Showing papers on "Mural published in 1984"

Mexican American exterior murals.

Abstract: M URAL art became popular in the United States during the great depression, when wall paintings, sponsored by the Federal Arts Program of the WPA, were executed in public buildings across the land.1 Currently mural art has become important on exterior walls of buildings and thus is part of an evolving pattern of street art.2 This essay focuses on these murals as an element of the built environment that lends insight to cultural heritage, preferences, and change in a community. Exterior murals are now distinctive features in many urban landscapes, particularly in Mexican American districts of many cities. Here mural art is not only an artifact that embellishes the barrio landscape but also a vehicle for political and social expressions.3 Art and landscape are not new themes for geographers, but their emphasis has been on traditional art forms like canvas painting. A focus on less traditional forms like exterior murals presents several challenges not usually encountered in conventional studies of landscape art. Mexican American, or Chicano, mural art is relatively recent and not well documented in traditional sources. Much of the data presented here were collected in the field and through interviews with artists and art historians. Because these murals are part of the everyday landscape, they are exposed to the elements and can be ephemeral. Dating murals and ascribing artistry are not always easy tasks. Many early street murals and some recent ones have no date of execution or information about the artists. Whenever the

On the Edge of the Sea: Mural Painting at Tancah-Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico. Arthur G. Miller. Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, D.C., 1982. xiv + 133 pp., illus., biblio., index, appendices. $35.00 (cloth).

Abstract: to be confined to one person. (This emblem glyph is certainly not the well-known Naranjo emblem identified by Berlin [Journal de la Sociite des Am&ricanistes, n.s. XLVII:111-119, 1958]; if it refers neither to Caracol nor Naranjo, it would seem likely that it refers to another site in the vicinity of those two centers.) Beetz also calls attention to another glyph that, while definitely not an emblem glyph, seems to behave like one. He designates this the \"Caracol Glyph,\" as it seems to be associated with Caracol rulers; it may ultimately prove to be a title or have some related meaning. There are a few additions or corrections that would have made this an even more useful book. (1) A map showing the location of Caracol (and other sites mentioned in the text) would have been helpful. (2) Intersite relationships and the co-occurrence of similar clauses at different sites (e.g., the ox-compounds at Caracol, Tikal, and Naranjo) could have been discussed at greater length, and the clauses from other sites could have been illustrated. (3) Some editorial errors involving glyph-block designations should have been caught. For example, on page 119 references to Stela 6 glyphs at El3, F15, and D16 in Figure 7 are incorrect; the page 119 text should refer to B13, C15, and A16, respectively. There are similar errors on pages 121-122. On the whole, however, the volume constitutes an excellent record of the Caracol inscriptions. Future epigraphers will appreciate the photographs and the careful line drawings of the texts, while today's scholars will welcome the dynastic reconstructions offered by Beetz. Although we still know very little archaeologically about the site of Caracol, this publication of its known inscriptions should inspire some investigator to design a project integrating excavation strategy, epigraphic results, and a regional settlement pattern survey.

Amrita Sher-Gil

Abstract: WHEN Amrita Sher-Gil returned to India in 1934, after many years' sojourn in Paris, where she had learnt to paint and had already achie ved international fame as a painter, the arts in India, particularly painting and sculpture, were in a state of absolute decay. The glories of Ajanta and Ellora had long since departed. Even the Moghal, the Rajput and the Pahari school of miniature painting had been dead for some time. What was being described as Indian art had taken the form of either the Bengal School of painting, initiated by the British art historian, E. B. Havell, or what was being churned out by those trained by Government Schools of art, a kind of pale shadow of impressionism in the worst academic tradition of the Victorian era. The celebrated art critic, the late Dr. Charles Fabri, des cribed the scene obtaining in the early thirties in these words: "The situation of the art in India was entirely directionless On the one hand, we had here a half-dying art of sentimental painting in water colours, remi niscent of Edmund Dulac. Weak, ill-drawn paintings of no merit, based on the worst period of ancient miniature and mural painting, soft and dripping with mawkish sentiment. On the other hand, the Government schools of art imparted a watered-down variety of academic impressionism This soulless, imitative, epigoric art did not know where it wanted to go."

Horace Vernet's Mural in the Palais Bourbon: Contemporary Imagery, Modern Technology, and Classical Allegory during the July Monarchy

Abstract: This mural (1838-1847) celebrates industrial progress during the July Monarchy by combining nude and classically draped allegorical figures with modern steam engines, obelisk-like smoking chimneys, and figures in contemporary costume, whose painted presence would have complemented the annual ceremonies taking place in the room. While serving the political aims of Louis-Philippe, the mural echoes imagery of Saint-Simonist poetry in which the steam machine is seen as a key to international unity. The article explores these connections together with the darker aspects of machine imagery, contemporary reactions to Vernet's mural, and the problem of political allegory in the aftermath of the Revolution of 1848.

Painting, Piety, and Politics in 1848: Hippolyte Flandrin's Emblem of Equality at Nîmes

Abstract: Flandrin - the most important religious artist in France during his lifetime - began a mural in 1848 whose iconography is without precedent in Christian art, represents a unique response to the revolutionary turmoil of its period, and illustrates two of the most prevalent topoi of 19th-century discourse. This essay, a social history of the work, examines how it functioned and was perceived within its specific local context, and how it reflects pervasive issues in France as a whole. It is argued that the ambiguous image served as a form of symbolic mediation between opposed concepts of the “Christ humanitaire” and the “Christ-roi,” and the conflicting ideologies which they represent. Examination of related religious paintings further articulates its unique position and meaning.