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This research contributes to the fields of heritage and museum studies with a threefold objective: conceptualise heritage as a process, using an appropriate research method, with implications for museums. The work correspondingly helps to redress the undertheorisation of heritage, the inadequacy of methods for grasping heritage as an ethnographic object of study, and the disconnection between communities and their museums - and, underlying and linking these issues, the widespread incorrect and damaging presumption that individuals, or the communities they constitute, are heritage deficient. In doing so, the presumption of public heritage deficiency underlying and linking these theoretical, methodological and museological 'problems' is challenged and countered. Drawing on my heritage ethnography of maritime Bermuda, I examine how and why people of this mid-Atlantic island use maritimity to formulate identity and community, and thereby generate maritime heritage. This contextualised case study engages with current thinking and key debates about heritage and museums to conceptualise heritage cross-culturally. Introductory chapters review heritage and museums across the relevant scholarly, maritime, and Bermuda scales and reflect upon my methodological choices during the research design, fieldwork and analysis. Five chapters of ethnographic analysis subsequently interpret community uses of heritage in terms of Bermudian relationships with the sea. Specifically, this analysis identifies and explores maritime heritage as: relationships with past and present maritimes; negotiations of 'race' and its legacies; beliefs in authenticity; curatorial practices of community museology; and aspirational remedies to social crisis. With this rich ethnographic yet analytic account of maritime heritage in Bermuda, I expand the framework for understanding heritage as a phenomena and concept, offer a heritage model to museums - and maritime and Bermuda's museums specifically - so they may better connect with their communities, and utilise and innovate heritage ethnography as a specialised method for heritage research, museum curation and wider community use.

The cultural consequences of the First World War have been debated for decades but a fully satisfactory account of its effect on British art is still wanting. Art historians’ privileging of modern over traditional, front line over home front and dissenting truth over prevailing opinion has resulted in bombastic, unrepresentative and inadequately historicised interpretations of the subject. This thesis supplements and challenges this prevailing picture by focusing on the home front rather than the front line; on a wide cross-section of artists, collectors, dealers, critics and institutions rather than a handful of progressive war painters; and on the social and cultural changes brought by war rather than the stylistic shifts that still dominate scholarship. Its first two sections constitute a social history of British art in the period. Section I, Identities, describes war’s adverse effects on societal perceptions of art (Chapter 1), and the debilitating social and psychological obstacles to artists’ continued production of it (Chapter 2); Section II, Institutions, expands its scope to show that these problems were no less damaging for exhibiting societies (Chapter 3), and the art market (Chapter 4). Section III, Functions, adopts a cultural history approach, and explores how popular war art shaped civilian attitudes to the conflict (Chapter 5), but how, conversely, some artistic output enabled them to escape and overcome it (Chapter 6). The resulting dissertation illuminates a neglected sector of an important period in British art, but also contributes to the social history of the home front and the cultural history of the Great War. The thesis concludes that the material disruptions of war represented its most profound cultural consequences, and offers a new materialist reading of the famous rappel à l’ordre. However, it generally argues that war was more of a temporary artistic hiatus than the cultural watershed it is often taken to be. Nevertheless, it does maintain that war did – if temporarily – transform the relationship between British art and British society.

Despite the resurgent interest in the region in the wake of the 1994 Zapatista uprising, Chiapas’ visual history has received little sustained critical attention. This thesis explores the diverse insights that can be gleaned from the region’s photographic heritage, drawing upon material dating from the mid-nineteenth century until the present day. The study looks primarily at quotidian and unheralded images of indigenous communities. The first chapter sets the thesis in context by analysing the historical reliance on the image of el indio in discourses of nation-building in Mexico. The second and third chapters consider the varied ways non-indigenous image-makers negotiate the relationship with their indigenous photographic subjects. Focusing primarily on the photographic output of anthropologists working for the Instituto Nacional Indigenista (INI) in Chiapas and on the prolific photographic corpus of Swiss photographer Gertrude Duby Blom, the thesis analyses the interface between developments in official indigenista thought and the photographic framing of indigenous communities during the second half of the twentieth century. The final chapter moves on to explore the diverse uses of photography by indigenous peoples themselves, engaging closely with the work of the indigenous photographers of the Chiapas Photography Project. By situating close photographic analyses within the broader panorama of politico-cultural history, the study offers new insights into the multilayered significance of photography within the complex network of inter-ethnic relations in Chiapas. Far from the camera being a neutral documentary tool, the space between photographer and photographic subject is revealed as deeply invested and politicised, signalling the nuanced role of photography in constructing and disseminating concepts of indigenous alterity.

