04/04/2025
We are excited to share the abstracts for this year's art history presentations on Student Scholarship Recognition Day!
Art History Presentations – SSRD – April 16, 2025
Fiona McKellar
Religious Censorship in Works by Antonio Tempesta:
Landscape Decorum According to the Council of Trent
The Counter-Reformation was a reaction to the Reformation as well as a reassessment of Catholic doctrines and practices, including the use of images. The decision to look at how landscapes may interact with devotional narratives in the works by Antonio Tempesta will hopefully shed light on how the dispositions of the Council of Trent affected this genre. The paper will investigate significant changes in representations throughout the artist’s career. It will be argued that Tempesta inflicted self-censorship, which allowed him to adhere to the strict regulations imposed by the Council and successfully continue his career.
Ellen Lovre
Depicting Shakespeare:
John Singer Sargent’s Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth
This presentation will investigate the ways in which Sargent’s painting, Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, encompasses differing interpretations of the character Lady Macbeth. It will explore Terry’s own thoughts on theatrical performance, as well as Victorian interpretations of the subject, and the views of contemporary critics, to place the work in its surrounding context. The presentation will analyze Sargent’s work from a critical, formal, and iconographic perspective, and finally, draw comparisons to illustrate how the painting endorses or challenges these various interpretations.
Alexander Petrides
Transitions in Gaudí
This presentation explores how the idea of transition permeates the contexts that surrounded the works of Modernista architect, Antoni Gaudí (1852-1926), unifying his designs into a single coherent oeuvre. To that end, I will examine relevant historical and biographical examples of transition by giving a brief synopsis of Gaudí’s architectures in relation to Catalan Art. Then, I will analyze models of transition in the designs of Casa Vicens, Casa Battló, and Sagrada Familia. I will conclude by comparing these buildings to one another, thereby illustrating the transition of Gaudí’s style and conception from its original Renaixença influence into a highly personal approach to Modernisme.
