Work Of Other Artists Research Articles

Nude Animal: Vanessa Renwick and the Wild

In The Animal That Therefore I Am (2006) Jacques Derrida remarks on texts by Rene Descartes concerning the animal. His attention is drawn to the look the animal returns. Standing naked before his cat, the philosopher sees it looking back at him. If now we introduce this mutual look into an account of screen work by Portland-based film and video artist Vanessa Renwick, the opportunity arises to think in terms of animality and women. I could not do her work justice if I were to attempt a survey of Renwick's practice, which I have been aware of for over ten years. Her name was familiar to me long before 1 saw anything she had made. Nor would it seem to me an improvement if I were to exclude from my remarks commentary on the work of other artists. What follows, then, is an attempt to substantiate a thinking about animality by means of a single work by Renwick. I try to do this in a way that also recognizes the achievements of two others working with the moving image: Benjamin Pearson and Shehrezad Maher. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A comparison of Renwick's 9 is a Secret (2002) with Pearson's Former Models (2013) will raise the question of our relation to death. In 9 is a Secret, Renwick describes the experience of being an assistant in a friend's suicide. Before removing the plastic from the head of his dead body, she hears herself saying, and we hear her repeat aloud, You better be dead, motherfucker. It is as if we share Renwick's responsibility for his death, even bear the risks she took to assist hint. To be a survivor here is not to survive death oneself. Such a suicide commands a certain respect from the living, we who have not died, for we feel somehow humiliated by the departed, insofar as we agree to carry on in a world so decisively rejected by the friend. Renwick created a voiceover using a children's nursery rhyme, each line associated with a number less than nine. The lines of the rhyme number and characterize crows. Each line has the kind of significance for adults that such rhymes often do. Renwick shows us the young man who wants to die in beautiful black-and-white, high-contrast still images. They could be photographs, but there is often quiet movement. Like photocopies after several generations, the fragments consist of fixed poses cut from a strip of movement, a solitary black crow against a white ground. Carefully framed shots of a handsome young man, also in black-and-white, present a nude in parts, sculpted in the gray stone of what photographers would call, by comparison, images of greater latitude. Now immobile only because held in place, the fragments of the deceased before his death show signs of calculated movement. A viewer might be reminded of Chris Marker's La jetee (1962), in which subterranean victims of time-travel experiments are shown shell-shocked and fixed forever in black-and-white stills. The relationship between predator and victim in the animal world could be said to be a preoccupation in Renwick's screen work. Or perhaps it would be better to speak of the instinctive and irrational of living and dying. In this particular film, the stills punctuate a visual course of events in which we do not come to know the friend or learn anything of interest about him other than the reasons for his physical suffering and desire to die. We learn of the latter directly from Renwick in voiceover, almost in passing. The impression should not be left that the film offers an experience of sympathy, love, or generosity. In Former Models, by contrast, Pearson carries on an imaginary conversation with the deceased. This man with whom he speaks in voiceover is to be thought of as that of Rob Pilatus of the music duo Milli Yanilli, responding to questions after his death. Pilatus died in 1998. The voice that answers Pearson--that of Pilatus, processed beyond recognition if considered in its theatrical exhibition but coherent when listened to via a link emailed by the artist and using headphones recounts a disembodiment that considers the question of death in very different terms. …

People mind wander more during massed than spaced inductive learning.

This article investigates the relation between mind wandering and the spacing effect in inductive learning. Participants studied works of art by different artists grouped in blocks, where works by a particular artist were either presented all together successively (the massed condition), or interleaved with the works of other artists (the spaced condition). The works of 24 artists were shown, with 12, 15, or 18 works by each artist being provided as exemplars. Later, different works by the same artists were presented for a test of the artists' identity. During the course of studying these works, participants were probed for mind wandering. It was found that people mind wandered more when the exemplars were presented in a massed rather than in a spaced manner, especially as the task progressed. There was little mind wandering and little difference between massed and spaced conditions toward the beginning of study. People were better able to correctly attribute the new works to the appropriate artist (inductive learning) when (a) they were in the spaced condition and (b) they had not been mind wandering. This research suggests that inductive learning may be influenced by mind wandering and that the impairment in learning with massed practice (compared to spaced practice) may be attributable, at least in part, to attentional factors-people are "on task" less fully when the stimuli are massed rather than spaced. (PsycINFO Database Record

