East Versus West: The National Gallery of Art’s Relationship to Modern Art and Architecture

The National Gallery of Art is a modern piece of art itself throughout its split galleries; the West Building (the original) and the East Building (the addition). This study seeks to identify the importance of the East Building in relation to modern architecture and modern and contemporary art through three main means: materials, its fit into Washington, D.C.’s research field, and how it is possibly the first instance of the “Guggenheim Effect.” By examining the materiality and spatial atmosphere of the East Building, I discuss the influences for I.M. Pei’s extraordinarily contemporary design. Then, how the East Building has evolved the styling of the architecture of art museums after it like the Guggenheim family of museums

Paintings of War, Museums of Memory

This paper examines the artists sent to the Western Front under Britain’s official war artists initiative. The government sought to utilize artwork for propagandistic purposes, and to foster emotional connection between civilian and soldier. However, the growth of the initiative to include some ninety artists complicated this. The experiences of the artists and the truths revealed to them by the conflict were vastly different, and examination of them as a whole does little to elucidate the character of the war itself. What this paper seeks to do, therefore, is examine three artists - Sir William Orpen, Lieutenant Paul Nash, and C.R.W. Nevinson – as individuals. In moving away from aggregated narratives and comparing this small group, the importance of subjectivity in memory and representation becomes clear. By returning individuality to a crowded, multitudinous narrative, war can be seen as it truly is: a unique experience for all involved

Captive Body, Free Mind: Euphrosinia Kersnovskaia, the Gulag, and Art Under Oppression

This paper examines the art of Euphrosinia Kersnovskaia (1907-1994) as it relates to both the larger experience and narrative of the Soviet Gulag and to the survival of the artist. Larger trends of art made under oppression are used to find reason for such seemingly insignificant acts, and art therapy frameworks provide analytical bases for approach. By looking at such deeply subjective forms of memory and its transcription, individuality and humanity is returned to an inhuman penal system

The City: Art and the Urban Environment

The City: Art and the Urban Environment is the fifth annual exhibition curated by students enrolled in the Art History Methods class. This exhibition draws on the students’ newly developed expertise in art-historical methodologies and provides an opportunity for sustained research and an engaged curatorial experience. Working with a selection of paintings, prints, and photographs, students Angelique Acevedo ’19, Sidney Caccioppoli ’21, Abigail Coakley ’20, Chris Condon ’18, Alyssa DiMaria ’19, Carolyn Hauk ’21, Lucas Kiesel ’20, Noa Leibson ’20, Erin O’Brien ’19, Elise Quick ’21, Sara Rinehart ’19, and Emily Roush ’21 carefully consider depictions of the urban environment in relation to significant social, economic, artistic, and aesthetic developments. [excerpt]https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/artcatalogs/1029/thumbnail.jp

Bauhaus, modernity and the Unrechtstaat

The article discusses the connection between Bauhaus, a modern art and architecture school founded in 1919, and National Socialism. The central question is to what extent modern ideas about art and culture, architecture and modern life went hand in hand with the emerging and assertive National Socialist ideas. In the review of an art and architecture collection, activities of famous Bauhaus figures are traced in order to discuss the Bauhaus myth. Accordingly, it must be concluded that neutrality of art and architecture does not exist and Bauhaus modernity was not incompatible with National Socialism

Fore and Aft: Abstraction in Tolkien’s “Ishness” Designs

Though Tolkien\u27s artwork tended toward the figural, there was a period during his undergraduate years in which he created abstracts under the name of Ishnesses. This essay examines the nature of abstraction, how it relates to medieval concepts of art, and how it relates to Tolkien\u27s visionary painting of subjects not in the primary world but in the Middle-earth of his vast imagination. Fore and Aft: Abstraction, Vanishing Point and Symmetry in Tolkien’s “Ishness” Design