An enquiry into some present-day attitudes in art education and their relationship to the current alienation of artist from society
- Authors: Rodger, John Neil
- Date: 1973
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:21146 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6574
- Description: From Introduction: "We can't teach these kids anything, man, they are so pure and unspoiled. Anything we show them or any discipline we impose upon them will only corrupt their purity. It's best if they just stay home and do their own thing”. "If your instructor says he knows what art is, watch out.” These two statements, the first by an instructor at a prominent New York art school, the second by one of America's respected critics, are the sort of talk one might expect to hear at any gathering of the avent-garde . To hear them said in and about the art school puts things in a different light. They are indicative -of the sort of thing that is preached and practised by a sufficient proportion of the art- educational force in the Western world to constitute a crisis unparalleled in the entire history of art education. Unopposed, such views must rapidly spell death for the institution. They must also, if they reached the proportions their authors appear to hope for, ensure a universal visual illiteracy unequalled in any other age. Of course statements like this, archly delivered by the very people who would suffer the most immediate loss at their implementation, are not at all true reflections of the whole state of art education in our time, or those people would simply not be in a position to make them. There are a great many people in the profession who would wholeheartedly reject such statements, and this faction is by no means confined to the older members.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1973
- Authors: Rodger, John Neil
- Date: 1973
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:21146 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6574
- Description: From Introduction: "We can't teach these kids anything, man, they are so pure and unspoiled. Anything we show them or any discipline we impose upon them will only corrupt their purity. It's best if they just stay home and do their own thing”. "If your instructor says he knows what art is, watch out.” These two statements, the first by an instructor at a prominent New York art school, the second by one of America's respected critics, are the sort of talk one might expect to hear at any gathering of the avent-garde . To hear them said in and about the art school puts things in a different light. They are indicative -of the sort of thing that is preached and practised by a sufficient proportion of the art- educational force in the Western world to constitute a crisis unparalleled in the entire history of art education. Unopposed, such views must rapidly spell death for the institution. They must also, if they reached the proportions their authors appear to hope for, ensure a universal visual illiteracy unequalled in any other age. Of course statements like this, archly delivered by the very people who would suffer the most immediate loss at their implementation, are not at all true reflections of the whole state of art education in our time, or those people would simply not be in a position to make them. There are a great many people in the profession who would wholeheartedly reject such statements, and this faction is by no means confined to the older members.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1973
The relationship and commitment of an artist to his or her society in a revolutionary environment
- Authors: Jones, Jacqueline
- Date: 1989
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:21163 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6662
- Description: From Introduction: In Aesthetics after Modernism, Peter Fuller writes that "good art can only be realized when a creative individual encounters a living tradition with deep tendrils in communal life" (Fuller, 1983: p.36). Yet Francis Bacon believed that "the suffering of people and the differences between people are what have made great art, and not egalitarianism ... " (Brighton and Morris, ' 1977: p.234 and 235). If it is true that art was once an integral part of society and reflected the aspirations of the whole community, its effect on society today has become marginal. Throughout history, especially since the emergence of Romanticism in the nineteenth century, the relationship between art, the artist and the public has become more and more tenuous. The spread of capitalism has resulted in widespread changes in methods of production, literacy, and industrial and technical development. Societies have become so diversified that today art no longer expresses the values and spiritual concerns of a unified society, but rather the individual or the small group. Given this, it has become impossible to return to a system of shared values and beliefs. To preserve some kind of 'truth', art has become a self-evolving activity, autonomous from political, social and economic concerns, and the term 'art for art's sake' is synonymous with many artists working in western capitalist societies.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1989
- Authors: Jones, Jacqueline
- Date: 1989
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:21163 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6662
- Description: From Introduction: In Aesthetics after Modernism, Peter Fuller writes that "good art can only be realized when a creative individual encounters a living tradition with deep tendrils in communal life" (Fuller, 1983: p.36). Yet Francis Bacon believed that "the suffering of people and the differences between people are what have made great art, and not egalitarianism ... " (Brighton and Morris, ' 1977: p.234 and 235). If it is true that art was once an integral part of society and reflected the aspirations of the whole community, its effect on society today has become marginal. Throughout history, especially since the emergence of Romanticism in the nineteenth century, the relationship between art, the artist and the public has become more and more tenuous. The spread of capitalism has resulted in widespread changes in methods of production, literacy, and industrial and technical development. Societies have become so diversified that today art no longer expresses the values and spiritual concerns of a unified society, but rather the individual or the small group. Given this, it has become impossible to return to a system of shared values and beliefs. To preserve some kind of 'truth', art has become a self-evolving activity, autonomous from political, social and economic concerns, and the term 'art for art's sake' is synonymous with many artists working in western capitalist societies.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1989
Creative misreadings: allegory in Tracey Rose's Ciao Bella
- Authors: Bateman, Genevieve
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Rose, Tracey, 1974- Artists -- South Africa Women artists -- South Africa Performance artists -- South Africa Women in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2473 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1009506
