In 1955, Disneyland opened its doors and the American public descended into the fantastical world of Walt Disney. While Disneyland corresponded to the company’s growing brand as a movie-making empire, it also reflected the way that the original American colonies and the ever-developing Western frontier shaped the American mindset. Based on the…[Read more]

Flattened, the tire was. Pedalling with great strength, I push myself forward in the country road illuminated by lonely street lamps, leading the front tire—headstrong—advancing. Trailing behind, the synthetic black rubber greets the asphalt paved road with a kiss from a frail body. In turn, a bathetic road rash of a romance cut short by the jea…[Read more]

Stefano da Putignano’s Trinity (1520) depicts Jesus on the cross placed between the legs of an enthroned God the Father with the dove of the Holy Spirit connecting the two. Located in the small southern Italian city of Turi, this painted stone statue is one of the earliest examples of a human-sized statue of God the Father. It is unique in its m…[Read more]

Marianne Hirsch’s concept of “liquid time” states that photographs are not fixed into static permanence but remain dynamic and unfixed as they acquire new meanings in new circumstances. I had not considered this concept until I began going through family photographs after my grandfather passed away. There I was, sitting on the sofa in my grand…[Read more]

At New York City’s JFK Airport stands a building with large glass panels below a white concrete wing-shaped roof, giving it a bird-like appearance. Originally named the TWA Flight Center, this building was designed by Eero Saarinen and opened in 1962 as the terminal of the now-defunct Trans World Airlines (TWA).

In the interwar period, Paris was the centre for Sapphic Modernism and was recognized as the capital of same-sex love and creative intellectualism. Numerous lesbian women moved to Paris during this period to pursue careers in painting, writing, design, and architecture. The city provided them an opportunity to live more openly and to form creative…[Read more]

As a testament to the changing trends of Baroque art, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio’s paintings refute chronology and the linear order, allowing audiences of both past and present to engage in a divine experience. Many scholars have detailed the ways in which Caravaggio complicates time within his work. Specific works within the artist’s oeu…[Read more]

The Wazir Khan mosque is located in the Walled City of Lahore, along the southern side of Lahore’s Shahi Guzargah, or “Royal Road.” This was the traditional route traversed by Mughal nobles and their guests on their way to royal residences at the Lahore Fort. The mosque is situated approximately 260 meters west of the Delhi Gate, where the mos…[Read more]

Drawing together the writings of Georg Theiner and Chris Drain; Andy Clark; Martin Heidegger and Susan Sontag; and relying heavily on the historical and archeological research of Robert Brill and Julian Henderson, this paper presents the flask not as a simple museum artefact, but as a container that ultimately keeps an imprint of the person who made it.

How does Pieter Aertsen manage to verge so closely upon the “real?” What was it about this work and others like it that made them so familiar to contemporary viewers and their daily lived experiences? And finally, what greater purpose did this “realism” serve? In order to begin trying to answer these questions, I will consider the market and kit…[Read more]

In recent years, vases depicting women working with wool have received increased attention. Images of textile production have been linked to the role of women in the oikos, and textile production has been defined as both an economic activity and one that reinforces the ideal of woman as mother and homemaker. This paper presents notes on wool…[Read more]

In the early twentieth century, modernist art emerged as a reaction to modernity and sought to overthrow the predominant Western artistic tradition. European artists from across the continent challenged deep-seated artistic norms by creating innovative abstract art. Single-point perspective and representational art had been the default since the…[Read more]

The integration and evolution of the flying buttress into the architecture of high gothic cathedrals was the defining paradigmatic entity that shaped structural organization, and lead to the establishment of the period’s aesthetic typological identity. Innovative architectural elements such as these allowed the iconic structures of the twelfth a…[Read more]

Within the treasury of the Basilica di San Giovanni Battista, in Monza, Northern Italy, one object stands out: a golden statue of a hen, surrounded by her seven chicks, all placidly pecking grain from a large disk (figure 1). According to local tradition, the hen and her brood were discovered in the thirteenth century within the sarcophagus of…[Read more]

In the Armada Portrait, a curious atmospheric divide between the calm space of the Queen and the chaotic space of the Armada events reveals the artist’s desire to represent her as a strong, formidable, and almost king-like, queen. Crashing waters and sailing ships are present in the open windows depicted in the painting’s background, yet the Que…[Read more]

This paper will examine two works by Parmigianino in different media, in particular the Bardi Altarpiece, and Design for an Altarpiece in its Frame, which were completed at the beginning of his career.T hrough the reconsideration of Parmigianino’s use of parergon and ergon as discussed by Jacques Derrida, and of specific artistic elements, I w…[Read more]