From the Paper
"The reasons for the extraordinary flowering of art in fifteenth-century Florence are extremely complex and range from the prosperity and cosmopolitanism of the city to the humanists' new ideas about humanity and new relationship with antiquity to the earliest stirrings of the modern concept of the artist. One undoubted source of the sheer volume of Florentine art and its innovative nature is the demand formulated by the city's patrons--guilds, confraternities, churches, religious orders, civil government, and, above all, the Medici Family--with its special devotion to the ideal of magnificence--and the many other wealthy Florentines who imitated them. In the midst of their prosperity and under the influence of evolving ideas fifteenth-century Florentines became a new kind of consumer and their patronage facilitated the extraordinary performance of art as "it underwent.."

From the Paper
"In the United States, photography has for several decades served the aims of both art and social documentation (Adams, 1994, p. 489). As an art form, photography can present compelling, challenging images that engage viewers in both form and content -- as well as opportunities for photographers to experiment with form, content, and techniques of representation. This brief essay will compare and contrast two photographs with a similar subject matter (i.e., mothers and their children) that were taken by two very different photographers in two distinctly different historical periods. The first photograph is Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother, California" (1936), and the second is W. Eugene Smith's "Tomoko in Her Bath" (1972).
Dorothea Lange was one of several American photographers for the Farm Security Administration (FSA), a "New Deal" federal.."

From the Paper
"The principal impression in any encounter with the full span of Auguste Rodin's (1840-1917) immense body of work is that he had looked at everything that preceded him. This impression is so overwhelming, in fact, that it is not a surprise that scholarship on Rodin's influences and sources is quite sparse. In part this is a function of the rapid decline of Rodin's critical reputation after his death and, perhaps, of the fact that the popularity of his most famous work has never diminished. The more salient factor may be, however, that Rodin's oeuvre seems to be the culmination of the tradition of, primarily nude, sculpture that reaches back at least 2,000 years. Realistic, even idealized, nude sculpture simply seems to end with Rodin and the few direct influences on eminent sculptors seem to point up their irrelevance rather than Rodin's importance. Aside from the..."

From the Paper
"The AIDS Quilt represents an unprecedented example of grass roots political organizing. The quilt, also known as the NAMES Project Quilt, makes both personal and private statements about mourning, community participation, and activism. The AIDS Quilt is unique among public monuments because it is a collaborative memorial, the organizers of which have vowed to continue the project for the duration of the AIDS epidemic.
A stunning feature of the AIDS Quilt is its explosive growth. The quilt was first publicly displayed in 1987, when it consisted of slightly less than 2,000 panels. At a public exhibition in 1990, the quilt comprised 10,000 panels. By 1992, the quilt included more than 20,000 panels, with an additional 4,000 panels brought to a demonstration in Washington: "The steady rise in the number of panels over the past five years..."

From the Paper
"This paper will discuss the career and personal style of designer, Laura Ashley. The discussion will include a brief background on the designer, and will show the type of business that the designer ran, as well as explain how her company lasted for five decades. Finally, the paper will illustrate examples of the designer's products and look, as well as explain why this designer is important.

The apparel and furnishing designer, Laura Ashley, began her career in fashion and interior decorating by selling tea towels. Ashley first started silk-screening linen dish towels with her husband, Bernard Ashley, on their kitchen table in 1953. Mrs. Ashley was experiencing a difficult first pregnancy and wanted to pass the time until her child's birth by making patchwork home furnishings. Ashley was ..."

Tags: BIOGRAPHIES

From the Paper
"Jesus Christ was born into a Roman world. As Luke tells us, "a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be enrolled" (Luke 2:1). In the Romans' view, they and their possessions were the entire world. The Romans had gone on endless military campaigns to subdue their enemies and exert their influence in every accessible corner of the Mediterranean and European worlds. Then, in a similar but more peaceful fashion, Christ's followers went out to spread the word throughout the Roman Empire. It was not until they finally succeeded in acquiring the Roman Emperor Constantine as a convert to Christianity in A.D. 312 that the new religion triumphed and the history of the Western world was transformed. After that "the empire that Constantine ruled as a declared Christian, from 312 to 337, was profoundly different from the classical urban..."

From the Paper
"Most colonial furniture was the product of the settlers' practical need for the basics of existence. On their arrival the first colonists had to cope with the problems of survival and the difficulties of the voyage had allowed them to bring very few of their possessions along. At first they were unable to concern themselves with any but the most basic uses of "time and precious human resources" and furniture makers' skills were needed elsewhere. But they did carry with them their "deeply embedded habits, customs and tastes" and the "old forms and the tools needed to make them were reproduced virtually unchanged and persisted long after they had been abandoned 'back home'" and were to be the basis of new, specifically American versions of European furniture styles. Within the broad field of colonial furniture styles it is possible to select a few topics that..."

