Tawaraya Sotatsu’s screen door print of the Japanese deities you cannot dismiss how unique each one of the figures appears. You also cannot help but wonder how these deities ended up looking the way that they did. We look back to 13th-century Japan to see why Raijin and Fujin ended up being depicted as they did. We consider their history, analysis, and the artist's importance within Japanese culture.
Joan Miró, a Catalan artist, was religiously dedicated to the work of poets. In 1925, Miró felt it necessary to begin incorporating poetry into his paintings, shifting the essence of his work towards poetic impression. While his early works incorporated more obvious references to poetics, his large-scale murals of Blue I, II, and III from 1961 embody many of his earliest poetic influences in a less-obvious form. I will trace how poetics from the 20th century manifested in the works of Joan Miró to form the triptych of Blue I, Blue II, and Blue III.
This document discusses the early life and artistic career of Caravaggio with his painting "Young Sick Bacchus". It also investigates the formal elements of the work and the contemporary theories behind it.
Senior Capstone that goes through the planning process of revitalizing and repurposing old, vacant commercial strip malls and turn them into a new source of urban living.
Due to car-centric urban planning, Cincinnati lacks sufficient social spaces; as society shifts towards tech-centric lifestyles, social opportunities diminish, highlighting the need for people-centric gathering places. We envision third spaces designed by and for the people, fostering diverse connections and community, promoting in-person interaction, and sparking imagination.
Senior Capstone Project.
This 12th Century B.C.E. Bronze Wine Vessel comes from the Anyang Province in China, dating to the Shang Dynasty, one of the earlier dynasties that ruled in ancient China. The shape of the vessel is a rectangular prism with a square base and 4 thick legs. The lid of this Fangyi is a roughly pyramidal shape with a knob that echoes the shape of the lid. This wine vessel was used for ceremonial purposes, most likely for ancestral worship. Not particularly used for only wine, these vessels also held cooked and raw meat, and grains or other foods, as an offering to the gods and ancestors. Alcohol held in the Fangyi was a liquor, made out of a grain called millet. Comprised of three registers each face of the vessel the same, the bronze is cast and carved to have dragon motifs, taotie masks, and a consistent thunder pattern spiral across the body of the Fangyi. The lid of the Fangyi also has taotie masks on each of sides. The dragons on the body of this vessel represent many things, but most importantly, a harbinger of good luck, prosperity, and consistent success. The taotie masks are elusive in Chinese culture- their original meanings have been lost, but they are thought to represent “animalistic energies… to heal and to offer solace in a world full of diffuse and supernatural forces,” or the finality of death. The spiral pattern is meant to emulate clouds and rolling thunder, symbolizing life-giving rain and abundance.
Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892) was a Japanese print maker. His artistic career bridged between the Edo Period (1600-1868) and the Meiji Period (1868-1912). With the start of the Meiji Period, Western technologies and ideologies were introduced to Japan. The art of printmaking had long been a tradition in Japan, especially revered during the Edo Period; however, the introduction of photography began to threaten the tradition. Yoshitoshi is considered to be the last great ukiyo-e artist that used his prints to revitalize and modernize the tradition of prints. His series One Hundred Aspects of the Moon was his last great print series.