- Description: This thesis will aim to investigate the extent to which Tracey Rose's Ciao Bella can be said to allegorically perform a dialectical enfolding of the dichotomous categories of meaning/nonmeaning; image/text; past/present and original/translation. The dual concepts of performance and performativity will be utilized as a means to explore the notion of interpretation as a meaning-making process and as an engagement between artist, artwork and viewer that is necessarily open-ended and in a state of constant change and flux. Rose's performance of Ciao Bella will be read as one that questions the illusion of unmediated representation by parodying and creatively misreading a multiplicity of visual, textual and musical representations so as to foreground the politics of representation. The representational figure of allegory, as one that defines itself in opposition to the Romantic conception of the unified symbol, will be put to work so as to reveal the ways in which Rose's performance works to critically undermine various positivistic attitudes toward self-identity, gender, race, politics, history, authorial intention and interpretation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Bateman, Genevieve
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Rose, Tracey, 1974- Artists -- South Africa Women artists -- South Africa Performance artists -- South Africa Women in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2473 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1009506
- Description: This thesis will aim to investigate the extent to which Tracey Rose's Ciao Bella can be said to allegorically perform a dialectical enfolding of the dichotomous categories of meaning/nonmeaning; image/text; past/present and original/translation. The dual concepts of performance and performativity will be utilized as a means to explore the notion of interpretation as a meaning-making process and as an engagement between artist, artwork and viewer that is necessarily open-ended and in a state of constant change and flux. Rose's performance of Ciao Bella will be read as one that questions the illusion of unmediated representation by parodying and creatively misreading a multiplicity of visual, textual and musical representations so as to foreground the politics of representation. The representational figure of allegory, as one that defines itself in opposition to the Romantic conception of the unified symbol, will be put to work so as to reveal the ways in which Rose's performance works to critically undermine various positivistic attitudes toward self-identity, gender, race, politics, history, authorial intention and interpretation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
The quality of threat in modern painting
- Authors: Radford, Anne Margaret
- Date: 1979
- Subjects: Painting, Modern -- 20th century
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2453 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007578
- Description: From Introduction: We not only tolerate violence, we put it on the front pages of our newspapers. One-third or one-fourth of our television programmes use it for the amusement of our children. Condone! My dear friends, we love it." -Karl Menninger, psychiatrist. War is one of the most violent of man's past-times, yet many of the atrocities committed are termed heroic deeds. Andre Malraux, one of the leading writer-philosophers of his day, praised the international involvement by so many writers, artists, etc. in the Spanish Civil War as one of the most wonderful deeds of brotherhood in the history of mankind. There is a strange idolatry that is often accorded to violent criminals such as the early American outlaws, and people like Charles Manson, around whom an entire cult has sprung up. The "aggressive machismo" is something that boys and young men strive to achieve in most countries in the Western world. Scientlsts and philosophers have puzzled these paradoxes for centuries, and this effort to unravel the mystery of violence and aggression bears a fateful significant. For the quality of human life and the survival of man are involved. Robbery, rape, riots, vandalism, are all now part of man's existence. Around the world, violence has soared. In London, violent crimes increased by 39 per cent in three years. Even sports events (the soccer fans stage gang wars at most soccer matches nowadays, especially in England,) and entertainment ---books, movies, television--- have become permeated with violence. It has not always been as bad as this, and as art imitates life, life imitates art, and so aggressive paintings, threatening paintings are now commonplace. In this dissertation, I have studied this development of threat in painting. What follows is the course my study has taken.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1979
- Authors: Radford, Anne Margaret
- Date: 1979
- Subjects: Painting, Modern -- 20th century
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2453 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007578
- Description: From Introduction: We not only tolerate violence, we put it on the front pages of our newspapers. One-third or one-fourth of our television programmes use it for the amusement of our children. Condone! My dear friends, we love it." -Karl Menninger, psychiatrist. War is one of the most violent of man's past-times, yet many of the atrocities committed are termed heroic deeds. Andre Malraux, one of the leading writer-philosophers of his day, praised the international involvement by so many writers, artists, etc. in the Spanish Civil War as one of the most wonderful deeds of brotherhood in the history of mankind. There is a strange idolatry that is often accorded to violent criminals such as the early American outlaws, and people like Charles Manson, around whom an entire cult has sprung up. The "aggressive machismo" is something that boys and young men strive to achieve in most countries in the Western world. Scientlsts and philosophers have puzzled these paradoxes for centuries, and this effort to unravel the mystery of violence and aggression bears a fateful significant. For the quality of human life and the survival of man are involved. Robbery, rape, riots, vandalism, are all now part of man's existence. Around the world, violence has soared. In London, violent crimes increased by 39 per cent in three years. Even sports events (the soccer fans stage gang wars at most soccer matches nowadays, especially in England,) and entertainment ---books, movies, television--- have become permeated with violence. It has not always been as bad as this, and as art imitates life, life imitates art, and so aggressive paintings, threatening paintings are now commonplace. In this dissertation, I have studied this development of threat in painting. What follows is the course my study has taken.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1979
Unearthed : personifications of widowhood and acts of memory : volume 1 and 2
- Authors: Arbi, Linda Margaret
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Widowhood -- Social aspects -- South Africa Widowhood -- Social aspects -- Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) Widows in art -- South Africa Widows in art -- Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) Memory in art -- South Africa Memory in art -- Cape of Good Hope (South Africa)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2428 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002225
- Description: By researching visual traditions of representing widows in relation to a social role, I explore how these may be related to processes of mourning and memory. My study begins with an historical reading and, along with an analysis of Renaissance widow portraiture, I trace the experiences of widows in the Cape of Good Hope. For the purposes of this thesis, I have selected images of widows to investigate memory-work particularly when speaking of loss. I re-view these memory processes through recent historical and art historical discourse with reference to contemporary South African artworks in order to understand how public memory is formed by way of visual documentation. These narratives around widowhood have informed the subject matter for my Master’s exhibition and shed light on my own experience as a widow. The interaction between objects and memory are of particular interest and manifest in my studio art practice.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Arbi, Linda Margaret
