Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Miniature painting'

This thesis explores the Ottoman guilds during the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries as they are depicted in the miniature paintings contained within two well-known and well-preserved festival albums: the Surname-i Humayun (1582) and the Surname-i Vehbi (1720). These manuscripts describe the events occurring during the festival celebrations for the circumcisions of the sons of Sultan Murad III (r. 1574-95) and Sultan Ahmed III (r. 1703-30) and while they offer an excellent portrait of Ottoman society in general, they are particularly noteworthy for their portrayals of guild processions. Based on analysis of the festival paintings as well as on existing literature, the guilds are examined in the greater context of the Ottoman Empire and aspects such as guild function, structure, hierarchy, membership, and origins and evolution of the guilds are considered.

Ces travaux portent sur plusieurs facettes de l’emploi du bleu dans les miniatures persanes. Ils se fondent sur un corpus constitué de 56 manuscrits à peintures, appartenant à la période qui va de l’accession au trône des Safavides jusqu’au règne de Shah Abbâs (soit de 1501 à 1588), et conservés à la Bibliothèque Nationale de France et à la British Library. Ce travail s’articule autour de deux grands axes. Le premier aborde les questions préliminaires relatives aux matériaux et techniques utilisés pour fabriquer la couleur bleue qui se rencontrent dans la peinture persane du XVIe siècle. Cette étude exigeait aussi une définition exacte des noms des nuances de la couleur bleue. Deux catégories de sources textuelles fournissent des informations sur la nature des pigments et le chromatisme employés dans la miniature persane, à savoir les traités techniques et les œuvres scientifiques. L’autre partie de cette thèse présente dans un premier temps une étude picturale détaillée en vue de définir les divers emplacements de la couleur bleue sur les peintures du corpus ; dans un second temps, il est procédé à une analyse textuelle des ouvrages dudit corpus, permettant de confirmer la corrélation des textes avec leurs illustrations quant aux indications liées au choix de la couleur bleue. Ces deux analyses nous mènent vers une synthèse qui aide à comprendre l’aspect symbolique et métaphorique de cette couleur dans l’ensemble de ses représentations picturales. Certaines sources telles que les récits de voyages et les recueils de biographies ou les textes littéraires et mystiques comportent des renseignements précieux sur l’emploi de la couleur bleue dans la société et son contexte culturel
This research deals with several aspects of the use of blue in Persian miniatures. It is based on a corpus of 56 illustrated manuscripts, dating from the beginning of rule of the Safavids until the reign of Shah Abbas (i.e. from 1501 to 1588 A.D.), preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the British Library. This work contains two major developments. At first, come the preliminary questions about the materials and techniques used to make the colour blue met in the paintings of the XVIth century. This study also required an exact definition of the names of shades of blue. Two categories of textual sources provide information about the nature of the pigments and the chromatics used in the Persian miniature; they are technical treaties and scientific works. The other part of this thesis is made up of pictorial studies which allow us to determine the location of the colour blue in painting. This approach is coupled with an analysis of the illustrated texts in order to confirm the correlation between pictures and texts when dealing with the colour blue. Both analyses lead to a synthesis that helps us understand the symbolic and metaphorical aspects of this colour in all its pictorial uses. Some sources such as travelogues and biographies or literary and mystical texts contain information on the use of blue in society and its cultural context