The Tumamoc Hill Arts Initiative: A Portfolio of Site-Based Art and Writing Inspired by a History of Sonoran Desert Science

The Tumamoc Hill Arts InitiativeA Portfolio of Site-Based Art and Writing Inspired by a History of Sonoran Desert Science Paul Mirocha (bio), Eric Magrane (bio), Barbara Terkanian (bio), Monique Soria (bio), D. L. Coleman (bio), Meredith Milstead (bio), and Kathleen Koopman (bio) A Context for Arts on Tumamoc Paul Mirocha and Eric Magrane Early on a recent May morning, artist Meredith Milstead set up her easel outside of the historic Desert Lab buildings on Tumamoc Hill and proceeded to paint the scene before her over a twelve-hour period, completing one painting per hour. A study of color and time, the act of making these paintings echoes the historical research on Tumamoc. Much of what is known about deserts comes from Tumamoc Hill, either through research at the site itself or through the impressive list of those—a who’s who of desert ecologists—who have worked at the Hill over the years. It’s not a stretch to claim that the modern field of ecology owes much of its beginning to the Carnegie Desert Botanical Laboratory established on Tumamoc Hill in 1903. Long-term study plots set up by these early ecologists comprise the longest-running vegetation-monitoring program in the world. That some of the current activity on the Hill is in the form of art or poetry is a reflection of the growing awareness that scientific and artistic ways of knowing are not in opposition but can be, rather, complementary to each other. In a time when climate change has us facing increasing temperatures, drought, and wildfire here in much of the Southwest, and when increased acknowledgment that the disciplinary silos that have built up over the last couple of centuries are not up to facing such big questions alone, it is fitting that Tumamoc Hill is one of the sites that has embraced the role that artists and writers may play in the present, an epoch that many have begun to call the Anthropocene. [End Page 265] Making distinctions between artistic and scientific practice often brings up questions about the nature of knowledge. One is the dichotomy where science searches for an objective truth that is universal and not dependent on the observer, whereas art is more comfortable in the subjective realm: embodied personal experience, moral and emotional focus. The distinction between the objective and subjective is a useful starting point, to be sure, but we don’t want to replay this framing for too long. Rather, we’d like to present art and poetry as a form of inquiry that is valid in itself as a source of environmental knowledge. Since 2011, Paul Mirocha has been artist-in-residence at Tumamoc Hill. He describes his role as an on-site ambassador for the Hill, facilitating the work of other artists and writers who are attracted to the site for their own reasons. “I’m inspired by the resulting community of independent, yet like-minded people, and it helps me think out my own work,” Mirocha says. Embodying a kind of bioregional ethics and close engagement with place, the work in this portfolio complements a recent (2013) book, This Piece of Earth: Images and Words from Tumamoc Hill, which gathers poetry and art done on the Hill in the previous two years (http://TumamocSketchbook.com/this-piece-of-earth). Artists and poets working on Tumamoc have a deep sense of the ecological and human history there. Kathleen Koopman examines a century of artifacts hinting at the everyday lives of Tumamoc’s researchers. She catalogs found objects like a historian, yet is most interested in the ambiguity of these found objects, the stories that will never be known. Painter Meredith Milstead is developing a color palette specific to the light and times of day at the Desert Lab. It’s a form of research into the subjective qualities of light that may play a subliminal role in how people feel about and form an attachment to a particular place. Paul Mirocha is rephotographing the Spalding-Shreve long-term study plots from an artist’s point of view, learning the history of the plots, and keeping a field journal...

The Genealogy of a Song: Lady Gaga's Musical Intertexts on The Fame Monster (2009)

AbstractLady Gaga's work is noted for her references to the work of other artists and is often criticized for borrowed content that is perceived as exceeding mere generic norms. In this study, we engage closely with the musical and lyrical content of two songs from her extended play release, The Fame Monster (2009), with the goal of identifying and interpreting the intertextual pathways that led to these works. Relying upon theories of intertextuality, we unearth a network of texts invoked in each of her songs and consider these connections to comprise a musical genealogy, invoking Foucault's conception of genealogy as the process of revealing historical knowledge.