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Widowhood -- Social aspects -- South Africa Widowhood -- Social aspects -- Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) Widows in art -- South Africa Widows in art -- Cape of Good Hope (South Africa) Memory in art -- South Africa Memory in art -- Cape of Good Hope (South Africa)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2428 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002225
- Description: By researching visual traditions of representing widows in relation to a social role, I explore how these may be related to processes of mourning and memory. My study begins with an historical reading and, along with an analysis of Renaissance widow portraiture, I trace the experiences of widows in the Cape of Good Hope. For the purposes of this thesis, I have selected images of widows to investigate memory-work particularly when speaking of loss. I re-view these memory processes through recent historical and art historical discourse with reference to contemporary South African artworks in order to understand how public memory is formed by way of visual documentation. These narratives around widowhood have informed the subject matter for my Master’s exhibition and shed light on my own experience as a widow. The interaction between objects and memory are of particular interest and manifest in my studio art practice.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Contemporary Zambian art, conceptualism and the ‘global’ art world
- Authors: Mulenga, Andrew Mukuka
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/5187 , vital:20784
- Description: In Zambia, ‘contemporary art’ (as a category constructed by the European-dominated international art world), was introduced by the European settler community and continued within its preserve, remaining largely inaccessible to the indigenous community of Africans until Zambia’s independence in 1964. This thesis traces the integration of Africans into the contemporary art community and attributes the process, in part, to a small group of artists of European descent who played a significant role in engaging with Zambians, working side by side with them, subsequently influencing their art production and implicitly shaping the ways in which ‘Zambian’ art ‘ought to’ look for decades to come. The research traces the early days of contemporary art practice in Zambia to the Lusaka Art Society and Art Centre Foundation that was founded and run by an all-settler group of formally trained artists with a particular inclination towards sculpture and painting. In the wake of the integration however, art production in the formalist manner was further proliferated by the European diplomatic community which would also go as far as dictating artistic subject matter. This thesis argues that the Eurocentric and pre-eminently formalist approach to contemporary art has cost Zambian artists an international presence. I submit that the few instances where contemporary Zambian art practice has penetrated the ‘global art’ scene or caught the attention of international curators is due to artists adopting more radical conceptual approaches to art production, often creating tensions with local viewers. This thesis also examines conceptualism in contemporary Zambian art practice and examines the inequalities of the ‘global art’ world. I argue that conceptual art, although not generally accepted on the Zambian art scene, has played a vital role in helping Zambian artists enter the global art world, albeit modestly.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Mulenga, Andrew Mukuka
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/5187 , vital:20784
- Description: In Zambia, ‘contemporary art’ (as a category constructed by the European-dominated international art world), was introduced by the European settler community and continued within its preserve, remaining largely inaccessible to the indigenous community of Africans until Zambia’s independence in 1964. This thesis traces the integration of Africans into the contemporary art community and attributes the process, in part, to a small group of artists of European descent who played a significant role in engaging with Zambians, working side by side with them, subsequently influencing their art production and implicitly shaping the ways in which ‘Zambian’ art ‘ought to’ look for decades to come. The research traces the early days of contemporary art practice in Zambia to the Lusaka Art Society and Art Centre Foundation that was founded and run by an all-settler group of formally trained artists with a particular inclination towards sculpture and painting. In the wake of the integration however, art production in the formalist manner was further proliferated by the European diplomatic community which would also go as far as dictating artistic subject matter. This thesis argues that the Eurocentric and pre-eminently formalist approach to contemporary art has cost Zambian artists an international presence. I submit that the few instances where contemporary Zambian art practice has penetrated the ‘global art’ scene or caught the attention of international curators is due to artists adopting more radical conceptual approaches to art production, often creating tensions with local viewers. This thesis also examines conceptualism in contemporary Zambian art practice and examines the inequalities of the ‘global art’ world. I argue that conceptual art, although not generally accepted on the Zambian art scene, has played a vital role in helping Zambian artists enter the global art world, albeit modestly.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
A counter-narrative analysis of psychological riot in contemporary painting
- Authors: Ng’ok, Ivy Chemutai
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Painting -- South Africa , Painting -- Psychological aspects , Distress (Psychology) in art , Imperialism in art , Violence in art , Patriarchy in art Political art
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/60458 , vital:27782
- Description: I am rioting against a system of my own beliefs about the world. In my mind, I struggle to overcome these beliefs, hence, I construct the psychological riot as ‘the disturbance of the mind’. In this mini-thesis, I argue that it exists in the psyche too. This definition of psyche becomes painterly. My psychological riot is difficult to trace, let alone paint. The beliefs that I target are patriarchy within a post-colonial context. I use theories that are simultaneously psychological and corporeal. They address violence colonialist system. The psychological riot is an practical submission.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Ng’ok, Ivy Chemutai
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Painting -- South Africa , Painting -- Psychological aspects , Distress (Psychology) in art , Imperialism in art , Violence in art , Patriarchy in art Political art
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/60458 , vital:27782
