Édouard Manet’s Olympia (1863) bevat inhoudelijk een sekswerker en een Zwarte dienstmeid; een figuur dat volgens de typische iconografie van de schilderkunst van die tijd een erotische tint zou...Show moreÉdouard Manet’s Olympia (1863) bevat inhoudelijk een sekswerker en een Zwarte dienstmeid; een figuur dat volgens de typische iconografie van de schilderkunst van die tijd een erotische tint zou toevoegen. Deze scriptie onderzoekt of die betekenis voor dit werk echter wel past bij de omstandigheden waarin de maker werkte, en of het publiek van die tijd het ook wel zo opvatte. Dit onderzoek is gebouwd op invloedrijke literatuur binnen een kader bestaand uit een combinatie van kunstgeschiedenis en intersectionele gender studies, en kijkt daarmee naar primaire bronnen zoals teksten rondom de jaren vlak voor het schilderij gemaakt werd en vlak nadat het voor het eerst getoond werd, maar ook visuele bronnen zoals de compositionele invloeden op het schilderij en spotprenten die ervan gemaakt zijn. Er volgt uit het onderzoek dat de iconografische fetishizerende aanname veel genuanceerder ligt dan algemeen gedacht.Show less
This study compared the eye movement patterns of twenty-three children and adults while viewing five paintings at the Van Gogh Museum. The objectives of the study were two-fold. First, the study...Show moreThis study compared the eye movement patterns of twenty-three children and adults while viewing five paintings at the Van Gogh Museum. The objectives of the study were two-fold. First, the study determined the roles of top-down and bottom-up attentional processes during the aesthetic experience. Second, the development of these attentional processes was investigated by comparing adults and children. Bottom-up processes were measured by creating salience maps for every painting, whereas top-down processing was manipulated by letting the participants view the paintings in two phases. In the first phase, participants were allowed to freely view the paintings. Before the second phase, background information about each painting was provided to the participants. Eye-tracking technology was used to measure the participants' eye movements whilst they viewed the paintings. The salience analysis consisted of a linear mixed-effects model, which results showed that there was no significant difference between the two phases over the fixations. As earlier research suggested that the change from bottom-up to top-down processing happens within the first few fixations, this may suggest that the processes people rely on stay constant afterwards. A second model was constructed to investigate the effect of age on viewing processes, suggesting that over the entire aesthetic process, there was no effect of age on the processes used by the participants. Despite this, the results indicate that children are more influenced by bottom-up processes at the start of their viewing process, whilst adults switch from top-down to bottom-up processes near the end of their aesthetic experience. In between the first and last fixations, both adults and children seem to use top-down processes.Show less
Copying other artists' paintings was an essential practice in the nineteenth century and has a rich culture. For art students, copying and that way learning from the old masters was seen as a vital...Show moreCopying other artists' paintings was an essential practice in the nineteenth century and has a rich culture. For art students, copying and that way learning from the old masters was seen as a vital element of their education. Also for artists it was essential to control the techniques of great artists to develop their inventiveness. The Sistine Madonna altarpiece by Raphael (1483-1520) was famous among students and artists who wanted to copy Raphael’s painting skills, sell a copy on the art market, or keep it in their possession. This painting also caught the attention of Paul Tétar van Elven (1823-1896), a Dutch artist who made nine painted (partial) copies of the Sistine Madonna next to some drawings. However, some of Tétar's copies are not faithfully copied, but instead, he has managed to add his own touches. This research investigates the copying culture and creative freedom of copyists in the nineteenth century, treating the copies of the Sistine Madonna by Paul Tétar van Elven after Raphael as a case study. The research question of this thesis therefore addresses the context in which the nineteenth-century Dutch artist Paul Tétar van Elven added his own touches to his (partial) copies of the Sistine Madonna after Raphael.Show less
Before the Meiji period, women were typically portrayed as idolized beauties, fitting within the contemporary beauty ideals. However, due to the new influences coming from the West after the...Show moreBefore the Meiji period, women were typically portrayed as idolized beauties, fitting within the contemporary beauty ideals. However, due to the new influences coming from the West after the opening of the borders, artists started to challenge this standard bijin mode of representing women. Artists such as Kajiwara Hisako, Tadaoto Kainoshō and Chigusa Sōn created paintings depicting women in a whole new manner compared to former periods. While previously women were often shown as the epitome of beauty and sophistication, now there was room for representations of women who weren’t perfect nor appealed to the society’s beauty standards. This thesis analyses how male and female nihonga artists created anti-bijin in response to social and artistic developments in Meiji and Taisho Japan. Furthermore, it explores how and to what extent these works broke away from the bijin ideal and what the driving force was behind the creation of these works.Show less