What makes a Pollock Pollock: a machine vision approach

Jackson Pollock introduced a revolutionary artistic style of dripping paint on a horizontal canvas. Here we study Pollock's unique artistic style by using computational methods for characterising the low–level numerical differences between original Pollock drip paintings and drip paintings of other painters who attempted to mimic his signature drip painting style. Four thousands and twenty four numerical image content descriptors were extracted from each painting, and compared using weighted nearest neighbour classification such that the Fisher discriminant scores of the content descriptors were used as weights. In 93% of the cases, the computer analysis was able to differentiate between an original and a non–original Pollock drip painting. The most discriminative image content descriptors that were unique to the work of Pollock were the fractal features, but other numerical image content descriptors such as Zernike polynomials, Haralick textures, and Chebyshev statistics show substantial differences between original and non–original Pollock drip paintings. These experiments show that the uniqueness of Pollock's drip painting style is not reflected merely by fractals, but also by other numerical image content descriptors that reflect the visual content. The code and software used for the experiment is publicly available, and can be used to study the work of other artists.

Directing in Musical Theatre: An Essential Guide by Joe Deer (review)

Reviewed by: Directing in Musical Theatre: An Essential Guide by Joe Deer Kevin Calcamp Directing in Musical Theatre: An Essential Guide. By Joe Deer . Abingdon, UK : Routledge , 2014 ; pp. 288 . In Directing in Musical Theatre, Joe Deer offers a new textbook option for graduate and undergraduate courses that provides a comprehensive, articulate, and thorough account of how to effectively navigate the role of the director for a musical. Although it is geared toward musical theatre, this book will benefit any beginning director because it describes the roles and functions in a methodical, step-by-step process. Actors and designers may also benefit from Deer’s reflections and perspectives on the process of creating musical theatre. He astutely divides his book into the five phases of the director’s process: conception, collaboration, rehearsal, production, and performance. This approach allows for a chronological unfolding of the pragmatic steps a director takes when creating a musical, and a systematic approach for preparation and rehearsal. The book concludes with a wonderful series of appendices that provide sample documents, timetables, questionnaires, and a glossary of useful stage terms. Storytelling is the thematic core prevalent throughout the text. Deer emphasizes the director as storyteller in phase 1, “Conception.” There are two chapters here, “Preparing for Collaboration” and “Imagining the Chorus.” As is the case with all the chapters in the book, they are divided into smaller units. Each phase begins with a comprehensive timetable that guides the reader temporally through the production process. In “Preparing for Collaboration,” the author provides a detailed breakdown on how to gauge first impressions, perform script and character analyses, and establish and articulate style. He shrewdly clarifies that in storytelling, it is respectable and sometimes necessary to invoke the spirit of a prior production, but warns against copying or plagiarizing the work of other artists. In the next chapter, Deer highlights the chorus as storyteller and emphasizes its function as spectacle and as characters. The director is one of many storytellers in the production process. In phase 2, “Collaboration,” the author emphasizes the collaborative art of storytelling. Chapters on “Collaborative Partners” and “Directing the Design” encourage the director to be a collaborator and illuminate how to effectively communicate and share ideas. “Collaborative Partners” explores the functions of the choreographer, the musical director, and the designers, as well as how to work collaboratively with each and how to enable them to bring their skills, talents, and ideas to the table as co-interpreters. In “Directing the Design,” Deer accentuates the need to share your passion, clearly articulate your ideas, and to be open to and respect the ideas of the other artists whose work forms a portion of the whole. Deer transitions from his consideration of the collaborative processes to the realities of the rehearsal process in phase 3, “Rehearsal.” The two chapters in this section, “Auditions” and “Staging and Coaching,” assist the director in how to effectively tell a story with the actors. “Auditions” reviews the process for conducting a musical theatre audition. The author provides tips and suggestions to help make the process flow effortlessly. For example, to address the issue of multiracial and color-blind casting, Deer suggests that the director must first honor the character and the musical as a whole by asking two questions: Whether or not race or gender matter in the role? What might deviating from the traditional casting model do for or against the production? He encourages the director to make the choice that best serves the story. After casting, the rehearsal process begins, and Deer helpfully reminds the reader that staging a musical is not the same as staging a play. In “Staging and Coaching,” he stresses that the most important part of the musical is its songs, and it is here that staging and choreography must coalesce to both keep the heart of the show alive and pump life into the rest of the production. Staging, blocking, and coaching represent methods of storytelling that the director must use throughout the rehearsal process. Deer emphasizes the continued role of the director as storyteller as he moves from the rehearsal into phase 4, “Production,” which overviews the process from technical rehearsals to the final...

