Visualizing Shakespeare: Iconography and Interpretation in the Works of Salvador Dalí

Although William Shakespeare’s 16th century classical literature is rarely contextualized with the eccentricities of 20th century artist Salvador Dali, Shakespeare’s myriad of works have withstood the test of time and continue to be celebrated and reinterpreted by the likes of performers, scholars, and artists alike. Along with full-text illustrations of well-known plays, such as Macbeth (1946) and As You Like It (1953), Dali returned to the Shakespearean motif with his two series of dry-point engravings (Much Ado About Shakespeare and Shakespeare II) in 1968 and 1971. The series combine to formulate 31 depictions where Dali interprets Shakespeare’s text in a single image with classics like Romeo & Juliet as well as some of Shakespeare’s more obscure plays, such as Troilus and Cressida and Timon of Athens. Gettysburg College owns several of these prints, housed in the library’s Special Collections. Troilus and Cressida and Timon of Athens were on display in Schmucker Art Gallery as part of the Method and Meaning exhibit in the fall of 2014. Shakespeare’s plays are an eclectic repertoire of iconic characters such as Prince Hamlet and Othello as well as timeless themes (both comic and tragic) that easily lend themselves to an extraordinary diverse range of illustrations; from the 18th century historical narratives of Francis Hayman, 19th century whimsical paintings of William Blake, Victorian renditions of John Everett Millais, and then eventually leading to the 20th expressive freedom of Dali. Salvador Dali’s representations, like his predecessors, aim to capture the essence of each Shakespeare play using specific iconographic elements in order to create a visual narration, bringing together the interpretations of the author, artist, and the viewer

Naturaleza muerta y "vanitas" en la poesía española contemporánea

This article focuses on the analysis of various contemporary Spanish poems that recreate the theme of Still Lifes, in the specific variant of Vanitas. Although these poems can be inserted within the literary tradition of elegiac poetry, they follow more closely the pictorial tradition of Still Lifes, especially developed during the baroque era. These specific poems highlight the visual aspects of the Still Lifes represented, using detailed and accurate descriptions of the objects and the procedure of rhetorical ecfrasis. For example, the descriptions are so vivid one could imagine the degeneration or the corruption of the objects. Based on this idea, the article attempts to explain or justify the possible causes of this thematic recurrence in the current Spanish poetry, and then analyzes the selection of these poems in its fundamental characteristics.Este artículo se centra en el análisis de determinados poemas españoles contemporáneos que recrean el tema de los bodegones o naturalezas muertas, en su variante específica de vanitas. Aunque estos poemas pueden insertarse dentro de la tradición literaria de la poesía elegíaca, su escritura sigue más de cerca la tradición pictórica de bodegones, desarrollada especialmente durante la época barroca. Esta preeminencia de lo visual puede apreciarse en los textos en la presencia de rasgos como la descripción detallada y precisa de los objetos, la representación plástica de su degeneración o su corrupción y el procedimiento retórico de la écfrasis. Partiendo de esta idea, el artículo intenta explicar o justificar, en primer lugar, las posibles causas de esta recurrencia temática en la poesía española actual, para después analizar el conjunto de estos poemas en sus características fundamentales

Modern Narcissus: the lingering reflections of myth in modern art

Why has myth continued to fascinate modern artists, and why the myth of Narcissus, with its modern association with narcissism? This article considers the relationship between the Narcissus myth and the lineage of modern art that runs from Symbolism to surrealism through the polymorphous prism of the Greco-Roman Pantheon to which Narcissus belongs. The article offers an interpretation of the role of mythology in modern art that moves beyond psychoanalysis to incorporate the longer span of the art-historical tradition. Addressing issues of aesthetics, gender and sexuality, the following account highlights Narcissus‟s double nature as an erotic myth that comprises both identity formation and intersubjectivity, as enacted in the field of representation. The myths associated with Narcissus in the history of Western art will help us reconsider his role as a powerful figure capable to activate that slippage between word and image, identity and sociability, representation and reality which was celebrated by the Symbolists and formed the centre of the surrealists‟ social-aesthetic project