- Description: I am rioting against a system of my own beliefs about the world. In my mind, I struggle to overcome these beliefs, hence, I construct the psychological riot as ‘the disturbance of the mind’. In this mini-thesis, I argue that it exists in the psyche too. This definition of psyche becomes painterly. My psychological riot is difficult to trace, let alone paint. The beliefs that I target are patriarchy within a post-colonial context. I use theories that are simultaneously psychological and corporeal. They address violence colonialist system. The psychological riot is an practical submission.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
The multiple image in art : a personal response
- Authors: Swift, Anthony J M
- Date: 1976
- Subjects: Art, Modern -- 20th century , Art -- Themes, motives , Art appreciation , Art, Modern -- 20th century -- Philosophy
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2497 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013330
- Description: The development of this thesis is akin to that of a painting. It is subject to various influences that have evoked ideas and each idea has stimulated other ideas, thus the continuity could have gone beyond the bounds of this work. It is not so much an amalgamation of similar ideas but a development of diverse ideas which have, once composed, a common factor - the Multiple Image. Image refers to some paintings that have been made or part of them, a photograph, a film, a subject visualized in the mind or a complex reforms which is suggestive. Multiple refers to anything that relatively repeats itself, has facsimilies of itself, triptychs, polyptychs or is a conglomeration of ideas in a work of art. Intro., p. 1.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1976
- Authors: Swift, Anthony J M
- Date: 1976
- Subjects: Art, Modern -- 20th century , Art -- Themes, motives , Art appreciation , Art, Modern -- 20th century -- Philosophy
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2497 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013330
- Description: The development of this thesis is akin to that of a painting. It is subject to various influences that have evoked ideas and each idea has stimulated other ideas, thus the continuity could have gone beyond the bounds of this work. It is not so much an amalgamation of similar ideas but a development of diverse ideas which have, once composed, a common factor - the Multiple Image. Image refers to some paintings that have been made or part of them, a photograph, a film, a subject visualized in the mind or a complex reforms which is suggestive. Multiple refers to anything that relatively repeats itself, has facsimilies of itself, triptychs, polyptychs or is a conglomeration of ideas in a work of art. Intro., p. 1.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1976
The Grahamstown Fine Art Association
- Authors: Cook, J C W
- Date: 1974
- Subjects: Grahamstown Fine Art Association Rhodes University -- History Artists -- South Africa Painters -- South Africa Rhodes University -- School of Art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2476 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1010601
- Description: When he opened the 24th annual exhibition of students' work on the 1st July, 1927, Professor F.W. Armstrong gave the following account of the beginnings of the Grahamstown School of Art: ... The appointment of a master was the responsibility of Sir Langham Dale, the Superintendent General of Education in the Cape Colony. His choice for the first art master of the Grahamstown School of Art was Mr.W. H. Simpson. Simpson had studied at the South Kensington Museum then at the Royal Academy. During the 1870's he had exhibited in the Royal Academy, at other exhibitions in London, and in the provinces. Intro. p. 1.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1974
- Authors: Cook, J C W
- Date: 1974
- Subjects: Grahamstown Fine Art Association Rhodes University -- History Artists -- South Africa Painters -- South Africa Rhodes University -- School of Art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2476 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1010601
- Description: When he opened the 24th annual exhibition of students' work on the 1st July, 1927, Professor F.W. Armstrong gave the following account of the beginnings of the Grahamstown School of Art: ... The appointment of a master was the responsibility of Sir Langham Dale, the Superintendent General of Education in the Cape Colony. His choice for the first art master of the Grahamstown School of Art was Mr.W. H. Simpson. Simpson had studied at the South Kensington Museum then at the Royal Academy. During the 1870's he had exhibited in the Royal Academy, at other exhibitions in London, and in the provinces. Intro. p. 1.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1974
Rebellious uniform
- Authors: Farmer, Mark Ross
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: High school students -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Discipline Teenagers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Conduct of life Teenagers -- Education (Secondary) -- South Africa School discipline
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2401 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002197
- Description: In this thesis, I focus on adolescent teens at Kingswood College High School, where I am currently employed as a student assistant in Grahamstown. I form part of a networked hierarchy at Kingswood College whereby I am expected to perform duties which require me to uphold discipline, forge respect and act as a mentor to students. Within this complex role I am mindful of the power dynamics within the school and my focus is on how the students at Kingswood College in some instances challenge them. Regulations in regard to uniforms and in regard to the arrangement of each learner’s belongings insist on the sublimation/sacrificing of an individual identity in favour of an institutional one. Thus tiny departures from those norms, slight transgressions, might be understood as small rebellions which the boarder stages against disciplinary structures and the conformity demanded of him or her. I am particularly interested in these transgressions. In this thesis I attempt to unravel the complexities associated with such idiosyncrasies and how they play out amongst adolescent teens.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Farmer, Mark Ross
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: High school students -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Discipline Teenagers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Conduct of life Teenagers -- Education (Secondary) -- South Africa School discipline
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2401 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002197
- Description: In this thesis, I focus on adolescent teens at Kingswood College High School, where I am currently employed as a student assistant in Grahamstown. I form part of a networked hierarchy at Kingswood College whereby I am expected to perform duties which require me to uphold discipline, forge respect and act as a mentor to students. Within this complex role I am mindful of the power dynamics within the school and my focus is on how the students at Kingswood College in some instances challenge them. Regulations in regard to uniforms and in regard to the arrangement of each learner’s belongings insist on the sublimation/sacrificing of an individual identity in favour of an institutional one. Thus tiny departures from those norms, slight transgressions, might be understood as small rebellions which the boarder stages against disciplinary structures and the conformity demanded of him or her. I am particularly interested in these transgressions. In this thesis I attempt to unravel the complexities associated with such idiosyncrasies and how they play out amongst adolescent teens.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