Polishing October: New and Selected Poems by George Gömöri

reviews As he continues the drive home from work, August remembers even more details of his relationships with others during the three-season stay in the hospital. Through recalling his young yet sincere feelings for Lilo, he realizes that the isolation brought on by death revives his relationships with others. One crucial memory is his and Lilo’s reactions to the death of Hannelore, a female patient: “August remembers that Lilo didn’t sing the children a goodnight song on the evening after Hannelore died.” This commemoration immediately ties the two together even closer: “August felt, and he feels it to this day, that he’d never get closer to Lilo than at that moment, and he learnt that grief and happiness can be mixed with one another.” By the time August arrives home, his childhood memories blend with those of his recent marriage with Trude. Once again, agony combines with ecstasy, enveloping a now mutely grateful August: “He’s still not capable of putting what he feels into words. He feels something like gratitude that there was something in his life that, if he could express it, he’d call happiness.” The story demonstrates that our relationships mingle with our own impending death and that these relationships , and the memory of them, in turn make us immortal. That we must die is a simple side note and has no bearing on the impact our connections with others make on the world. Just as powerful as the story is the fact that this work is the last written testament we have from the late Christa Wolf, who movingly portrays her dedicated relationship with her husband. She certainly achieved her goal in writing this sleek narrative. Andrea Bryant University of Oklahoma Verse George Gömöri. Polishing October: New and Selected Poems. Clive Wilmer & George Gömöri, tr. Beeston, Nottingham. Shoestring Press. 2013. isbn 9781907356834 Upon hearing that George Gömöri has lived in England since 1956, someone remarked that Gömöri was hardly Hungarian anymore. This shows an understandable ignorance of émigré writers not only of that generation but of much younger writers like Tamas Dobozy. For them, as for William Faulkner’s characters, “The past is never dead. It is not even past.” Thisisevidentfrom“DailyIswitch languages,” the epigraph to Polishing October, in which Gömöri claims that he can write in English of abstractions but only in Hungarian of “words that compose the sunset, make it glow.” But as he says in “Christmas 1956,” there’s “no way back” to his native country and would not be, as he says in a later poem, for another thirty-three years, when his hair had begun to whiten. Two sections, “Poems for Mari” (his wife) and “Chagall’s Tomb,” have, on the whole, a softer emotional tone than the bulk of the collection. The poems to his wife are muted; those in “Chagall” tease out miniature narratives embedded in the work of other artists and writers like Miklós Radn óti, Casanova, and Nostradamus— sometimes, as in the last case, using them to comment on current trends. The strongest poems in the collection draw upon his memories of Hungary and his sense of exile, not only his but those of others killed or exiled like Osip Mandelstam and Radnóti, or the recurrent figure of Odysseus, whose return to Ithaca is problematic if not impossible. These poems tend to be graytinged , offering only marginal hope while mourning and celebrating the past. “New Poems,” the last section, is in tone very much like “My Manifold City,” the first section, and for that matter “Polishing October” (the month of the Hungarian revolution and the prelude to Gömöri’s exile). In the title poem of that section and of the volume, he says that the revolution gave him the right to be proud of his country and that when nations are judged, “I need say no more than ‘56’ and ‘Hungary’—and then our countless sins will be forgiven.” Robert Murray Davis University of Oklahoma Eleanor Lerman. Strange Life. Woodstock, New York. Mayapple Press. 2014. isbn 9781936419357 Eleanor Lerman, a visionary American poet from New York, whispers her...