Dans les ouvrages contemporains traitant des arts visuels dans la tradition artistique 'chrétienne' ou 'occidentale' les analyses des œuvres d'art sont souvent effectuées à l'appui d'une approche interdisciplinaire intégrant les méthodes de recherche et les questionnements des sciences sociales ainsi que d'autres disciplines, comme la littérature. Sur se modèle, je tente d’élaborer une méthode de recherche complexe pour l’appliquer dans l’étude de l’iconographie arabe médiévale. Les sources principales de mon travail sont les manuscrits iconographiés de deux 'bestsellers' de la littérature arabe médiévale : les Maqâmât d'al-Harîrî et la traduction arabe de Kalîla wa Dimna de Bîdpây, copiés et peints, pour les premiers au XIIIe siècle, et, pour les seconds, au XIVe siècle, respectivement en Irak, en Syrie et en Egypte. Pour étudier les manuscrits, je propose une approche dont le leitmotiv est l'observation de la relation entre les textes et les images en les considérant comme un ensemble et comme éléments qui constituent des œuvres d'art complexes. Les manuscrits médiévaux contenant des images deviennent ainsi, en tant qu'objets matériels mais aussi comme des produits intellectuels et artistiques, des sources primaires de l’histoire intellectuelle arabe médiévale
In contemporary studies dealing with visual art within the « Western » or « Christian » world, the artworks’ analysis are often proposed on the basis of an interdisciplinary approach integrating methods of different scientific fields such as social sciences, and literature. Following this model, I try to develop a complex method in order to study medieval Arabic iconography. My work’s principal sources are the illustrated manuscripts of the two « bestsellers » of medieval Arabic literature: al-Harîrî’s Maqâmât and the Arabic translation of Bîdpây’s tales, the Kalîla wa Dimna, copied and painted during the second half of the 13th and the first half of the 14th centuries in Irak, Syria and Egypt. In the analysis of the manuscripts, I concentrate on the relationship between text and images while I consider them as elements of a complex artwork, as a whole. While doing so, medieval manuscripts containing images become primary sources of Arabic intellectual history as material objects but also as intellectual products

La peinture « classique » persane a perdu ses caractéristiques en se rapprochant de la peinture occidentale; puis à l'époque Qajar, avec le changement culturel et social, une nouvelle peinture est née tandis que, simultanément, une évolution apparaissait dans son enseignement. Ainsi l'art de la peinture se divise en « art mineur » et « art majeur », dont l'enseignement suit, pour chacun d'eux, un chemin différent. La peinture « réaliste », comme manifestation de l'art majeur, s'est installée à l'école de Ṣanīʿ-al-Molk puis à l'école Dār al-Fonūn pour arriver enfin à l'école de Kamāl-al-Molk qui est devenue la Faculté des Beaux-Arts en 1940. Dans ce contexte les étudiants apprenaient le « style » de Kamal-al-Molk et celui de certains mouvements occidentaux, mais d'une manière incomplète. A la même période, la miniature, c'est- à- dire « l'art mineur », était encouragée afin de représenter la splendeur ancienne. Dans ce processus l’«Administration Culture et Art » a été attentive à la « miniature » en tant que peinture « traditionnelle », ce qui lui a permis d'être enseignée à l’École Secondaire des Beaux-Arts, issue de l'Ecole des artisanats anciens. Dans les années 1330 Š./1950, cette administration a fondé la Faculté des Arts Décoratifs et les Biennales de Téhéran. Par la suite, la peinture s'est orientée avec plus d'intensité vers l'art « Moderne » occidental et en même temps vers l'art et les effets visuels traditionnels d'Iran. A cette époque où s'opérait aussi la modification du système de l’enseignement de la Faculté des Beaux-Arts, les peintres d'Iran étaient divisés en deux groupes: les partisans des styles occidentaux et les néo-traditionalistes. Ces derniers, pour obtenir l’identité, utilisaient les éléments traditionnels tout en suivant les « méthodes » de l'art moderne. En face, les partisans des styles occidentaux avaient commencé par des œuvres figuratives de style expressionniste et étaient arrivés à l'art abstrait. Ils s'étaient libérés eux-mêmes de la contrainte des traditions et des signes de l'identité iranienne. Parallèlement, les miniaturistes en tant que peintres « traditionnels », pour continuer à exister, utilisaient exclusivement les paramètres de l'art réaliste. En revanche, les diplômés de l'Université, artistes « modernes », utilisaient les éléments de l'art de la miniature quand ils voulaient exprimer l'identité
The classical Persian painting lost some of its characteristics by opening up to the occidental painting. In the Qajar era, thanks to the cultural and social changes, a new painting was born with its new teaching methods. Thus the art of painting got divided into “minor art” and “major art”, each of them being taught in a different way. The realistic painting as a manifestation of the “major” art was first practiced in Ṣanīʿ-al-Molk art school, then in Dār al-Fonūn school and finally in Kamāl-al-Molk art school which in 1940, became the Faculty of Fine Arts. The students were studying both Kamāl-al-Molk style and some European styles, but incompletely. At the same time, the miniature, that is to say the “minor art”, was encouraged so that it represented the splendour of ancient times. In this process the Office of culture and art paid special attention to “miniature” as traditional painting. That is the reason why it has been taught in Secondary School of Fine Arts, descended from “Ancient Crafts School”. From 1330s to 1950s, this administration has established the Faculty of Decorative Arts and the Biennale of Tehran. Subsequently, the painting has turned more intensely towards modern occidental art, using at the same time the visual effects of traditional Iranian artistic creation. At that time when the educational system at the Faculty of Fine Arts was going through changes, the painters of Iran got divided into two groups: supporters of occidental painting and neo-traditionalists. The latter, in order to find their own identity, use some traditional elements applying, at the same time the methods of modern art. The supporters of the occidental styles started with figurative painting of the expressionist style and ended up in abstract art. They freed themselves from the constraints of the traditions and symbols of Iranian identity. On the other hand, in order to continue to exist as so called “traditional painters”, the miniaturists use only the parameters of realistic art. However, when the university graduates, the modern painters wanted to express their cultural identity, they used the elements of the art of miniature