(Un)stable architecture as deconstructed meaning
- Authors: Lombard, Lindi
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Art and architecture , Architecture in art , Proportion (Art) , Vertigo in art , Deconstructivism (Architecture)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/5825 , vital:20980
- Description: How often do we notice the buildings that we work in, play in and live in? The architecture that we construct is specially geared to our human proportions, and shelters and accommodates us. It can be seen as a metaphor for the body, the self, and systems of social control that we have created. When the structure of this architecture is compromised, either literally or metaphorically, we experience instability and vertigo. My practical submission, Vertigo is concerned with architecture, perspective, deconstruction, instability, vertigo, scale and the body. Vertigo consists of paintings, ranging in scale from the size of a brick to the height of a single storey house. Utilizing a highly representational style as well as working with abstract sign systems and technical plan drawings, I destabilize firstly, our sense of certainty in the architecture that surrounds us, and secondly, prompts us to question the assumed fixity of ourselves and our social systems, through the convergence and collision of architecture and painting. This supporting document, (Un)stable Architecture as Deconstructed Meaning, considers the key conceptual concerns informing my practical submission. In chapter one of this mini-thesis: Deconstructivist Architecture, Instability and Impermanence I look at Deconstructivist Architecture which challenges traditional values of order, stability, harmony and unity of architecture. I position my work in relation to architecture projects on the Deconstructivist Architecture show in relation to their intent of undoing, shifting and destabilizing structure and what architecture is traditionally valued for. I also look at the shifting meaning and symbolism of architecture and skyscrapers. In the second chapter: Vertiginous Point of View and Shifted Perspectives I engage with vertigo, perspective, scale and the bodily analogy in architecture. I look at how Julie Mehretu destabilises built space and architecture in a painterly way, depicting multiple perspectives which are subjected to multiple interpretations. In chapter Three: Painting a Building and Building a Painting: Process, Scale and the Body, I discuss and engage with my practical submission, Vertigo, in relation to my process, scale, the body, vertigo, deconstruction, instability and perspective.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Lombard, Lindi
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Art and architecture , Architecture in art , Proportion (Art) , Vertigo in art , Deconstructivism (Architecture)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/5825 , vital:20980
- Description: How often do we notice the buildings that we work in, play in and live in? The architecture that we construct is specially geared to our human proportions, and shelters and accommodates us. It can be seen as a metaphor for the body, the self, and systems of social control that we have created. When the structure of this architecture is compromised, either literally or metaphorically, we experience instability and vertigo. My practical submission, Vertigo is concerned with architecture, perspective, deconstruction, instability, vertigo, scale and the body. Vertigo consists of paintings, ranging in scale from the size of a brick to the height of a single storey house. Utilizing a highly representational style as well as working with abstract sign systems and technical plan drawings, I destabilize firstly, our sense of certainty in the architecture that surrounds us, and secondly, prompts us to question the assumed fixity of ourselves and our social systems, through the convergence and collision of architecture and painting. This supporting document, (Un)stable Architecture as Deconstructed Meaning, considers the key conceptual concerns informing my practical submission. In chapter one of this mini-thesis: Deconstructivist Architecture, Instability and Impermanence I look at Deconstructivist Architecture which challenges traditional values of order, stability, harmony and unity of architecture. I position my work in relation to architecture projects on the Deconstructivist Architecture show in relation to their intent of undoing, shifting and destabilizing structure and what architecture is traditionally valued for. I also look at the shifting meaning and symbolism of architecture and skyscrapers. In the second chapter: Vertiginous Point of View and Shifted Perspectives I engage with vertigo, perspective, scale and the bodily analogy in architecture. I look at how Julie Mehretu destabilises built space and architecture in a painterly way, depicting multiple perspectives which are subjected to multiple interpretations. In chapter Three: Painting a Building and Building a Painting: Process, Scale and the Body, I discuss and engage with my practical submission, Vertigo, in relation to my process, scale, the body, vertigo, deconstruction, instability and perspective.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Aphrodite
- Authors: Lautenbach, Janet
- Date: 1978
- Subjects: Aphrodite (Greek deity) , Idols and images -- Greece , Art, Greek , Aphrodite (Greek deity) in literature
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2448 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006914 , Aphrodite (Greek deity) , Idols and images -- Greece , Art, Greek , Aphrodite (Greek deity) in literature
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1978
- Authors: Lautenbach, Janet
- Date: 1978
- Subjects: Aphrodite (Greek deity) , Idols and images -- Greece , Art, Greek , Aphrodite (Greek deity) in literature
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2448 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006914 , Aphrodite (Greek deity) , Idols and images -- Greece , Art, Greek , Aphrodite (Greek deity) in literature
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1978
The shaman and the artist: a personal enquiry
- Authors: Cull, Cleone
- Date: 1975
- Subjects: Art, Shamanistic Shamans Artists
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2478 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1010640
- Description: This inquiry incorporates anthropological surveys on the life and character of the shaman, some writings of the American Plains Indians, and artist's, whose life and work reflects the power/life force so integral to the beliefs of these so called primitive cultures. Since the artist cannot be separated from his environment, the actions and reactions of society have also been explored. The method of inquiry has been to establish, first, the way of the shaman, and then the way of the artist. Although each artist, reflects only certain aspects of the enquiry, there is a strong affinity in the life and works of them all.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1975
- Authors: Cull, Cleone
- Date: 1975
- Subjects: Art, Shamanistic Shamans Artists
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2478 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1010640