Repurposing the Past: The Phantastron and appropriating history as a DIY approach

Historical models may often provide some of the greatest inspiration for the creation of new technologies. A DIY approach appropriating older paradigms in technology is discussed, with special attention paid to how old concepts can become relevant within a modern context. The author's electronic instrument, the Phantastron, is introduced as an example of this DIY approach. The Phantastron's creation is detailed in practice and methods such as repurposing, redesigning, hacking and circuit bending upon a historical design are described. A wider angle is then cast upon the concept of repurposing older technologies, and the works of other artists and DIY makers are considered. The concept that antiquated technology is in the common domain and ready to be utilised in the synthesis of new ideas is discussed. Finally, a generalised DIY approach to integrating historical ideas into new creations is posited.

The Bab in the World of Images

Abstract This paper traces the history of the portraits drawn of the Bab, the founder of the Babi religion. The dramatic success of the Bab in attracting a large number of followers from different social strata generated a great deal of interest in him. His reformist ideas captured the imagination of Shi’ites and Europeans alike. His movement was soon a subject of enquiry by orientalists, academicians, politicians, missionaries, merchants and others alike. Over time, several artists – mostly unknown to date – decided to render portraits of him. Of these, only one actually met the Bab: Aqa Bala Bayg of Shishvan, the chief painter of Qajar Prince Malek-Qasim Mirza (1807–62), the governor of Urmia (Orumiyeh) who hosted the Bab for a brief period in 1848. While the works of other artists were based on imagination, Aqa Bala Bayg’s original sketch of the Babi leader was rendered through a series of face-to-face meetings with the young prophet. He later produced multiple other copies from his original. Thus, Aqa Bala Bayg’s work appears to be the only genuine images of the Bab left to posterity. Nonetheless, the story of the Bab, the artist from Shishvan, and the Qajar prince who hosted the Bab has not been fully examined. This will be a focus of the current research. We will also explore the intriguing possibility that one or more actual photographs of the Bab might exist. Additionally, we will attempt to reconcile the at times contradictory historical accounts of the various copies of the Bab’s portrait, drawn by Aqa Bala Bayg. Finally, we will briefly discuss the works of other unknown artists who have produced imaginary portraits of the Bab and conclude with suggestions for further inquiry.

Artists Unknown: The Poetics of Anonymity in Jean Richepin’s Braves gens

In Jean Richepin’s Braves gens, roman parisien (1886), the composer Yves de Kergouët and his spiritual counterpart, the mime Tombre, strive to put into practice the principles of a revolutionary theory of art they formulated with other members of a cénacle ten years earlier. Their dream of an ‘art absolu’ is threatened first by a capitalist economy that would have them compromise their ideals in the quest for comforts and laurels, and second by the art market, whose aesthetic opportunists are not above expropriating and exploiting the work of other artists. Yves and Tombre’s refusal to compromise entails the abandonment of those bourgeois genres seen to corrupt the artist and the adoption of forms possessing none of the benefits associated with artistic success. Yves abjures symphony and opera for popular song, and Tombre renounces tragedy for pantomime, mediums that lead them individually to embrace anonymity as the highest form of achievement.

From ‘Worldwatching’ to ‘Remixing’: Sanguineti’s Varie ed eventuali

This article offers a detailed reading of Edoardo Sanguineti’s final (posthumous) collection of poems, Varie ed eventuali: poesie 1995–2010 (2011). In the context of Sanguineti’s long-standing practices of rewriting, travestimento and parody (including self-parody), the essay investigates the multiple layers and forms of citation present in many of the texts, and analyses the eclectic thematic and formal range of the poems, from contemporary polemics to ironic self-portraits, from pseudo-lyrical sonnets to texts built on forms of marked verbal inventiveness, often in dialogue with the work of other artists and writers. The essay analyses in particular the texts’ representations or performances of the self through various forms of masking, whether as a degraded or incoherent self, or a figure on the verge of non-existence. It considers the place of these late self-performances within what is generally regarded as Sanguineti’s vein of ‘occasional’ or secondary poetry, but also in the wider context of Sanguineti’s poetry as a whole, whose overall centre of gravity may be seen to be subtly rebalanced by this final collection.

