From the Paper
" A comparison of two sculptural representations of the Buddha from the early and the late Heian periods will demonstrate the stylistic changes that accompanied the increasing "japanization" of Buddhist art at this time. In 784 the Emperor decided to move the court from Nara, headquarters of the great Buddhist monasteries, in order to escape the political interference of the monks. The introduction of Esoteric or Shingon Buddhism in the late eighth century coincided with the decision to locate the court in Heian-Kyo (later Kyoto). Shingon Buddhism and Pure Land Buddhism became, respectively, the prevailing religious modes of the early Heian (sometimes called Jogan) period and late Heian (sometimes called Fujiwara) period. The effect of these strands of Buddhism on Japanese art are reflected in the two sculptures of the Buddha considered here."

From the Paper
"Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)
In his book Inventing Leonardo, A. Richard Turner states that "[s]elf revelation was not Leonardo's strong suit" (9). Turner observes that, although da Vinci kept many notes about his art and mechanical and scientific investigations over the years, he included very little about his personal feelings, daily activities, or relationships to other people in these notes (9). Patrice Boussel, in her analysis of the numerous biographies of da Vinci, concludes that the few documents available concerning da Vinci's childhood leave a gap in the understanding of his early years (5). Only recently have historians been able to piece together a few specific bits of information about his early years.
Emil Moller, one of da Vinci's most notable historians.."

From the Paper
" Gianlorenzo Bernini (1598-1680) did more than any individual to create the appearance of Rome as it exists today. As the leading sculptor and architect of the Baroque era, Bernini's talents and tastes meshed perfectly with the Church's demand for an increased magnificence and intensity in religious art. The Catholic Counter-Reformation called for an image of the Church as a triumphant force, undiminished by the heretical efforts of the Protestant reformers. Throughout the city of Rome, the power of Bernini's papal patrons was reflected in the sumptuous fountains, tombs, and religious sculpture he supplied. At St. Peter's, the very heart of Catholicism, Bernini transformed the church (both inside and out) with designs whose magnificent theatricality was matched by a fervent intensity. Three major examples of Bernini's work demonstrate the nature of his enormous.."

From the Paper
"The authoritarian rule of the Byzantine emperors extended to church, state, and military. As a consequence of the complete interdependence of the church and state in Byzantium, the religious art of the Empire frequently reflected the authoritarian nature of imperial power. One of the forms this art took was the imperial votive portrait. A brief discussion of the reasons for Byzantine authoritarianism, especially in regard to control of the church, will demonstrate why such a tradition of portraiture developed. An analysis of one example, a portrait of the Emperor John II Comnenus and the Empress Irene with the Madonna, shows how such portraits were assertions of imperial power.
The Byzantine Empire came into being as the result of chaos in the Western half of the Roman Empire."

From the Paper
"In the years that he spent at Argenteuil, Monet began to work on a number of sequences of paintings in which he repeated subjects. These works were forerunners of the famous series that Monet created from 1891 to his death. One important aspect of the connection between the early sequences and the later series is the iconographic content of these works. Just as the later series are often viewed as an approach to pure abstraction, the earlier sequences are often viewed solely as the height of technical accomplishment in Impressionism. Yet, whether one considers the series of grainstacks from the 1890s or the earlier sequences of bridges at Argenteuil, these groupings of painting carry themes and meanings that are often overlooked in the attention that is paid to the evolution of Monet's Impressionist technique. The early sequence of the highway bridge at Argenteuil.."

From the Paper
"As the personal computer has become more widely available in the last decade, computer art has made great strides. The effect of computers in the art world has been and continues to be very profound. The computer has radically changed the way that art is produced and disseminated. A controversy has arisen over whether computer-generated art or computer-assisted art is true art. Computer-generated and computer-assisted art works are true art. The computer is just another tool at the disposal of the artist. The use of the computer as a tool or medium is the choice of each individual artist working in the realm of visual arts. The time-honored art practices of putting pigment on canvas with a brush, cutting images into copper plate with a burin, and welding, whittling, and forcing materials into shape to form three-dimensional forms will not be completely replaced.."

From the Paper
"The Parthenon, built atop the Acropolis, was ancient Athens' greatest temple. It was dedicated to the worship of Athena Parthenos (the virgin), and the rich program of sculptural decoration was devoted to the glory of her city and her legend. The principal decorative aspects of the Parthenon are the following: the east and west pediments; the metopes, which are divided panels set below the roofline and pediments on all sides of the building; the frieze, which runs, uninterrupted, around the outside top of the cella, behind the peristyle; and the enormous statue of Athena Parthenos that was housed inside the cella. The statue disappeared long ago, and, since 1687, the Parthenon itself has been a ruin, with many of the surviving sculptural fragments dispersed around the world. But archaeologists and scholars have tried to reconstruct the.."

From the Paper
"Thomas Eakins painted Max Schmitt in a Single Scull in 1871. The painting is oil on canvas and measures 32 1/4" by 46 1/4". It is currently owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The painting shows Schmitt seated in a long, narrow rowing shell, or scull. The scull sits in the middle of a river, and is located at the center of the lower half of the painting. Schmitt looks back over his shoulder toward the viewer. Beyond Schmitt the river bank appears on either side of the painting, and is covered with trees that either have fall colors or have lost their leaves. Some houses are also visible on the bank. At the horizon an iron bridge crosses the river. On the river another rower is shown beyond Schmitt, pulling on the outspread oars of his scull. Closer to the bridge there is also a long, low, red boat with a few people seated in it. Under the bridge and beyond.."