- Description: This inquiry incorporates anthropological surveys on the life and character of the shaman, some writings of the American Plains Indians, and artist's, whose life and work reflects the power/life force so integral to the beliefs of these so called primitive cultures. Since the artist cannot be separated from his environment, the actions and reactions of society have also been explored. The method of inquiry has been to establish, first, the way of the shaman, and then the way of the artist. Although each artist, reflects only certain aspects of the enquiry, there is a strong affinity in the life and works of them all.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1975
The historical collection, King George VI Art Gallery, Port Elizabeth
- Authors: Forster-Towne, Rosemary
- Date: 1984
- Subjects: Art collections and art museums Fine arts and History of art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2463 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008567
- Description: From Conclusion: For the sake of posterity and historical research, our need for secure origins and our appreciation of and pleasure in fine craftsmanship and art, it is important that any Art Collection, particularly an Historical one, be fully documented. All data pertaining to the pictures should be recorded from an artistic, historical and even scientific point of view and photographs should be taken of the pictures. An organized classification system, the correct registering and labeling of each picture and its accessioning and cataloguing as part of the contents of the Gallery and for visitors information, should be constantly 53 maintained and where necessary and in as many ways as possible, cross-references made so that the stored information be usable. To this end and with the growth and increasing importance being placed on Art Museums and Galleries in the community it would probably be of value to cross-reference with other similar institutions and in the respect and day and age, it is not unrealistic to propose that the King George VI Art Gallery consider a computer cataloguing system to facilitate research and complement a more simplified version for the use and guide of the general viewing public . The significance of a picture is not only its value as such, but also the information relating to it. The importance of the Historical Collection as Africana and works of art, expressive of the places, events, people and even attitudes, and as cultural and historic items, goes without saying. Without the Historical Collection of the King George VI Art Gallery, Port Elizabeth, the Eastern Cape community and South Africa too, would be the poorer. The pictures have their role to play .
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1984
- Authors: Forster-Towne, Rosemary
- Date: 1984
- Subjects: Art collections and art museums Fine arts and History of art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2463 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008567
- Description: From Conclusion: For the sake of posterity and historical research, our need for secure origins and our appreciation of and pleasure in fine craftsmanship and art, it is important that any Art Collection, particularly an Historical one, be fully documented. All data pertaining to the pictures should be recorded from an artistic, historical and even scientific point of view and photographs should be taken of the pictures. An organized classification system, the correct registering and labeling of each picture and its accessioning and cataloguing as part of the contents of the Gallery and for visitors information, should be constantly 53 maintained and where necessary and in as many ways as possible, cross-references made so that the stored information be usable. To this end and with the growth and increasing importance being placed on Art Museums and Galleries in the community it would probably be of value to cross-reference with other similar institutions and in the respect and day and age, it is not unrealistic to propose that the King George VI Art Gallery consider a computer cataloguing system to facilitate research and complement a more simplified version for the use and guide of the general viewing public . The significance of a picture is not only its value as such, but also the information relating to it. The importance of the Historical Collection as Africana and works of art, expressive of the places, events, people and even attitudes, and as cultural and historic items, goes without saying. Without the Historical Collection of the King George VI Art Gallery, Port Elizabeth, the Eastern Cape community and South Africa too, would be the poorer. The pictures have their role to play .
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1984
The animal as a sacred symbol in prehistoric art
- Van Heerden, Johannes Lodewicus
- Authors: Van Heerden, Johannes Lodewicus
- Date: 1974
- Subjects: Art, Prehistoric Animals in art Animals, Mythical, in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2449 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007286
- Description: From Thesis: Why the animal as our point of departure in this discussion of prehistoric art, and why as a sacred symbol? Prehistoric art stretched over an immensely long period, from the first evidence of the activities of Neanderthal tribes during the Mousterian period, ± 35,000 B.C., to the end of the Magdalenian, ± 8,000 B.C. We are dealing with a time-span of nearly 30,000 years, during which a strictly Zoomorphic attitude existed. The animal was the dominant feature. It was constantly used in the decoration of cave walls, on engraved stone slabs, and on all kinds of utilitarian objects.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1974
- Authors: Van Heerden, Johannes Lodewicus
- Date: 1974
- Subjects: Art, Prehistoric Animals in art Animals, Mythical, in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2449 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007286
- Description: From Thesis: Why the animal as our point of departure in this discussion of prehistoric art, and why as a sacred symbol? Prehistoric art stretched over an immensely long period, from the first evidence of the activities of Neanderthal tribes during the Mousterian period, ± 35,000 B.C., to the end of the Magdalenian, ± 8,000 B.C. We are dealing with a time-span of nearly 30,000 years, during which a strictly Zoomorphic attitude existed. The animal was the dominant feature. It was constantly used in the decoration of cave walls, on engraved stone slabs, and on all kinds of utilitarian objects.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1974
Environmental art and its contribution to establishing an awareness of the sacred in nature
- Matthews, Elaine Katherine Simone
- Authors: Matthews, Elaine Katherine Simone
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: Installations (Art) Art, Modern -- 20th century Nature (Aesthetics)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2413 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002209
