William Eggleston is sometimes called “the father of color photography.” While his subject matter is banal, all his images contain very strong formal elements of line and shape. More to the point, they all emphasize saturated hues. In this paper I look at his dye transfer photographs and the quality of their color, which is unsurpassed by anyone in the medium even today. Primarily though, I focus on his most famous image Greenwood, Mississippi, commonly referred to as “The Red Ceiling,” which is known for its overwhelming, spectrally brilliant red tone. In my research, I look at Eggleston’s work from formalist and iconographic perspectives to see what it is that makes his images, which are devoid of traditional subject matter, so captivating. To do so, I compare “The Red Ceiling” and other Eggleston works to Ernst Haas’s formalist compositions. I compare each artist’s use of color and form to understand the different functions of each artists work. I argue that Eggleston’s images are not subjectless or banal, but that they are in fact heavily steeped in symbolism and comment on American urbanization and social dynamics.

Within the vast and astounding collections of the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples resides a 15^th century painting, the Annunciation with Saints, which has largely escaped scholarly attention. Its authorship has not yet been satisfactorily determined, although it is often attributed to the Florentine painter Filippino Lippi or to his artistic circle. In the debate over the identity of the artist, the theological and intellectual nuances of the painting are often ignored. Only brief comments have been made about the unusual inclusion of a view of Florence in the background, and about potential artistic sources for the painting in both Florentine and Northern European art. It is these neglected details, however, which are most useful for interpreting the painting’s underlying messages and ultimately attributing it to a particular artist. A clearer understanding of the work requires an examination of the cognitive processes that led to this unusual composition, the motivation for the selection of particular artistic sources, and the similarities between the Annunciation with Saints and other paintings by Filippino. I propose that this painting should be accepted as an early autograph work by Lippi, in which the artist engages with complex visual and theological strategies to create an effective and highly nuanced devotional image.

In this essay, I explore the political context surrounding Botticelli's decision to render The Calumny of Apelles. My aim is to address the Renaissance artist’s attraction to such an old tale. He takes the subject matter of his painting from Alberti’s written description of Apelles’ autobiographical painting, but adds a twist. Apelles was a prominent painter around the year 350 B.C.E., when the Egyptian king Ptolemy abruptly sentenced him to death. Botticelli transforms Apelles' portrayal of the evil king into a contemporaneous depiction—the ruler of Florence, Piero de’ Medici. In doing so, Botticelli transforms the original subject matter into a modern political context. Like Apelles, Botticelli paints an autobiographical scene. He depicts a young man, wearing only a cloth, being dragged into a royal chamber. Darkly clothed cohorts attempt to convince the Medici prince, sitting on the throne, of the dragged-in figure’s guilt. All the while, the female figure carrying the prone nude form into court bears a cold ominous expression. I use scholarship from Herbert Horne, Giorgio Vasari, and Rudolph Altrocchi to lay out the historical events associated with Botticelli's The Calumny of Apelles. My purpose is to highlight Botticelli's political commentary and the complexities of Piero de’ Medici’s court.

 In 1737, Gaspar Miguel de Berrio painted El Patrocinio de San José. Now housed in La Casa Nacional de Moneda de Bolivia, the canvas is one of reverent exuberance. In an aura of golden sand, Saint Joseph’s cloak gently shelters earthbound saints, separating them from the ethereal realm above. The holy figures appear attentive to Christ’s foster father, raptly gazing at the golden glinting figure. Like other Andean Baroque painters, de Berrio juxtaposed European and Pre-Columbian details, though his paintings in particular are exceptional in their subtle yet innovative reappropriations and combinations of motifs. In this presentation, I explore de Berrio’s choice to enclose the saints surrounding Joseph in relationship to Medieval images of the Virgin Mary. Though this connection has been marginally noted in the literature, a proper study of such a striking feature remains necessary to understand the adoption and modification of European iconography by Andean Baroque artists. Studying de Berrio’s oeuvre in relationship to European references, I argue that Gaspar Miguel de Berrio not only intentionally depicted Saint Joseph in a manner similar those medieval virgins in his El Patrocinio de San José , but that this artistic choice reveals the power of the Cult of Saint Joseph in the Viceroyalty of Peru.

Yinka Shonibare MBE reimagines a familiar image in a new three-dimensional space, in The Swing (after Fragonard). First shown in 2001, Shonibare stripped away the surrounding lover, husband and most of the foliage to focus primarily on the young woman in the midst of her frivolity. Shonibare’s woman swings decapitated as she flirtatiously reveals her underskirt. Moving away from the painting into an installation piece, the viewers can occupy the position of the lover or husband, as they are free to move around her. Shonibare changes everything about the woman, except her position in space as she flings off her shoe. The woman who previously wore a peach-layered dress with lace and frills is now tailored in a copy of an Indonesian handmade batik fabric. The textile, called “Dutch-wax”, was produced by Europeans and later adopted by West Africans. The skin color of the woman has also shifted to a light shade of walnut implying a non-white racial background. These transformations allow Shonibare to open a narrative that draws comparisons from pre-revolutionary France to present day. This presentation examines how Shonibare looks at signifiers of identity as a critique of contemporary race relations on a global scale.

Titian painted Sacred and Profane Love in honor of the marriage of Niccolo Aurelio and Laura Bagarotto. Art Historian, Walter Friedlaender suggests Titian not only commemorates the special occasion but also represents a scene from Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. In contrast, Erwin Panofsky suggests that this painting represents Marsilio Ficino’s Neoplatonist views of love. This viewpoint is further reflected in its name, Sacred and Profane Love. More recently, Rona Goffen proposes the women represent more than idealized forms of Venus. In this paper, I explore how these scholars come to their analyses and how together they provide a fuller interpretation of the painting. In doing so, I link opposing theories on iconography and gender studies.