This thesis looks into sonic aspects of painting, specifically within the time period of China's Song Dynasty. A selection of paintings is made in which aspects constituting soundscape are...Show moreThis thesis looks into sonic aspects of painting, specifically within the time period of China's Song Dynasty. A selection of paintings is made in which aspects constituting soundscape are categorised.Show less
Over the past few months, an increasing number of images and installations produced by artists using artificial intelligence (AI), have sold at major auction houses like Christie’s or Sotheby’s....Show moreOver the past few months, an increasing number of images and installations produced by artists using artificial intelligence (AI), have sold at major auction houses like Christie’s or Sotheby’s. This suggests that the artificial semi-automated production and reproduction of art is becoming part of established and recognized institutional art circuits. What remains less certain though, is the possibility of AI producing art fully autonomously, that is, without the artist’s input. There are currently several AI image-generating robots created with the aim to be as automatic as possible, among which is PIX18, built by the mechanical engineer Hod Lipson. Allegedly, this machine can apply physical pigment on canvas to make consistently diverse paintings with minimal human intervention. It is so skilled with the brushes, that its by-products have become practically indistinguishable from human-made paintings in aesthetic terms. With that in mind, the aim of this thesis will be to take PIX18 as a case study, and investigate the extent to which its depictions can be seen as artistically equivalent to human art. This will be done by comparing a painting called ‘Frightened Girl’ (2016) made by/with the robot, to another painting titled ‘Woman with a Flowered Hat’ (1963) made by the artist Roy Lichtenstein. In that fashion, this thesis will attempt to answer the following question: to what extent can PIX18’s ‘Frightened Girl’ (2016), be seen as artistically equivalent to Lichtenstein’s ‘Woman with a Flowered Hat’ (1963), and what does this say about current conceptions of art and future considerations of AI? Both paintings are reinterpretations of other images, and will be put in dialogue across two fundamental perspectives, those of the agent who made the paintings, and of the viewer who perceived or perceives them. Potentially, the insights reached in this thesis entail a reconsideration of contemporary art as an exclusively human phenomenon, and a reassessment of how far AI has come in the replication of complex human behaviors.Show less
Research master thesis | Classics and Ancient Civilizations (research) (MA)
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This thesis aims to give an in depth look at the dummy writing and painting palettes of ancient Egypt. A suggested terminology of the subject is presented together with a corpus of dummy palettes...Show moreThis thesis aims to give an in depth look at the dummy writing and painting palettes of ancient Egypt. A suggested terminology of the subject is presented together with a corpus of dummy palettes and related objects. On the basis of this corpus the different aspects of the dummy palettes, such as their materials, symbolism, archaeological context, and ownership, are studied in order to reach a better understanding of why these objects were made and how they were meant to function.Show less
Over the early modern period Europe saw great change in its practices of the studies of nature as a result of the invention of the printing press, the opening up of the new world and trade systems,...Show moreOver the early modern period Europe saw great change in its practices of the studies of nature as a result of the invention of the printing press, the opening up of the new world and trade systems, and the invention of the microscope. At the same time, artists began incorporating the bodies of insects and small animals into their works. Small animals and insects became their own major subjects of study for philosophers of nature and artists. In addition, the line between artist and philosopher of nature blurred, leading to artists and philosophers of nature collaborating over their findings. This thesis seeks to answer the question of how the changing ideas on small animals and insects in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries can be seen in the works of artists of the same period, and how did these works influence European naturalist views on small animals and insects.Show less
Modern Art historical work on Pieter Claesz and his rivals has been centered around questions of innovation and influence, categorizing different painters as leaders or followers. In this thesis I...Show moreModern Art historical work on Pieter Claesz and his rivals has been centered around questions of innovation and influence, categorizing different painters as leaders or followers. In this thesis I review primary sources to identify measures of reputation used during the artists’ lives, demonstrating how they differ from modern models of assessment. Using these findings, I propose new explanations for the relative contemporary success and distinctive oeuvres of Pieter Claesz, Willem Claesz Heda and Floris van Schooten. These explanations avoid reliance on anachronistic privileging of innovation, centering instead around questions of quality related to the contemporary understanding of the specialization and the differing social and economic position of each artist.Show less
