has been the subject of controversial debate throughout the history of art. In a society based on class, the classes try to recruit art to serve their particular purposes. Art is seen by some as a powerful weapon - a means by which people can be swayed towards certain ideals. At the time of the Counter Reformation Italian artists were given strict instructions by the Jesuits on how to persuade and educate the people with their paintings. Napoleon urged his men of letters, painters and architects to refer to the classical ideals of ancient Greece and Rome to shape the emergent French Republic. The French philosopher, Dennis Diderot, stressed the futility of art unless it expressed great prinCiples or lessons for the spectator. Ideals of justice, courage and patriotism were embodied in the Neo-Classical movement. The didactic paintings of Jacques Louis David portray the above ideals. History records several attempts by those in power to coerce artists into conforming to their idea of society, indicating that authoritative manipulation of the arts is not purely a twentieth century phenomenon. This thesis intends to examine aspects of Russian art since 1917. Because Soviet art was dominated by policies which enabled authorities to determine its content, its history raises ideological issues which are relevant to the study of art. The theories of Suprematism, Constructivism and Socialist Realism will be discussed and conclusions will be drawn as to whether these theories succeeded as art movements which were ostensibly designed for the improvement of mankind. Present attitudes toward the visual arts in Russia will also be examined. However, in order to examine the above it is necessary to place the development of art into historical perspective.
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The machine and painting: an investigation into the interrelationship(s) between technology and painting since 1945
- Authors: Hennig, Sybille
- Date: 1986
- Subjects: Art and technology Art, Modern -- 20th century -- History
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2468 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1009435
- Description: Introduction: We, i.e. contemporary Western man, live in a society which has increasingly embraced Science and Technology as the ultimum bonum. The Machine, i.e. Science and Technology, has come to be seen as an impersonal force, a New God - omniscient, omnipotent: to be worshipped and, alas, also to be feared. This mythologem has come to pervade almost every sphere of our lives in a paradigmatic way to the extent where it is hardly ever recognized for what it is and hence fails to arouse the concern it merits. While some of the more perceptive minds - such as Erich Fromm, Rufino Tamayo, Carl Gustav Jung, Konrad Lorenz and Arthur Koestler, to mention but a few - have started ringing the alarm bells, the vast majority of our species seem to plunge ahead with their blinkers firmly in place (more or less contented as long as they can persude themselves that these blinkers were manufactured according to latest technological and scientific specifications). Man’s uniquely human powers - his creative intuition, his feelings, his moral and ethical potential, have become sadly neglected and mistrusted. Homo sapiens – “homo maniacus” as Koestler suggests? - is now at a crossroads: he has reached a point where the next step could be the last step and result in the annihilation of man as a species. Alternately, avoiding that, there is the outwardly less drastic but essentially equally alarming possibility of men becoming robots, while a third alternative has yet to be found. While it does appear as if a lot of young people, noticeably among students, have started reacting against the over mechanization of life, these reactions often tend to follow the swing-of-the-pendulum principle and veer towards the other extreme, throwing out the baby with the bathwater and falling prey to freak-out cults in a kind of mass-irrationalism, rejecting science and technology altogether. Artists who by their very nature perhaps are particularly sensitive - in a kind of seismographic way - to the currents and undercurrents of their age, have become aware of the effects of science and technology on our way of living, and many of them have in one way or another taken a stand in relation to the position of man in our highly technological world. Looking at the art produced over the last four decades, it is truly astonishing to what extent our changed world reflects in our art - a world and a Weltbild very different from that of our ancestors even just a few generations ago. The purpose of the present study is to survey some of the observations and commentaries that painters and certain kindred spirits from the sciences over the last few decades have offered, in the hope of, if not answering, at least defining and posing anew some of the questions that confront us with ever-increasing urgency.
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