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationIn the dissertation, I use verisimilitude to explain first, how the force of visual rhetoric operates in works of art; second, for understanding how visual rhetoric influences audiences framed as both rhetorical and aesthetic viewing practices; and finally, how art is mediated in cognitive and emotional ways. Works of art call our attention to the power of these types of intercommunication because ""as often as language teaches us to see,"" Michael Ann Holly wrote, ""art instructs us in telling."" Specifically, this framework highlights that audiences of visual rhetoric rely on two types of viewing practices: first, a rhetorical practice that focuses on argument, function, and symbol; and second an aesthetic practice that focuses on the sensory, emotional, and artistic features of an image. These practices help us understand how audiences historically may have experienced works of art that evoked an emotional response and a symbolic meaning. This framework is simultaneously novel and traditional. It is novel because contemporary visual rhetoric scholarship has focused mainly on the functional and symbolic aspects of visual images and my dissertation (re)introduces aesthetic aspects of visual images in seeking to create a more holistic perspective on visual rhetoric. It is traditional because we can locate an aesthetic or visual theory in Aristotle's Rhetoric, for example in the enigmatic metaphor, bringing-before-the-eyes. In two case studies in two chapters--Comparing Pity and Fear in Rhetoric and Poetics; and The Rhetoric of Vanitas Painting--I demonstrate that the effect of this metaphor is not explicitly cognitive; but instead, a perceptive and emotional capacity. Aristotle's theory allows the audience to participate in the persuasive process and encompasses its role as the target of emotional appeals. This dissertation offers an alternative approach to the study of visual rhetoric and reminds us that we should revive an ancient perspective on rhetoric. Ultimately, I argue that rhetoric circumscribes aesthetics, which is a challenge to the conventional assumption that rhetoric and aesthetics are different phenomena

Stil-Life

This written thesis is the supporting documentation for Still-Life, my Master of Fine Arts thesis exhibition. I use handmade ceramic still-life objects to depict my specific memories and experiences about my life before and after the pandemic. Death, hope, time, and emotion are the themes explored in this exhibition. This installation of ceramic sculptures not only recreates a historical moment in the pandemic but also captures the current times that we live in. It records the artist\u27s life and time during the COVID-19 pandemic. The selection of still-life objects for the exhibition often has special significance on a personal, cultural, social, and philosophical level. These objects come from daily life and are arranged thematically. The installation is designed to create a journal that expresses the artist\u27s experiences and emotions to evoke an emotional connection with the audience

The Mirror in Art: Vanitas, Veritas, and Vision

Humankind’s venerable obsession with the mirror, traceable to the ancient myths of Medusa and Narcissus, is copiously attested in Western art, which historically relied on the mirror as both practical tool and polysemous trope. While the mirror’s reflective capacities encouraged its identification with the vaunted mimetic function of literature and film, its refractive quality enabled artists to explore and comment on perspective, in the process challenging the concept of art’s faithful representation of phenomena. My radically compressed and selective overview of the mirror’s significance in Western iconography focuses primarily on visibility, gaze, and gender, dwelling on key moments and genres that most vividly illustrate the paradoxes of the mirror as both symbol and utilitarian object. Comparing Russian art with its Western counterpart, I argue that Russia’s distinctive iconographic traditions account for Russian divergences from major aspects of the inherited and evolving mirror rhetoric that prevailed in Western Europe

