Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/733
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Item Coping with the landscape: an aesthetic analysis of the intermediate zone(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2018) Parker, Ryan Keith; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Jim ZimpelNumerous studies have been conducted into the aesthetics of landscape, both through objects (sculptures and installations) and through pictorial devices (painting, printmaking, photography, etc.). The fact being that, as long as the horizon line is interrupted these studies by artists will continue in hope of understanding and changing their own reality. Aligning with the history of the photographic land survey, the emphasis of this work is to direct the reading of landscapes towards an aesthetic analysis of the modern mobile landscape. Considering the accumulation of capital as the driving force of the aesthetic change in the landscape, this analysis will focus on the geography of the highest concentration of visible indicators, the intermediate zone. Within this transitional space, as is similarly true with ecological systems, the highest concentration for diversity has the ability to manifest at the edges of converging zones, due to the overlapping of multiple systems in one geographic locality. Accumulation of indicators, both those failing in the system and those entering the system will be present. Recognizing that this survey considers the use and misuse of utilitarian objects and architecture as a method of evaluating time, purpose, and relative availably to the general population, it will present an argument for the intentional denial of the legibility for this landscape, leading to a further lack of understanding within the general population. This result will further lead to the alienation of the population from its landscape.Item Contemporary luminous landscapes(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1987) Park, Bruce RodmanMy thesis work is about exploring the environment through my intuitive vision; a quest to seek new truths about a traditional subject, the landscape. What I could contribute to landscape's long and extensive history became the challenging issue. Curiously, the problem was resolved by my children. Through them, I understood that each person enters this life as an autonomous individual soul, seeing the world again through innocent eyes. To perceive the land as if completely new is the attitude I seek, and then to present the landscape's grandeur and beauty in my paintings. Light infuses life into the earth and sky, and I choose to render my experiences of this energy as it affects the land at different times of the day, the season and atmospheric turbulence. My art is of idealized, luminous landscapes that carry on in a new way the grand tradition of the American landscape.Item Monotypes(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1984) Moss, Lynda Bourque; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Francis J. Noel IIISpace... vast, endless, personal or intimate, permeates my work. Oblique and haunting as well as curious and humorous, the monotypes are landscapes offering divergent elements. They hold images suggesting questions rather than answers. The Western landscape, a big place with vague boundaries, is my source for these works. By visually wandering across a prairie, gazing at an expanse of water or observing the sky, I acknowledge a sense of spaciousness and immediacy. These sensations call for a focal reference. This may be something physical and tangible or it may be an internalization. Both provide a meditative response. I believe a duality of vision allows an acceptance of experience in an individual way. Agnes Martin suggests a similar concern: 'It is from our awareness of transcendent reality and our response to concrete reality that our mind commands us on our way - not really on a path or to a gate - but to a full response.' My perception of the landscape is similar to that of many artists, from the nineteenth century to the present. Walt Whitman wrote of the 'strange mixture of delicacy' evident in the plains and mountains. David Smith spoke of the rawness and harshness of the American landscape. The process of monotypes - a combination of painting and printmaking - and the consequent characteristics of the process suited my interests and visual language. The spontaneity and immediacy of painting transfer in a direct and sensitive manner. Luminosity, layering and compressed imagery are utilized. These works share complicity and economy. In all the monotypes a paradox is present, an expanse is occupied by defined independent marks. Foggy ambiguous ground/atmosphere exists with strange awkward rudiments. Borrowing from Jack Burnham in 'The Great Western Salt Works', these may be referred to as very primitive 'signifiers'. Each monotype presents a syntax for divergent qualities. Each represents time; time of thought and time of action. They are my record of seeing. Richard Hugo expressed a parallel attitude in 'Open Country': '...And you come back here where the land has ways of going on and the shadow of a cloud crawls like a freighter, no port in mind, no captain, and the charts dead wrong.'