- Description: The introduction establishes the goal of the research, which is to discover that art concerned with re-evaluating the relationship to the environment and spirituality can serve to connect people to one another, and to the environment. The context of the research is the contemporary ecological and spiritual crisis of the postmodern world. The background places the discussion within the contexts of modernism and postmodernism. The historical background focuses on the period from the 1960s to the present day. Land and Environmental artists who work in a manner that is conscious of environmental issues and who suggest a sacred and creative attitude to ecology are discussed. My own creative work which is a response to both ancient and contemporary sites as well as to contemporary theories of art and spirituality is discussed. The four projects, are discussed in chronological order, they are: Quest - A journey into Sacred Space; Gaika's Kop - Sacred Mountain; Labyrinth - Journeys to the Centre; and Transforming the Centre. The conclusion shows that the multi-faceted, intertextual and relativistic philosophy of postmodernism has brought about a significant change in the attitude of humanity towards the environment. Artists who reject the modernist aesthetic and philosophy are making art that emphasises relationship to, rather than separation from the natural world.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
- Authors: Matthews, Elaine Katherine Simone
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: Installations (Art) Art, Modern -- 20th century Nature (Aesthetics)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2413 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002209
- Description: The introduction establishes the goal of the research, which is to discover that art concerned with re-evaluating the relationship to the environment and spirituality can serve to connect people to one another, and to the environment. The context of the research is the contemporary ecological and spiritual crisis of the postmodern world. The background places the discussion within the contexts of modernism and postmodernism. The historical background focuses on the period from the 1960s to the present day. Land and Environmental artists who work in a manner that is conscious of environmental issues and who suggest a sacred and creative attitude to ecology are discussed. My own creative work which is a response to both ancient and contemporary sites as well as to contemporary theories of art and spirituality is discussed. The four projects, are discussed in chronological order, they are: Quest - A journey into Sacred Space; Gaika's Kop - Sacred Mountain; Labyrinth - Journeys to the Centre; and Transforming the Centre. The conclusion shows that the multi-faceted, intertextual and relativistic philosophy of postmodernism has brought about a significant change in the attitude of humanity towards the environment. Artists who reject the modernist aesthetic and philosophy are making art that emphasises relationship to, rather than separation from the natural world.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
Image and symbol : some aspects of the creative impulse in the visual arts
- Authors: Stonestreet, Lyn
- Date: 1984
- Subjects: Art Symbolism in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2445 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006138
- Description: From Introduction: The making of images has been a human activity since Prehistory, undergoing many and drastic changes over the centuries, but the symbols integral to images have proved enduring and recurrent. This is because the artist draws on that stratum of the psyche which C.G. Jung calls the collective unconscious: a universal archaic memory within the human mind, containing the archetypes of all human experience.In this essay I have dealt with aspects of two of these archetypes; the anima and, to a lesser extent, the mother. I have limited my study to the work of male artists. Long sanctioned by tradition, images of women as seen by men, have provided an acceptable vehicle for men to express their own female principle. As long as a man operates in the world with total apparant masculinity, the anima or female principle is repressed and denied at a conscious level.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1984
- Authors: Stonestreet, Lyn
- Date: 1984
- Subjects: Art Symbolism in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2445 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006138
- Description: From Introduction: The making of images has been a human activity since Prehistory, undergoing many and drastic changes over the centuries, but the symbols integral to images have proved enduring and recurrent. This is because the artist draws on that stratum of the psyche which C.G. Jung calls the collective unconscious: a universal archaic memory within the human mind, containing the archetypes of all human experience.In this essay I have dealt with aspects of two of these archetypes; the anima and, to a lesser extent, the mother. I have limited my study to the work of male artists. Long sanctioned by tradition, images of women as seen by men, have provided an acceptable vehicle for men to express their own female principle. As long as a man operates in the world with total apparant masculinity, the anima or female principle is repressed and denied at a conscious level.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1984
Creative production and existential thought: a feminist existential analysis of South African visual artist Berni Searle’s artwork
- Authors: Mokwena, Palesa
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Women artists -- South Africa , Women artists, Black -- South Africa , Existentialism and art , Feminism and art -- South Africa , Searle, Berni
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/148005 , vital:38701
- Description: Through an analysis of the work of South African artist Berni Searle, my study will investigate feminist existential ideas and concepts that have been explored by various creative producers in and outside of Europe/South Africa through different forms of creative productions and under different epistemological categories. ‘Canons’ of European existentialist/feminist thought often exclude the existence of feminist existential knowledge productions and producers outside of Europe. In conducting this study, I am responding to the past and present separatist and identitarian categorisations of creative productions from black/African creative producers, particularly women creative producers in South Africa, creating an alternative canonisation around their selected works. Although canons have been and can be used to drive separatist and identitarian categorisations, it is my hope to elucidate a discourse around the preservations and acknowledgements of South African creative and knowledge productions through a feminist existential framework that canonises important black feminist existentialist works and thereby brings to light their intellectual contributions over and above their identities. My development of a South African feminist existentialism is an attempt to graft a more intersectional, holistic framework to introduce in the feminist and existential discourses, and to proffer a new intersectional holistic paradigm of discussing categories that do not limit creative productions. To frame this research, I will reflect on the politics of historical and contemporary South African society as it is reflected in the works of the chosen creative producers and theorists and to question how we respond as creative feminist existentialists to contemporary South African struggles and how such a lens can be activated as a creative-theoretical tool of investigation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Mokwena, Palesa
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Women artists -- South Africa , Women artists, Black -- South Africa , Existentialism and art , Feminism and art -- South Africa , Searle, Berni
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/148005 , vital:38701