La vanitas en Los cinco sentidos de Brueghel: Olfato y Tacto

Mediante un comentario, desde el punto de vista de la vanitas, de los cuadros “Olfato” y “Tacto”, de la serie Los Cinco Sentidos de Jan Brueghel, este artículo se propone demostrar cómo el motivo pictórico de los cinco sentidos puede suponer un intento de mensaje moral y religioso. Es fundamentalmente en el Barroco cuando estas alegorías alcanzan su máximo esplendor, especialmente en los Países Bajos. Ponen de manifiesto la confianza en la capacidad de los objetos para materializar el símbolo. El simbolismo podría ser el resultado de varias ideas, como la caducidad, la inutilidad de aferrarse a los bienes terrenales y la elección entre el bien y el mal. Para comprender la relación que se establece entre estas ideas y las representaciones artísticas, hay que tener en cuenta que, según la mentalidad barroca, la vida del hombre sobre la tierra era sólo una preparación para la vida en el más allá, y que su destino dependía en gran medida de cómo se condujera en la vida terrenal. La vida terrenal era material y transitoria, mientras que la vida en el cielo sería espiritual y eterna. No había que gustar los bienes terrenales sino los celestiales para ganar el cielo. Este mensaje está representado particularmente en el género de la vanitas.By a comment, within the renge of vanitas still life, of the pictures “Smell” and “Touch”, caming from de series The Five Senses, by Jan Brueghel, this article sets out to prove how the pictorial motif of the five senses can evoke a moral and religious message. It was during the baroque period that these allegories reached the height of their success, mainly in the Netherlands. They demonstrate a reliance on objects to represent symbols. The symbolism could be the result of certain ideas, like perishability, the uselessness of grappling with earthly goods or the choice between rigth and wrong. To reach a better understanding to the relationship between these ideas and the artistic depictions, we must remember that, according to the baroque mentality, man’s life on earth was just a training for the after-life, and that his fortune there depended, to a great extent, on how well he had behaved during his life on earth. Earthly live was physical and transitory, while the one in heaven would be spiritual and everlasting. We shouldn’t value earthly goods, but only the riches of heaven, in order to win salvation. This message is strongly conveyed in the genre of vanitas still life

'If I could be equall with Solomon...' - Ecclesiastes and English practical divinity c.1590, with particular reference to Henry Smith & George Gifford

The book of Ecclesiastes is a scripture that has been notoriously vexing and endlessly inspiring to Christians and students of Christianity through the ages, and it has been a standout text in the diachronic study of biblical reception. Nevertheless, there is no dearth of problems, questions, potential advances, and needful correctives that remain outstanding. One such set of issues relates to the reception of the scripture in sixteenth century England. When the Tudor dynasty began, interest in Ecclesiastes was limited, mainly to humanist scholars and the upper echelons of English society. By the end of Elizabeth’s reign, it had emerged as a focus of engagement, worldly application, and personal emulation for all, from puritan and conformist divines to London liverymen and independent craftswomen, from governing intellectuals like Francis Bacon to social outliers like the author(s) of Hæc-Vir. To date, the relevant historiographies have largely bypassed this arc of change. The present thesis is an interdisciplinary study that identifies bands added to this arc of change by the generation of certain scripted prayers and sermons delivered c.1590 by the puritan ministers Henry Smith and George Gifford. Treating these materials as events of the imagination as well as texts, it also ascertains specific modes of their enduring influences, and argues that they were the vanguard of historically significant evolutions in the reception of Ecclesiastes that both deepened the scripture’s role in English practical divinity and had wider, abiding effects on English thought and expression well into the seventeenth century. Refinements to current scholarship are also offered, such as further pruning to the origins of the Victorine (Hugh of St Victor) influence on Reformed exegesis of vanitas. Certain bibliographical correctives are suggested as well, such as the place and importance of The Books of Homilies in the pre-1590 reception of Ecclesiastes

Ageing, Aura, and Vanitas in Art: Greek Laughter and Death

Beginning with the representation of age in extremis in the nature morte or still life, a depiction of aged artifacts and representations of vanitas, artistic representations particularly in painting associate woman and death. Looking at artistic allegories for age and ageing, raising the question of aura for Walter Benjamin along with Ivan Illich and David Hume, this essay reflects on Heidegger on history together with reflections on the ‘death of art’ as well as Arakawa and Gins and Bazon Brock, both as artists ‘at your service,’ as Brock would say, contra death, and including a brief discussion of wabi sabi and kintsugi. The ‘ageing’ of art includes a review of the (ongoing) debate concerning Michelangelo’s forging of the Laocoon as well as ancient views of age together with contemporary philosophic reflections (Simone de Beauvoir and Michel de Certeau). The figure of Baubô in ancient Greek sculpture and cultic context can make it plain, as Nietzsche shows (as Sarah Kofman follows him on this), that laughter and death are connected (along with fertility cults in antiquity). Satire preserves the Greek tradition of laughing at death and the essay closes with Swinburne