Este trabalho teve como objetivo o estudo arqueométrico de um grupo de pinturas sobre cobre dos séculos XVII/XVIII pertencentes a uma coleção de cerca de sessenta medalhões do Museu de Évora. O estudo material incidiu sobre dezasseis dos medalhões, que constituem uma amostra representativa do tipo de retratos miniatura que eram pintados na Corte Europeia dos séculos XVII/XVIII, e dos diferentes estados de conservação e restauro existentes nesta coleção. Além da simples observação do seu estado de conservação e das escassas interpretações históricas que lhes são atribuídas, estas peças nunca tinham sido objeto de qualquer estudo analítico moderno em que se utilizassem técnicas instrumentais avançadas. Este estudo material foi realizado utilizando várias técnicas complementares de imagem e análise química, como IRR, μ-Raman, SEM-EDS, LC-DAD-MS, μ-ATR-FTIR, μ-XRD, pXRF, VIM e Py-GC-MS, e recorrendo, sempre que possível, a uma abordagem não destrutiva e não invasiva das peças. Com este trabalho foi possível fornecer um conjunto de dados científicos relevantes acerca do processo de criação destas peças e sobre a composição química dos constituintes da camada cromática, das substâncias utilizadas na preparação da superfície de cobre e dos produtos de degradação. Assim, foram identificados vinte pigmentos, a maioria deles inorgânicos (incluindo a covelite) e alguns orgânicos (como o índigo e a cochinilha), e os aglutinantes utilizados nas pinturas (óleo e tempera grassa). Foi ainda determinada a composição química do suporte de cobre e dos produtos de degradação, tendo sido identificados alguns produtos mais comuns e um produto de corrosão que se evidenciou pela sua raridade neste tipo de peças de arte, o formatotrihidróxido de cobre (II). Este estudo pretende ser um contributo para o conhecimento da pintura a óleo sobre cobre e dos problemas específicos de conservação deste tipo de pintura, de modo a permitir a realização de intervenções futuras eficazes e inequívocas neste tipo de obras de arte; ARCHAEOMETRIC STUDY OF OIL PAINTINGS ON COPPER FROM 17TH/18TH CENTURIES OF ÉVORA MUSEUM ABSTRACT: The aim of this work was to perform the archaeometric study of a group of paintings on copper from the XVII / XVIII centuries, which are part of the collection of about sixty medallions belonging to the Évora Museum. The material study focused on sixteen of these medallions, in different states of conservation and restoration, which constitute a representative sample of the typical portraits that predominated in the European Courts of the XVII / XVIII centuries. Until now, these artefacts have never been subjected to any modern analytical study, and the information known about these artworks is based in the simple observation of the paintings and in the scarce historical interpretations assigned to them. This material study was performed using several complementary techniques of imaging and chemical analysis, such as IRR, μ-Raman, SEM-EDS, LC-DAD-MS, μ-ATR-FTIR, μ-XRD, pXRF, VIM and Py-GC MS, and using a non-destructive and non-invasive approach wherever it was possible. With this work, it was possible to provide a set of relevant scientific data about the creating process of these pieces, and about the chemical composition of the colour layer, the copper surface preparation layer and the degradation products. Therefore, twenty pigments have been identified, most of them inorganic (including the unusual covellite) and some organic (such as indigo and cochineal). It was also possible to identify the binding media used in the paintings (oil or tempera grassa). The chemical composition of the copper support and of the degradation products was also determined, namely it were identified some of the common degradation products and a compound which is very rarely found in the corrosion areas of these type of artworks, dicoppertrihydroxyformate. This study is a contribution to the knowledge about oil painting on copper support and about the specific conservation problems of these paintings, in order to allow effective and unambiguous future interventions in this type of artworks

