ABSTRACT: 1930, at the Venice Biennale, Amedeo Modigliani was exhibited for the second time. The works on display resumed his art career: there were drawings and sculptures; portraits, and nudes. They all shared the trace of Modigliani’s interest in the art of the Trecento and of the Italian Renaissance, as well as his avant-garde intentions without ever being part of any specific school. His works were replete with elegant bodies and suggestive deformations such as almond-shaped eyes and elongated necks. Those very features that from 1917 until 1930 had divided critics, both in France and Italy. Only in 1930 did critics recognize Modigliani’s style as a valid solution for the so-called Return to order. Reclining Nude, Head Resting on one Arm is useful as a case-study to understand the shift in the critical reception of Modigliani’s work and the different temporalities and ideological contexts on either side of the Alps. The thesis begins with an analysis of the 1917 exhibition at the Berthe Weil Gallery in Paris and follows with a critique of the 1922 Biennale exhibition in Rome. The thesis concludes with a study of the 1930 Biennale in Venice that represents a turning point in Modigliani’s reception and informs our understanding of the inter-war period.
Moreover, the thesis attempts to explain historiographical trends in art criticism by analyzing the tendencies in and reasons for the Return to order in Italy and France. In other words, to study this specific work by Modigliani, Reclining Nude, Head Resting on one Arm allows to understand a radical change in the critics’ appreciation of this singular artists and his contribution to modern art. However, what scholars have failed to recognize is Modigliani’s appropriation of Trecento and Renaissance art, as well as the formal innovations interpreted from other avant-gardes – in particular Cubism, which provides reasons for the impossibility of identifying Modigliani with any specific movement of the 20th century.
ABSTRACT: Art historical scholarship is no stranger to Antinous and his cult, but while there has been a great
deal of serious inquiry, his role as a localized deity has rarely been taken into consideration. His
death (and life) is iconic: a young provincial lover to a philhellenic emperor, Antinous drowned
tragically in the Nile at the tender age of twenty. Hadrian, purportedly weeping like a woman,
deified him and the rest is history. His cult, up until recently, was trivialized and considered to be
the product of a forlorn emperor’s lunacy, with most of his statues being dated to between his
death and that of Hadrian’s (130-138 CE). This, in combination with the sheer amount of
Antinous portraits remaining today (third only to Augustus and Hadrian himself), has created the
assumption that his portraits were simply objectification and homosexual idolatry. However, his
images were far more significant and often signaled towards a local identity. This thesis will
examine four primary case studies, Antinous’ role at Villa Adriana, at Loukou, at Lanuvium, and
at Leptis Magna. Each case presents a different context, but they are all linked through their
choice of Antinous as the exemplified deity, as well as their intense adaptation of his image to
serve the local needs. The key is to consider his guises as iconographical tools, used to ascribe a
role to the blank slate of a new god, and through this, a small glimpse of Antinous’ adaptability
and significance can be obtained.
ABSTRACT: A study of the case surrounding the Euphronios Krater, a sixth century BCE Greek vase, that spans more than thirty years provides a glimpse into the sometimes unethical and even illegal dealings conducted by museums, private collectors, and art dealers. The story follows the sudden appearance of this priceless artifact in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection in the early 1970’s. While many people were excited about the museum’s latest acquisition, others were highly suspicious of the vase’s origins. Subsequent investigations both by American news outlets and Italian authorities uncovered evidence that the museum’s story of how it came into possession of the artifact was far from the truth. What does the case of the Euphronios Krater say about the importance of museum transparency, provenance, and the current state of the illicit antiquities trade? This story and similar cases prompt a closer look into the links between museum acquisition practices and the illicit antiquities trade. By better understanding the importance of provenance and the damaging effects of looting, the need for museum transparency becomes more evident. To better protect cultural patrimony and mitigate the negative effects of the illicit antiquities trade, several laws, conventions, guidelines, and international agreements have been introduced over the years. However, as time has passed, it is becoming clear that much more still needs to be done to protect cultural objects, archeological sites, and human history on a global scale.
Wade,
Katharine Dueffort Martin
ABSTRACT: Characterized as a “devouring” and castrating femme-fatale, the paradigm of the “praying mantis” rose to popularity among Surrealist artists during the 1930’s as a symbol of repressed male sexuality. Salvador Dalí, famed for his “paranoiac-critical” method, found the praying mantis to be an alluring motif of psychoanalytic expression, canonizing its myth further in 1934 through an extensive analytic essay titled “The Tragic Myth of Millet’s L’Angelus”. His essay, which focused on a psychoanalytic interpretation of Jean-François Millet’s 1857 painting L’Angelus, then prompted the painting of a series of L’Angelus inspired works, associating the role of the original’s female figure with the identity of the praying mantis. Prior to this, in 1929, Dalí painted The Great Masturbator, just after beginning his intimate involvement with Gala Éluard, who’s profile appears in a curiously erotic composition within the painting. Interestingly, The Great Masturbator, was later claimed to convey praying mantis imagery in multiple works of scholarship of the late 20th century, despite an undeniable lack of primary evidence of Dalí’s intended symbolism. Therefore, this thesis intends to explore the possible “keys” of interpretation of the portrait of Gala in The Great Masturbator, attempting to “decode” the presence of specific visual elements though their biographical origins and to build upon their corresponding psychoanalytical conclusions. By compiling and analyzing the Surrealist viewer’s collective knowledge of and expectations about the Surrealist praying mantis paradigm through a variety of succinct visual analyses and comparisons of praying mantis works by other Surrealist artists, this will survey the iconographical patterns, or lack thereof, which help to define the visual representational limits of the praying mantis trope, from which one can further analyze its symbolic association with the portrait of Gala within The Great Masturbator.