From the Paper
"The purpose of this research is to examine the history of photography and its cultural impact. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context and background for the emergence of photography as an instance of the fusing of applied art and applied science and then to discuss the evolution of photography as a reflection of and influence on culture.

From one point of view, the cultural impact of photography arises from the fact that it appeared in history. That is because photography is a technical, mechanical, chemical process that, in its earliest configuration did not necessarily lend itself to anything like cultural impact. "Photography is possible," says Coe, "because of the fact, known to the chemists of the eighteenth century, that most chemical compounds of silver darken on exposure to light" (Coe 9). The question of how to manipulate the .."

From the Paper
"In relief sculpture created by Florentine artists in the period 1400-1430 many of the most significant advances of Renaissance art were initiated long before painters took them up. In the works of Donatello (c. 1386-1466) and Lorenzo Ghiberti (c. 1381-1455) the antique became an important source of inspiration and the use of artificial perspective was introduced. Relief sculpture is a sometimes neglected aspect of the general subject of Renaissance sculpture. Because the appearance of freestanding statues in the fifteenth century is one of the most significant results of the renaissance of classical ideals in Italy, other types of sculpture tend to receive less attention. Yet, primarily through the efforts of Donatello and Ghiberti, much of the relief sculpture of the first decades of the Quattrocento was as forward-looking as anything produced in the other mode. This.."

From the Paper
"Charles I (r. 1625-49) was a poor statesman whose deep belief in the divine right of kings was adhered to with a stubbornness that eventually led him to the scaffold. His single greatest accomplishment, his art collection, was assembled in the service of that ideal notion of kingship and it was not allowed to stand as his memorial. Charles managed the kingdom badly, was a poor diplomat and politician, provided unsound leadership, and refused to recognize the implacable nature of changes in society. The arena in which he did excel was that of display. Despite the rebellions, the civil wars, the foreign wars, the struggles with Parliament, and, most of all, the stricken economy, Charles' reign was marked by splendid entertainments, costly show, and the assembling of one of the finest art collections in Europe. When added to the perception of Charles' popish tendencies, his.."

From the Paper
"Sally Mann is a photographer whose work has consistently challenged conventional notions of subject and technique. Her broadest fame derives from the somewhat controversial photographs of her children published in Immediate family (1992). The themes of that work, childhood and coming-of-age, had also been explored in, respectively, the "Dream Sequence" (1971) and At twelve: Portraits of young women (1988). But other portfolios, such as her "Landscapes" (1972-73), the Lewis Law Portfolio (1977), a series of "Platinum Prints" (1978-80), and her 1997 "Georgia" and Virginia" series, demonstrate a range of subject matter that belies any attempt to limit Mann to domestic subjects or a topic such as puberty. Instead the distinguishing characteristic of her work is the manner in which developments in technique (coupled with great openness on technical matters such as choice ..."

From the Paper
"Christo is a representative of the post-modern era in art, bringing together several of the elements of that era, including the use of public space as art, using and commenting on technology, finding new relations between the personal and the public, and so on. Christo has crated massive works which have also captured a good deal of publicity, making him one of the better known artists of the time, though some of the publicity has been negative, as when a woman was killed by one of the umbrellas Christo had placed in a field in California.
Modernism and postmodernism are forces that have been in competition but that are also part of a flow in the same direction, a flow of artistic movement yearning toward change within a technological age. Modernism was part of an effort to create a new environment to replace the old around the turn of ..."

From the Paper
"The purpose of this research is to examine two paintings by Paul Gaugin, A Swineherd, Brittany (1888), and Ia Orana Maria (1891). The plan of the research will be to set forth the background and context in which Gaugin created each painting, and then to compare and contrast analytically the content and apparent intent informing them, both intrinsically and as part of the larger scheme of Gaugin's body of work.
Gaugin's A Swineherd, Brittany, an oil painting on canvas, hangs in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Measuring 29" x 36(", A Swineherd, Brittany is a horizontally oriented picture depicting a pastoral landscape that would have been familiar to Gaugin during his stay in Pont-Aven in Brittany. In the right foreground, a rocky pasture of grass along either a pond or a river, are the figures of a swineherd and two pigs. The swineherd stand ..."

Abstract
Nineteenth-century painters were sometimes travelers who ventured beyond frontiers and returned with visual reports of their encounters with other cultures. In an age when engraved drawings were an accepted part of newspaper reportage artists' reports were not likely to be challenged.

From the Paper
"Nineteenth-century painters were sometimes travelers who ventured beyond frontiers and returned with visual reports of their encounters with other cultures. In an age when engraved drawings were an accepted part of newspaper reportage artists' reports were not likely to be challenged. But painters' accounts were not accompanied by texts and they often took care to insist on the fact of their presence at the scene and among their subjects. This served as a warrant of their reliability and facilitated acceptance of ideas or attitudes implicit in their representations of other cultures. Artists thus presented themselves as surrogates for their audiences--confirming, modifying, reinforcing, and re-shaping perceptions of other cultures. These painters employed different visual strategies as the means of emphasizing their roles as witnesses, and ..."