From the Paper
"The traditional view of Western influences on Chinese painting has been that the first influences derived from Chinese artists' observation of the work of European artists in China in the eighteenth century. These influences have not been regarded as being of much significance and, in fact, were usually just dismissed as the aberrations of a few painters who placed themselves outside the long Chinese tradition. James Cahill and others have proposed, however, that earlier influences of a more substantial kind are to be found in the work of landscape painters of the late Ming and early Ch'ing periods. An examination of Cahill's claims shows how the European influence was integrated into the work of certain painters and eventually passed on to others who followed them. These influences do not include outright changes in subject matter or blatant alterations..."

From the Paper
"Introduction
Eastman Kodak once dominated the consumer photographic market, but has recently lost some market share to Fuji film in photographic supplies, and to Polaroid in instant cameras. The high rate of usage of 35mm cameras also meant a loss of market share as consumers moved away from Kodak's flagship instamatic cameras and to the higher quality (but now easier to use) reflex cameras. This research considers the current strategies in place at Kodak, the competitive environment in which the company operates, and evaluates alternatives the company might follow in coming years in order to ensure its success.

Company Background
Kodak develops, manufactures and markets consumer and commercial imaging products. The consumer imaging products are used for capturing, record.."

From the Paper
"The sculptures of the Parthenon represent a high point in Classical sculpture and a culmination in the centuries-long effort by Greek sculptors to fashion images that represent natural movement and repose. But, with the increased naturalism of the Classical era, it became difficult for artists to reconcile that realism with the ideal. In comparison with the other sculpture of the Classical era, the sculptures of the Parthenon (447-432 BC) represent a unique solution to this problem.

It might have been assumed that the expression of mood and emotion, which constituted the essence of the representation of the ideal, would be facilitated by greater realism. Yet increasing realism did just the opposite, and much of Classical sculpture is distinctly less inclined toward the ideal than.."

From the Paper
"The Arts and Crafts Movement, that began in nineteenth-century Britain, and the Bauhaus movement, that started in Germany in the 1920s, had many goals in common. Both movements were interested in uniting all the arts and crafts and giving them equal dignity. Both movements were also deeply concerned with the role of the artist as worker and with the nature of work in general. Most importantly, both movements believed in beautiful design and well-made work as an enhancement of life. The importance of industrialized production and its aesthetic effects was a central question for both movements, but this was also the main point on which they disagreed. Both movements held that the industrialized production of goods had transformed the world. But, while the original Arts and Crafts movement largely rejected the machine age and all its productions, the Bauhaus.."

From the Paper
"The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has become a target of some of the Republican leadership in congress. It has long been a target of certain conservative groups either opposed to government funding of the arts as such or opposed to certain manifestations of that funding, such as performances or works of art considered obscene by the critics. In the Senate, Senator Jesse Helms has been a leading voice against the agency. A number of newly elected congressmen are bent on pushing through various conservative issues now that Republicans are in charge of Congress for the first time in four decades. However, the division over the NEA is not simply a case of right versus left, and there are arguments for and against government funding of the arts on both sides of the political spectrum.

The National Endowment for the Arts and the National ..."

From the Paper
"Proto-Abstract Expressionism was a transitional stage in the 1940s in which the developing Abstract Expressionists produced the works that led directly to the later movement. On the question of influences and development various art historians and critics hold differing views. A comparison of the views of several writers will clarify the manner in which various sources influenced Proto-Abstract Expressionists such as Mark Rothko, Arshile Gorky and Jackson Pollock and how their works, in turn, led to the development of Abstract Expressionism.

Proto-Abstract Expressionism was developmental in nature and critics and historians do not assign a role in this stage to works that did not take in influences that were later manifested in Abstract Expressionism. Thus, for example, a historian might judge that early Regionalist-influenced works by Pollock and ..."

From the Paper
" Leonardo had several purposes in writing the manuscripts that are known as his notebooks. It would be difficult to make a complete list of every subject that he addressed in them, but the briefest list shows his reasons for writing. The pages include plans for books to be written, notes on Latin (which he did not study until he was over 40), notes on anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany and optics, lists of his own notebooks, speculations on proportion, observations of natural phenomenon, numerous speculations about the movement of water, long passages from books he had read, lists of words he had learned, mathematics he was learning, designs for machines and weapons, calculations of various kinds, reminders of questions he wanted to ask, ideas about painting, jokes and riddles he had been told, and sketches related to almost all these subjects. Clearly the.."

From the Paper
"The purpose of this paper is to discuss the symbolism of the bull in Minoan art. It will draw upon not only examples of Minoan art but also what is know of the religious associations of the bull in early Greek myth and religion.

Surely all attempts to comprehend the symbolism of the bull in Minoan art must begin from, or at least remain cognizant of, the fresco of the "bull dancers" found in the palace at Knossos. Greek myth, conveniently summarized in Plutarch's Life of Theseus, served to preserve a memory of this complex palace; its name or description as labyrinthos, which came to mean a maze, had apparently meant the ?house of the double ax.?

The myths also portrayed the king of Crete, Minos, as a son of Europa, a princess of Phoenicia, who rode on the back of Zeus in the form of a bull to Crete, where he seduced her and fathered Minos.."