Theses and Dissertations at Montana State University (MSU)
Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://scholarworks.montana.edu/handle/1/733
Browse
2 results
Search Results
Item The Montana modernists: redefining Western art(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Letters & Science, 2019) Corriel, Michele; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mary MurphyThrough an investigation of twentieth-century Montana postwar societal aspects, I examine the emergence of an avant-garde art movement in the state. The pioneers of this movement, Jessie Wilber, Frances Senska, Bill Stockton, Isabelle Johnson, Robert DeWeese, and Gennie DeWeese, nurtured, sustained, and promulgated an aesthetic philosophy that redefined Western art in Montana. Divided into three sections, the exploration of this avant-garde movement concentrates on place, teaching/artistic lineage, and community. Part one examines place. For some, place refers to the physical attributes of Montana in the postwar years, the isolation, the beauty, and the complexity of its landscape that not only served as a backdrop but also played center stage in the influences on life and art. For others in the group, place became a metaphor for the body politic, a personal evocation of space held within the boundaries of time. Part two charts each artist's artistic lineage to further understand how they arrived at their particular artistic styles. Community, the third section, seeks to answer one of the larger questions within this work: how did six artists working in Montana in the late 1940s create a thriving art community that opposed the meta-narrative of the West and still resonates in contemporary Montana art. A thorough study of their teaching styles, art techniques, and social gatherings demonstrates the workings of a tight-knit community of like-minded artists (and writers, dancers, musicians, and philosophers) as they addressed the changing zeitgeist of a postwar America, cultivating fresh ideas through a modern lens, allowing Montanans a new option for viewing themselves.Item Paul Klee and comic modernism(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2015) Munson, Jesine Lynn; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Melissa RagainPaul Klee tends to resist stylistic classification, since his style and materials varied widely over the course of his career. Klee participated in and was influenced by a range of artistic movements including surrealism, cubism, and expressionism, but was not faithful to any one particular movement. The one element that is consistent throughout his work is his use of comic themes. My research revolves around the evolution of comedic theater techniques used as formal elements in the works of Paul Klee. While many scholars comment on Klee's sense of humor, and his use of irony and wit, comedy, as a set theatrical conventions, has not been thoroughly analyzed. There is a strong presence of the theater in Klee's work that has been addressed in recent scholarship but not in terms of the comedic. The 2006 exhibition, "Paul Klee: Theater Everywhere" chronicled his wide-ranging references to theater, but it did not analyze the role of comic theater's particular traditions and the pictorial conventions derived from them. In this study, I will assess Klee's application of comic theatrical traditions as innovative strategies for constructing visual compositions. Separating his works into cohesive study sets that include: early satirical works, masks, puppets, and performers, theatrical landscapes, hand puppets and small stage sets, and Klee's years at the Bauhaus. While Klee used satirical and cathartic devices that date back to classical Greek theater, I will concentrate on the ways that Klee used the technical apparatuses of modern theatrical comedy as formal devices for his two-dimensional compositions. I am specifically interested in his use of the alienating techniques of Bertolt Brecht's "epic theater" and the relief-like stage of the Kunstlertheater. As consistently as his work changes through his development as an artist, comedy is a factor that consistently carries through.