Towards a peripatetic practice: negotiating journey through painting investigates painting as a way of comprehending lived experience of travel. The project develops from curiosity about journeys and their potential for bringing the artist into encounters with the world, and proximate to its issues and concerns. Aims of the project focused on peripatetic practice as a means of redirecting a personal experience of rootlessness towards connecting with others, and considering and communicating the complexity of cross-cultural experience through painting. Objectives as such were to investigate through practice the function and form of peripatetic painting, and to document this through film and writing. The study acknowledges travel as an ancient way of knowing the world and takes inspiration from the paradigm of the nomadic storyteller as exemplified in the Bengali tradition of Patuya Sangit (scroll performance). With a sense of the capacity for painting to provide spaces of connection and empathy, the study draws on the writing of John Berger and Suzi Gablik, exploring a confluence of ideas about the evolving social role of the artist. Key influences are historic and contemporary peripatetic creative practices, which include the writer Freya Stark, the colonial painter William Simpson, and the artists Phil Smith and John Wolseley. The project also incorporates methodological approaches which borrow from anthropology, situating the artist as observer, participant, and ultimately, agent. Practice in this context is immersive, and takes on social, interactive dimensions for which making paintings becomes a means of knowing and questioning the nature of cross-cultural experience. Explorations took the form of increasingly immersive journeys in Australia, India and Pakistan and a series of paintings utilising extended scroll formats with additional outcomes of documentary films. As the key research spaces for practice-led research, the scroll paintings employ pencil, collage, watercolour and oil, and a metaphoric fusion of styles and techniques of painting and drawing, notably Persian miniature and life portraiture as a means of accounting for and sharing the abiding experiences and encounters yielded through travel.

The purpose of this research and the corresponding project is to explore and interpret the qualities of the traditional art form of Indian miniature paintings into a digital, time based medium. These are beautiful, finely-drawn paintings with rich detailed patterns and striking bold colors. Intricately and meticulously drawn, they employ an alternative means of representation distinctly different from a conventional lens-based perspective. Most 3-dimensional digital media makes use of either a real or a virtual camera to inform the representation of space. In this project I deviate from this convention to create a new visual style for animation. The project demonstrates how a consistent yet different visual look can be achieved that retains the richness and visual expression of the traditional painting style through the use of new technology.

L’objet de ce travail est l’étude de la peinture au Karnataka depuis l’école de Vijayanāgar jusqu’à celle de Mysore, du XVIème au XIXème siècle. Nous avons tenté de réunir le corpus le plus large possible afin d’avoir une vision globale de l’art du Karnataka à travers ses peintures murales, ses manuscrits illustrés et ses images mobiles.Notre objectif était de mieux comprendre l’évolution de la peinture au Karnataka durant les trois cents ans qui séparent l’école de Vijayanāgar de celle de Mysore. Les seuls vestiges de l’école de peinture de Vijayanāgar se trouvent dans les peintures murales des temples Vīrabhadra de Lēpākṣī et celles du temple Virūpākṣa de Hampi. Nous présentons ces deux sanctuaires avant d’aborder l’école de peinture de Mysore et son iconographie, qui doit son rayonnement au roi Kṛṣṇarāja Woḍeyar III. A la même époque naissait aussi l’école de Surpur, inconnue jusqu’à aujourd’hui. Deux collections non publiées de miniatures provenant de Mysore et de Surpur nous ont permis de mieux comprendre l’évolution de ces écoles. La thèse prend aussi en compte d’autres développements spécifiques de l’art du Karnataka. Nous présentons en particulier les peintures murales du palais d’été de Tipu Sultan, qui se démarquent nettement des autres réalisations contemporaines, et des manuscrits d’un type original, nommés Uddharane, destinés à l’instruction des dévots adeptes du courant vīraśaiva
The aim of this work is to study the paintings of Karnataka from the school of Vijayanagar to that of Mysore. It covers the period from the XVIth to the XIXth century. Our goal was to better understand the evolution of painting in Karnataka during the three hundred years that separate both schools. The only remains of the Vijayanāgar School of Painting can be found in the murals of the Vīrabhadra Temples of Lēpākṣī and those of the Virūpākṣa Temple in Hampi. We discuss these two temples before evoking the school of painting of Mysore through its murals, manuscripts and miniatures. This school is closely connected to King Kṛṣṇarāja Woḍeyar III. Contemporarily to the school of Mysore appeared the school of Surpur, unknown until now. Two unpublished collections of miniatures from Mysore and Surpur have allowed us to better understand the evolution of these schools. Other pictorial achievements present specific developments in the art of Karnataka. We present the mural paintings of Tipu Sultan's summer palace, which stands out clearly from the previous era, as well as the Uddharane manuscript intended for the teaching of the devotees.We have tried to bring together in this work the widest possible corpus of murals, manuscripts and miniatures in order to have a global vision of painting in Karnataka