Roberto Montenegro y los artistas americanos en Mallorca (1914-1919)

El presente estudio tiene por objetivo ampliar el conocimiento de uno de los momentos artísticos más peculiares del arte latinoamericano de comienzos del siglo XX. Tomando como referencia central la trayectoria de Roberto Montenegro, sobre cuya obra se aportan nuevos indicios, se aspira a mostrar el entorno de influencias y relaciones en el cual se movió durante sus años europeos, en especial el periodo en que residió en la isla de Mallorca. Se hace hincapié, asimismo, en la obra de otros artistas americanos que, al igual que el tapatío, se formaron junto al catalán Hermen Anglada Camarasa en París y que poco antes del estallido de la guerra del 14 se trasladaron a las Baleares. El paisaje mallorquín, y especialmente los tipos costumbristas, se constituyen para ellos en fuentes de inspiración, destacando entre las últimas la imagen de la mujer que será objeto de representación no solamente en la pintura sino también en las ilustraciones realizadas, sobre todo por Montenegro y el argentino Gregorio López Naguil, para libros y revistas. Otro eje de análisis es el espíritu americanista que cultivaron estos artistas, aun lejos de sus respectivas naciones, y que, a su regreso, se afianzaría como una de sus líneas ideológicas y artísticas.

Les provinces de la nuit : quelques nocturnes de Kobayashi Kiyochika (1847-1915)

This short essay examines a series of Tōkyō nightscapes composed during the Meiji era (1868-1912) by one of the modern masters in printmaking: Kobayashi Kiyochika. His predilection for night scenes originates in his attempt to express the singular discontent triggered by the brutal advent of modern times in Japan. Long considered a “popular” genre, Kiyochika brought ukiyo-e to new heights of social awareness, and transformed his prints into expressions of disillusion. A firsthand witness of the relentless transition from the Ancient Régime to a new society submitted to intense Westernization and to turbulences of great magnitude shaking its traditional values, Kiyochika’s “ conservative modernism” makes it possible – alongside the work of other artists who were subject to similar experiences – to reconsider visual representations of historical disquiet, and the implications of the melancholy of modern times.

The Flood Last Time: “Muck” and the Uses of History in Kara Walker's “Rumination” on Katrina

Kara Walker describes her book After the Deluge (2007) as “rumination” on Hurricane Katrina structured in the form of a “visual essay.” The book combines Walker's own artwork and the works of other artists into “a narrative of fluid symbols” in which the overarching analogy of “murky, toxic waters” holds the potential to “become the amniotic fluid of a potentially new and difficult birth.” This essay considers Walker's use of history within this collection of images to show how the book opens up ways to interrogate Katrina's particular significance as a wholly new, and yet eerily familiar, historical “event.” Nuancing a reading of Walker's book with reference to James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time (1963), to which After the Deluge implicitly alludes, the essay examines Walker's artistic challenge to the notion that history is a narratable account of a past that precedes the present and demonstrates how that challenge encourages us to think about the potential uses of history within civil rights discourse after Katrina.

Photomontage for the Masses: The Soviet Periodical Press of the 1930s

Introduction Cultural transformations taking place today in post-Soviet society consistently (re)turn scholarly attention to the 1930s—the historical period marked by the Soviet government’s intention to bring “culture” closer to the barely literate majority of the Soviet population (mainly workers and peasants), with the goal of strengthening the political consciousness of the “masses.”1 However, the ways in which Soviet society interacted with the prescribed culture remain unclear. For a majority of the Soviet people, especially in the country’s provinces, the periodical press (namely, newspapers, and magazines) was the main and, in some cases, the only agent of cultural information. Although intended for the ordinary Soviet population, mass periodicals reflected the diversity of artistic and cultural trends, and functioned not only as sources of information but also as visual media that transmitted, as well as created, the cultural norms of society. The study of the periodical press remains a marginalized subject in art history, continually overlooked as aesthetically insubstantial to merit sustained attention.2 Researchers focus mostly on the productions of major artists—caricaturists (Kukriniksi,3 Konstantin Rotov, etc.); photographers (Maks Alpert, Alexander Rodchenko, Ivan Shagin, etc.), and poster designers (Gustav Klutsis)—and rarely address the sources through which their works and the works of other artists reached the population. Such disassociation misconstrues the contextual role of the images, since it implies an autonomous existence of the artwork. In reality, the majority of the images were consumed by the masses from the pages of the illustrated periodicals.4 At the same time, little attention has been given to the various practical issues involved in the production of the periodical press, namely the operation of the editorial office. Although the main feature of Soviet society was the single discourse defined by the government’s official line, the final product derived, to a large extent, from the editorial staff’s spontaneous interpretations of this line.5 As Jeffrey Brooks put it, the mass media was the work of people struggling to “make the world around them intelligible within the officially given limits.”6

