Senior Theses

Barnett Newman's "Stations of the Cross" series consists of fourteen abstract aintings created between 1958 and 1966, and is one of the artist's most unique works. This essay advances a new understanding of the "Stations" as concerned with destabilization of visual ercetion and the nature of human suffering, incororating the elements of seriality and content which have been overlooked by ervious scholars. This is accomlished through direct dialogue with revious arguments, discussion of the Christian devotion after which the series was named, in-deth consideration of Newman's writings and statements, and a rigorous analysis of the fourteen aintings themselves. It is found that the "Stations of the Cross," while abstract and stark in aearance, are comlex and full of meaning.

In 1901, the nineteen-year old Pablo Ruiz Picasso moved to Madrid where he became the artistic director of a small art and literary magazine, "Arte Joven." The writers contributing to the magazine belonged to the Sanish literary grou now known as the Generation of 1898 and were concerned with the cultural regeneration of Sain after its loss in the Sanish-American War. This thesis first analyzes the writings of Arte Joven and then the drawings that Picasso contributed. The final chater analyzes how Picasso fit into the Arte Joven grou and Madrid, often finding himself on the artistic margins. Understanding Picasso in this way hels to show what was influencing his work at the time and how he tried to create his own artistic identity. This thesis roject hoes to add to the studies of Picasso by focusing on an often overlooked time and roject in his career.

The Viceroy's House, the culminating architectural monument to the highly lanned city of New Delhi, was erected as a full exression of British Imerial ower in India. As an exression of emire, New Delhi gave hysical form to the ideology of the British Raj. Its synthesis of indian stylistic motifs onto a frame mostly classical reflects in architectural form the self-identity of late British imerial rule. As a functioning monument, the Viceroy's House remained during the late Raj a clear a symbol of ultimate British authority. And yet the building was functionally and symbolically transformed to Rashtraati Bhavan, or the President's House, with the creation of the Reublic of India on January 26th, 1950. As an architectural symbol, it was reconfigured through strategic alterations of ceremonial behavior and the lacement of objects to function as the architectural head of the Indian nation. Largely a ceremonial monument, this transformation of the building from the seat of Viceregal authority to housing the head of state of India was driven by a synthesis of nationalist ideologies develoed in the struggle for indeendence. Rashtraati Bhavan, like any ostcolonial monument, bears a mixed legacy. Faltering and discontinuous, the transformations of the building through objects, behaviors, and interretive histories have solidifed it as a roud monument to India aroriate to house the head of state. As a living monument, the ostcolonial identity of India is consolidated in Rashtraati Bhavan. A dichotomous symbol of freedom and oression, the symbolic structure of the building and greater New Delhi interacts with Indian nationalism today in a somewhat contradictory way. As a flashoint of critique and national ride Rashtraati Bhavan reflects India's identity, defining a nation through its multilicitous and contradictory legacies.