This study demonstrates how royal portraiture functioned during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars as a vehicle for visualizing and processing the contemporary political upheavals. It does so by considering a notion of the 'sovereignty of the portrait', that is, the semiotic integrity (or precisely the lack thereof) and the material territory of royal portraiture at this historical juncture. Working from an assumption that the precariousness of sovereignty which delineated the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars goes hand in hand with the precariousness of representation during the same period, it reframes prevailing readings of royal portraiture in the aftermath of the French Revolution by approaching the genre less as one defined by the oneway propagation of a message, and more as a highly unstable intermedial network of representation. This theoretical undertaking is refracted through the figure of Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples (1752-1814), close sister and foil to Queen Marie- Antoinette of France, and who, as de facto ruler of the Kingdom of Naples, physically survived revolution but was twice dethroned and thrice exiled. A diverse ecology of royal portraiture revolving around Maria Carolina is presented across five case studies. Close attention to the materiality of a hyperrealistic wax bust of Maria Carolina reveals how portraiture absorbed the trauma of the French Revolution; Maria Carolina’s correspondence in invisible ink is used as a tool to read a highly distinctive visual language of 'hidden' silhouettes of sovereigns and to explore the in/visibility of exile; a novel reading of Antonio Canova's work for the Neapolitan Bourbons through the lens of contemporary caricature problematizes the binary between ancien régime and parvenue monarchy; and a unique miniature of Maria Carolina offers itself as a material metaphor for post-revolutionary sovereignty. Finally, Maria Carolina’s death mask testifies to how Maria Carolina herself became a relic of the ancien régime.

Thesis (M.A.)--Florida State University, 2004.
Advisor: Dr. Peter Garretson, Florida State University, College of Social Sciences, Program in Asian Studies. Title and description from dissertation home page (viewed Jan. 13, 2005). Includes bibliographical references.