Van Gogh's sheaves of wheat

Vincent van Gogh (1853--1890) viewed wheat as a central metaphor of the cycle of life and the creative process. As such, it was a theme that he consistently explored throughout his career. This book examines the artist's personal and visual fascination with wheat, analyzing the significance that the motif----and by extension, the peasant at work in nature----played within the social and cultural framework of 19th-century France and in the works of other artists of the time. Focusing on his Sheaves of Wheat at the Dallas Museum of Art----one of thirteen canvases completed in the last month of his life----this beautiful book features illustrations of Van Gogh's works as well as personal correspondence and letters. Related images by such prominent contemporary artists as Emile Bernard, Jules Breton, Charles F. Daubigny, Paul Gauguin, Jean-Francois Millet, Claude Monet, and Camille Pissarro are also included. Together these works reveal the larger social and political trends of 19th-century France.

The Models of Picasso's Rose Period: The Family of Saltimbanques

The word "model" in this context has a variety of meanings. The concept of "model" encompasses the external person who is represented by the artist, as well as the internal, conscious and unconscious, past and present mental representations of other individuals and the work of other artists. In all of these meanings, the relationships of artist and model have been quite specific to the artist under consideration and the historical-cultural period. For Picasso, the relationship of artist and model was particularly intense, reflecting myriad aspects of his personality and artistic development. The theme of artist and model was the subject of many of his paintings and graphic works. We focus particularly on his use of harlequins, saltimbanques, and circus performers during his blue and rose periods. The change in predominant models and moods between periods is noted. Among the issues considered is the relevance of these models in this particular period. Why were they especially salient objects for identification and for his artistic identity? Identification with the model may represent or be linked to earlier identifications of adolescence and childhood. We discuss the implications of these portrayals for his object relationships and the magical power, possession, and control in the development of his art. The painting "The Family of Saltimbanques," his most ambitious work to date, the integration and culmination of this theme during this period, is of particular interest.

Vermeer, materialism, and the transcendental in art

This text argues that the materials and techniques of Vermeer’s paintings largely account for their “aesthetic effect.” This notion works in opposition to many art historical descriptions of the work (and the work of other artists) which tend to disregard the non-narrative and materialist elements of the construction in favor of transcendent and idealist analysis.

The Building of a Symbolic Image

Over the course of the last academic year, while on a Rome Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, Randolph Langenbach produced a 50-minute digital slide/video presentation called the Piranesi Project: A Statigraphy of Views of Rome. This video was inspired by the celebrated engravings that Giambattista Piranesi created between 1740 and 1778 of views of the ruins of ancient Rome, although it also includes the work of other artists.

Imre Lakatos and Literary Tradition

ALTHOUGH THE CANON DEBATES have largely subsided, the categories of tradition and canon remain problematic and unhelpfully contentious. Some authors view tradition as weighty and oppressive, while cultural studies scholars criticize the concept itself as elitist and exclusionary. Yet literature, like other creative pursuits, cannot avoid its past; nor should it seek to do so. Progressive ideas have a history and a logical development; to argue otherwise leaves them vulnerable to accusations of faddish trendiness. Artists learn from the work of other artists, and critics rely on older examples to describe and understand what they study. Thus activist critics, writers, and moderate scholars all need some way to react to and to conceive of literary history.