Discovering Davies-Land: Arthur B. Davies in the West, 1905

Arthur Davies’s 1905 excursion in the West is only occasionally mentioned in discussions of his career, and then but briefly. The artist’s itinerary and the subjects that captured his attention have, like his western sketches, been largely neglected. Scant written records from his travels and the scattering of the more than seventy oil sketches produced en route contribute to this neglect. Yet in the years after his return, the subjects and compositions of Davies’s easel paintings suggest the impact that unique trip to the American West had for this otherwise dedicated Europhile. Discovery of a number of the small oil-on-panel sketches helps to identify the path Davies pursued. More importantly, the sketches suggest the inspiration for his post-excursion canvases, many of which grew larger in format in response to the scale of the spacious western landscape. A good number of these larger paintings were in fact landscapes, a motif otherwise relatively rare among Davies’s oils, and incorporated familiar aspects of western scenery (mountain horizons, towering redwoods). Some also included nude figures in newly sensual poses and combinations. Consideration of the panels illuminates the praise of contemporaries who lauded Davies’s “superbly faithful and glowing [western] sketches” and predicted that “some day collectors will compete for them.” In 1924, critic Virgil Barker admired the western-inspired works from what he called “Davies-Land,” paintings that required “an emotional comprehension of mood.” In them Barker discovered “this time’s most explicit appeal to the imagination. Therein lies their measure of greatness”—a greatness that began with a sketch

Art schools of the Orient.

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston Universit

Spatialising Illustration

As an illustrator I reflect on human behaviour and the psychological effects of space through drawing. I use people I have met and whose lives intrigue me. Taking a woman I know, I observe and draw. ‘She sat at the table in the sparse kitchen. It had belonged to her grandmother, and her mother before her.’ (Regan, 2012) This quote is taken from the illustrated book I have created ‘The Set,' it is significant in introducing what I discovered about space. Space is not physical and universal. It is personal and formed in the mind. ‘The Set’ explores a woman and the spaces she inhabits. I visualise and try to make sense of this by drawing

The Color Revolution: Printed Books In Eighteenth-Century Japan

Beginning in the mid-1760s, images printed in more than five colors in early modern Japan were known as nishiki-e 錦絵, or “brocade pictures,” an appellation that signaled their visual richness in distinction to prints in monochrome or limited color. Most accounts of full-color printing locate the development of this technology and its visual impact in the medium of the single-sheet print, as part of the genre of ukiyo-e 浮世絵 (the “pictures of the floating world”). This project revises that view by considering the illustrated books produced in the full-color technique, which predate or appear contemporaneously with the so-called “nishiki-e revolution.” Closely analyzing the materiality and visual programs of these books reveals how their use of printed color not only constitutes an important shift in technical practices of printing, but also signals a wider engagement with the artistic, social, and scientific discourses of mid-eighteenth century Japan. Ranging from interest in the natural world to painting, from poetry to scientific classification, from elite milieux to commercial publishers, these illustrated books demonstrate the convergence of a diverse set of concerns upon the particular medium of the color-printed, thread-bound book. The three case studies analyzed in this dissertation take up books differentiated by subject matter, style, and artistic genres. The first two chapters examine a book of fishes and its sequel, on the theme of plants and insects; both books are genre-bending works that combine concerns of poetry, natural studies, and painting. The third chapter considers two picture books of the floating world (ukiyo-ehon 浮世絵本), which feature actors and prostitutes of the pleasure quarter, respectively. Tracing the movement of printed “full color” from its emergence in the context of coterie poetry groups to its later status as a commercial imperative, this study reframes the earliest full-color illustrated books as critical artifacts of technological and epistemological change for picture-making and print in early modern Japan, centered around the materiality and conceptual power of color

Cultural hybridity and visual practice: Towards a transformative-repair multicultural pedagogy for visual arts education

This research project examines how transitional multiculturalism, cultural hybridity and transformative-repair are practiced by a professional artist-researcher and novice artists. Transitional multiculturalism and cultural hybridity are examined through a series of artworks by a Vietnamese-born artist-researcher. This series of artwork, which reflects 35 years of creating art in both Vietnamese and Australia, demonstrate a personal engagement with issues of cultural diversity, upbringing, and related aesthetic studies. The intention of this exhibition is to chart the characteristics of the artist\u27s expression, which is culturally hybridised. This part of the study aims to identify those artistic conventions associated with specific visual traditions that have been incorporated into the artist-researcher\u27s paintings. The main influences identified originate from both Eastern arts traditions (Viet nam, Japan and China) and Western visual arts traditions. This study also aims to identify how to use artistic conventions associated with the expression of one\u27s culture und ancestry, which may continue to improving one\u27s knowledge in different traditions and history across diverse aesthetic systems of hybridity. Information and understandings gained from the first part of this research will provide insigns, which will have relevance to secondary school visual arts learning areas. The transformative-repair model of multiculturalism is examined through a visual arts project conducted by secondary school students. More specifically this part of the study aims to identify principles, approaches and content for transformative repair, experiences of two students of culturally diverse hack grounds (African and Vietnamese) who are currently engaged in this culturally diverse Australian society