- Description: Through an analysis of the work of South African artist Berni Searle, my study will investigate feminist existential ideas and concepts that have been explored by various creative producers in and outside of Europe/South Africa through different forms of creative productions and under different epistemological categories. ‘Canons’ of European existentialist/feminist thought often exclude the existence of feminist existential knowledge productions and producers outside of Europe. In conducting this study, I am responding to the past and present separatist and identitarian categorisations of creative productions from black/African creative producers, particularly women creative producers in South Africa, creating an alternative canonisation around their selected works. Although canons have been and can be used to drive separatist and identitarian categorisations, it is my hope to elucidate a discourse around the preservations and acknowledgements of South African creative and knowledge productions through a feminist existential framework that canonises important black feminist existentialist works and thereby brings to light their intellectual contributions over and above their identities. My development of a South African feminist existentialism is an attempt to graft a more intersectional, holistic framework to introduce in the feminist and existential discourses, and to proffer a new intersectional holistic paradigm of discussing categories that do not limit creative productions. To frame this research, I will reflect on the politics of historical and contemporary South African society as it is reflected in the works of the chosen creative producers and theorists and to question how we respond as creative feminist existentialists to contemporary South African struggles and how such a lens can be activated as a creative-theoretical tool of investigation.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
Form and symbol in ancient Egypt
- Authors: Verwey, Erdmuthe Wilhemina
- Date: 1968
- Subjects: Signs and symbols -- Egypt
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2443 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006133
- Description: From thesis: The Egyptian civilization was regarded by the ancients as the ultimate example of' a morally regulated way of life; their judicious political economy was the admiration of the Elians and both Pythagoras and Plato accepted it as ideal, the former in a small select society and the latter on a larger scale .However a society like this,which is accepted, and acted upon as a completed one, in which everything has been considered, (especially the education of and the habituation to it, to make it second nature), does not take the nature of spirit into consideration, because it is precisely that infinite impulse which acts in contemporary life, and changes its very form. This impulse expressed itself in Egypt in a peculiar way. One would expect that a society, which appears to have been so complete, so fixed in every way, could have no characteristic of its own. Religion, one would expect would have been introduced in the same calm peaceful way, in accordance with the regular order of things. Unlike the Chinese civilisation, where every change is excluded, and the fixedness of character recurs perpetually, this calm order in Egypt was threaded with a spirit full of stirring and urgent impulses. We have here the Oriental Massiveness in combination with the African element. It is a spirit which begins to emerge from the merely natural, without freeing itself from nature. It cannot reach free consciousness of being, it only produces this as a problem: the enigma of its being. One half emerges, the other half is hidden. The buildings of the Egyptians are half below the ground while half rises into the air. The whole country is divided into a Kingdom of life and a Kingdom of death. This, however, is in reality no division, but a unity. The fundamental conception of that which the Egyptians regarded as the essence of being, rested on the fixed character of the natural world - in particular the fixed physical cycle of the Nile and the Sun. These two elements, strictly connected, formed the basis of a very simple and unchanging mode of life. Unchanging, because there is a definite physical cycle which the Nile, in connection with the sun, pursued. The sun rises, reaches its culmination, and then retrogrades. So does the Nile.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1968
- Authors: Verwey, Erdmuthe Wilhemina
- Date: 1968
- Subjects: Signs and symbols -- Egypt
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2443 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006133
- Description: From thesis: The Egyptian civilization was regarded by the ancients as the ultimate example of' a morally regulated way of life; their judicious political economy was the admiration of the Elians and both Pythagoras and Plato accepted it as ideal, the former in a small select society and the latter on a larger scale .However a society like this,which is accepted, and acted upon as a completed one, in which everything has been considered, (especially the education of and the habituation to it, to make it second nature), does not take the nature of spirit into consideration, because it is precisely that infinite impulse which acts in contemporary life, and changes its very form. This impulse expressed itself in Egypt in a peculiar way. One would expect that a society, which appears to have been so complete, so fixed in every way, could have no characteristic of its own. Religion, one would expect would have been introduced in the same calm peaceful way, in accordance with the regular order of things. Unlike the Chinese civilisation, where every change is excluded, and the fixedness of character recurs perpetually, this calm order in Egypt was threaded with a spirit full of stirring and urgent impulses. We have here the Oriental Massiveness in combination with the African element. It is a spirit which begins to emerge from the merely natural, without freeing itself from nature. It cannot reach free consciousness of being, it only produces this as a problem: the enigma of its being. One half emerges, the other half is hidden. The buildings of the Egyptians are half below the ground while half rises into the air. The whole country is divided into a Kingdom of life and a Kingdom of death. This, however, is in reality no division, but a unity. The fundamental conception of that which the Egyptians regarded as the essence of being, rested on the fixed character of the natural world - in particular the fixed physical cycle of the Nile and the Sun. These two elements, strictly connected, formed the basis of a very simple and unchanging mode of life. Unchanging, because there is a definite physical cycle which the Nile, in connection with the sun, pursued. The sun rises, reaches its culmination, and then retrogrades. So does the Nile.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1968
Art and power : an investigation into the effect politics, the church and economics have had on the content of a work of art and the development of art in general
- Authors: Heydenrych, Albert B
- Date: 1977
- Subjects: Art and religion , Politics in art , Art and industry , Art and state
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2499 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013390
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1977
- Authors: Heydenrych, Albert B
- Date: 1977
- Subjects: Art and religion , Politics in art , Art and industry , Art and state
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MFA
- Identifier: vital:2499 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013390
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1977