Architecture can be compared with the veil (or hijab) in terms of its visual and spatial functions. While the veil may overtly conceal, it may also define the woman it clothes in the same way that architecture may simultaneously support and represent its function. Both can deny or direct vision, and mediate space. However, whilst the veil has often been invoked in critiques of the cultural construction of women, the agential role of architecture has largely been overlooked. Using architecture as a lens, this art-historical thesis examines the representation of female figures in Persian miniature paintings as a tactic to reveal and interpret the changing place and power of women in pre-modern Persian society and culture. Architectures of many descriptions, from mobile tents to monumental mosques and palaces, are among the most consistent and recognisable elements with which Persian miniature paintings are composed, and within which the female figures depicted are literally framed. Through a historical comparison of the architectural framing of the female figure in Persian miniature paintings, produced during the transformation of cultural traditions from the Turko-Mongol practices of the Timurid dynasty to the Irano-Islamic cultural norms and pratcices associated with the Safavid dynasty, the research examines how women were placed and defined in these spaces – sedentary and mobile, and public as well as private – to better understand the changes in social status and mobility that they were experiencing over this same period. Although previous scholars have recognised Persian miniature paintings as a potentially rich alternative source of primary historical evidence where written sources are lacking or silent, the conceptual distance and visual ambiguity of that medium relative to present day artistic practice and perceptual conventions have presented persistent obstacles to interpretation and understanding. Independently, both the representation of Women, and the representation of Architecture in Persian miniature paintings have been the focus of valuable but unconnected and differently oriented studies by previous scholars. What has not been studied so closely and methodically before is the spatial structure and arrangement of women in relation to the architecture in (and of) these images, and how a rigorous analysis of that relationship might enhance current understanding of women in the socio-historical contexts depicted in Persian miniature paintings. Methodological experimentation undertaken in this study has sought to enhance how the multifocal perspective characteristic of architectural elements and spaces depicted in Persian miniature paintings could be better understood. This has resulted in a significant extension and refinement of an analytical method suggested by previous scholars, but evidently never developed and applied so thoroughly before. The particular folding and pop-up technique developed here produces three-dimensional paper projections of Persian miniature paintings through which the spatial arrangement and structure of the architectural elements depicted can be decoded. Using this spatially expanded architecture as a lens and apparatus to view and to site the figures of women in these paintings more accurately, the study then examines the vision and visibility of these women and how this mediated their power within physical and social space. Historically and culturally specific theories of vision and the gaze are engaged in the analysis in two ways: first, with respect to specific ways of seeing reflected in the conventions of Persian miniature painting and its visual representation of the outer world; and, second, in terms of the more universal concepts and acts of seeing in Islamic society, culture and religion, and the way these define codes of behaviour concerning veiling and the spatial polarisation of the sexes. Through this combination of visual and spatial tactics, this research advances the study of the past by enhancing the analytical depth at which we can interpret and better understand historically and culturally distant visual materials, enabling sharper and even novel observations that challenge certain assumptions about the place(s) of women in Islamic societies, cultures, and art. The study indicates further avenues for the extension of such spatially focused visual inquiry in the Art Historical field of Islamic visual arts and miniature painting studies in particular, and in gender and women’s studies more generally.
Thesis (Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Architecture and Built Environment, 2021

This dissertation focuses on the impact of Netherlandish art on the development of Farangi Sāzi in the Safavid period during 1588-1722. This impact was examined in two parts: first, examining a group of the Europeanized artworks that were executed by Persian royal painters, and second, the sojourn of eleven Netherlandish painters in Persia, specifically the service of three painters in the royal library. The study will then argue to what extent these two stories are correlated or independent.
Celem pracy jest omówienie wpływu sztuki holenderskiej na rozwój stylu Farangi Sāzi w okresie panowania Safawidów, w latach 1588-1722 r. Oddziaływanie przeanalizowano w dwóch częściach. Najpierw została zbadana grupa zeuropeizowanego malarstwa autorstwa nadwornych malarzy perskich. Następnie rozważono wpływ obecności jedenastu holenderskich malarzy w Persji, a w szczególności dokonań trzech z nich w bibliotece królewskiej. W pracy przeanalizowano do jakiego stopnia te dwa zdarzenia są ze sobą powiązane bądź niezależne.

Painting decorations of the Sedlec Antiphonary manuscript (Prague, NK ČR, XIII A 6) serve as significant evidence for art painting development in Central Europe during the cultural changes, when Late Romanesque style evolved into Gothic. The aim of the thesis is to submit profound art-historical analysis of the Sedlec Antiphonary manuscript, which is stored in National Library of the Czech Republic in Prague, call number XIII A 6. The main method of this work is the careful study of painting decorations in the manuscript, in terms of both analysing their layout in general and typology of the single ornament motifs. Among other methods are formal analysis, comparison based on typology and iconography analysis. Similarities of the manuscript and works of the same time of origin, such as Mater verborum manuscript (Prague, KNM, X A 11) or Wolfenbüttel sketch-book , are also taken into consideration. Due to this comparison could be proved that the author of the Sedlec Antiphonary was probably influenced by Byzantine, Venetian and German painting styles. The Sedlec Antiphonary represents an important and practically key work in the context of painting development in the 13th century. Keywords book painting, miniature, initial letter, Women at the Sepulcher, 13th century