This paper is dedicated to the study of the landscape painter Gaspard Dughet (1615-1675), usually considered a follower of Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665). It will be argued that Dughet was a talented yet traditional artist who, though loyal to his master’s stylistic predilections, pioneered conventionality within the field of landscape, taking it to its most naturalistic roots through the genre of storm landscapes. The paper will also critique the discipline of Art History and its obsessive focus on the idea of Genius by comparing the limited scholarship on Dughet with the impressive amount of publications on Poussin.
Faculty Sponsor: Ricardo de Mambro Santos
Discipline: Art History
The paper will provide an in-depth examination of Leonardo da Vinci's renowned artwork, the Mona Lisa, within the historical and cultural framework of the Italian Renaissance. It will examine the painting's context as well as its long-standing fame to better understand the impact of its innovative artistic techniques and its cultural significance, exploring, in particular, themes such as femininity and gendered symbolism in sixteenth-century Florence. It will be argued that the study of Mona Lisa may offer new insights on the representation of a socially constructed image of womanhood in early modern Italy.
Faculty Sponsor: Ricardo de Mambro Santos
Discipline: Art History
This presentation aims to address Hilma af Klint’s attempt to create a universal language, focusing on the Eros series painted in 1907. The analysis of these works allows for an exploration of gender, sexuality, spiritual ideas, and philosophy on the basis of a sign system developed by af Klint herself. Using visual forms, written documents produced by af Klint, and a dictionary of words, letters, and shapes from the artist, this presentation will expand the bounds of current scholarship to define the relationship between word, symbol, and meaning in the views of Hilma herself.
Faculty Sponsor: Ricardo de Mambro Santos
Discipline: Art History
Hannah Höch (1889-1978) was an artist well known for her work in photomontage with the Berlin Dada movement. This presentation, however, will attempt to create a more complete image of this complex artist as she adapted the medium of photomontage to examine the correlated themes of femininity and the New Woman in Weimar Germany. By examining three compositions dating from what could be considered the beginning, middle and end of her career I will analyze the stylistic and iconographic changes and show how they reflect the artist’s ever-changing grasp on the medium of photomontage.
Faculty Sponsor: Ricardo de Mambro Santos
Discipline: Art History
This paper delves into many late works of Remedios Varo (1908-1963) from the 1950s to her death, which show a continuous narrative of a female alchemist. It will be argued that Remedios Varo and other women associated with Surrealism depart from the movement in their mature styles, living and working in different contexts and with different ideas from their male counterparts. Varo challenges the archetypes of femininity she was constricted to adopt in the past by the male Surrealists and broader society, finding at last liberation in discovering, reassessing, and personalizing new mythologems in a process of “personal mythology/mythmaking".
Faculty Sponsor: Ricardo de Mambro Santos
Discipline: Art History
This presentation will provide an interpretation of La Sagrada Familia’s Nativity Façade designed by Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona, Spain. Through iconological analysis, it will be argued that the Nativity Facade can be considered the physical embodiment of the Catalonian identity. The work will be contextualized in its own original historical setting, paying attention also to the particular milieu in which it was constructed to better understand the relation between the cultural and political ideas of the local Zeitgeist and Gaudí’s style, architectural prowess, and religious philosophy. The Catalonian identity will also be explained using a brief analysis of Catalonia’s history.
Faculty Sponsor: Ricardo de Mambro Santos
Discipline: Art History
In this talk, I will discuss a selection of twenty-three unprovenanced artifacts of carved jade from the Hallie Ford Museum of Art’s Caroline Tarbell-Tupper Collection. By analyzing the facture, materials, style, and possible function, as well as using comparative typological analysis with similar artifacts in published collections, I will be exploring how valuable information can still be gained from artifacts that lack an archaeological context.
Faculty Sponsor: Ann Nicgorski
Discipline: Archaeology
In this talk, I will present my findings from an aerial survey of the Bronze Age (2500-800 BCE) archaeological features of Peerie Hill in Yesnaby, Orkney, Scotland. I will start by providing contextual information about the history and material culture of Bronze Age Orkney and the surrounding British Isles and Northern Europe. I will then transition into exhibiting data I collected using unmanned aerial vehicles, and speculating about the identification and function of select archaeological features. Lastly, I will discuss how this site might contribute to our current understanding of the relatively unresearched Bronze Age in Orkney.
Faculty Sponsor: Ann Nicgorski
Discipline: Archaeology
In this talk, I will present topics from my thesis regarding variations between field-derived and lab-derived soil textures. This talk concerns soils collected from the Willamette Heritage Center Parsonage House Excavation. First, I will present data relating to discrepancies between in-field soil texture-by-feel analysis and in-lab chemical analysis of soil textures. Second, I will provide my interpretations of this data as well as my suggestions for improved field procedures. Finally, I will briefly describe the application of my research for the WHC Parsonage House final report and future City of Salem excavations.
Faculty Sponsor: Ann Nicgorski
Discipline: Archaeology
In this talk, I will detail how aerial-based LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) is applied on and around the Ness of Brodgar in Orkney, Scotland. My talk will first provide historical and cultural background on Neolithic Orkney. Secondly, I will describe the procedures of using LiDAR attached to an unmanned aircraft vehicle (UAV) in Orkney. Third, I will discuss the processing and analysis of select data. My analysis will highlight known Neolithic sites and points of interest. Finally, I will present with the overall results of my study and my conclusions about the usefulness of LiDAR in Orkney.
Faculty Sponsor: Ann Nicgorski
Discipline: Archaeology
In many industrial archaeological sites, stratigraphy has been too disturbed to determine site chronology. To address this problem, I used a pXRF unit to create a chemical signature of brick samples, one of the most common – and understudied – materials used throughout the late 19th and early 20th century in Oregon. By doing this, I hope to create a database of manufactures that can be used to quickly and cheaply analyze future samples from Tumwata Village and beyond. This would allow researchers to understand when their samples were made, which can then provide a date for the associated stratigraphy.
Faculty Sponsor: Scott Pike
Discipline: Archaeology