The image of Marcel Duchamp as a brilliant but laconic dilettante has come to dominate the literature surrounding the artist’s life and work. His intellect and strategic brilliance were vaunted by his friends and contemporaries, and served as the basis of the mythology that has been coalescing around the artist and his work since before his death in 1968. Though few would challenge these attributions of intelligence, few have likewise considered the role that Duchamp’s prodigious mind played in bringing about the present state of his career. Many of the signal features of Duchamp’s artistic career: his avoidance of the commercial art market, his cultivation of patrons, his “retirement” from art and the secret creation and posthumous unveiling of his Étant Donnés: 1° la chute d’eau/2° le gaz d’éclairage, all played key roles in the development of the Duchampian mythos. Rather than treating Duchamp’s current art historical position as the fortuitous result of chance, this thesis attempts to examine the many and subtle ways in which Duchamp worked throughout his life to control how he and his work were and are perceived. Such an examination necessarily begins at the start of his relationship with the general and specialist media, through the auspices of his painting Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2. This is followed by an examination of Duchamp’s decades-long relationship with the press through the interviews given during his life. Duchamp’s concern for his physical legacy is explored next, initially through his relationships with his two dominant patrons, Walter and Louise Arensberg and Katherine Dreier. Not only did he act as advisor and dealer in the development of both prestigious collections, Duchamp had the privileged position of participant in the negotiations surrounding the disposition of the collections he had helped to build. Duchamp’s concern for the preservation of his physical legacy continued after the installation of his own work within major American museums. Thus, next is considered the development and effects of the two large-scale retrospectives of Duchamp’s work held within his lifetime. Finally is considered the role of Duchamp’s posthumous work, the Étant Donnés. Through the combination of secrecy and strategically revealed hints, Duchamp ensured that his final work would engender discussion long after his death.

The story of the collaboration between the psychoanalyst Dr Grace Pailthorpe and the artist Reuben Mednikoff is indeed an extraordinary one. The aim of this thesis is to throw light upon their joint research project between 1935, when they first met, and 1940, when they were expelled from the British Surrealist group with which they had been closely involved since its official launch in 1936. The project that Pailthorpe and Mednikoff plunged into just days after they first met in February 1935 focused on how art could be used as a way of curing mental problems. Paintings and drawings produced ‘automatically’ were used as a means to bring memories to a conscious level. Many personal tensions, obsessions and fears that had lain dormant and repressed were released and detailed commentaries and explanations followed every work they produced in order for the exercise to be fully therapeutic. The aim was to externalise the unconscious and reintegrate it with the conscious. Despite the fact that Pailthorpe’s work was hailed as ‘the best and most truly Surrealist’ by the leader of the Surrealist movement, André Breton, at the 1936 International Surrealist exhibition in London, which brought the movement to Britain, the couple were expelled from the British Surrealist group just four years later and moved to America into relative obscurity. After their deaths, Pailthorpe and Mednikoff’s drawings and paintings were dispersed and their commentaries never read. My thesis provides biographies of Pailthorpe and Mednikoff before they met. It analyses the work they made together, discussing the impact on their thinking not only of Surrealism but also of psychoanalytic theory, notably the work of Melanie Klein. Apart from this, the thesis also reintegrates the couple into the history of Surrealism in England.

This thesis offers a reassessment of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting Children’s Games (1560, Kunsthistoriches Museum, Vienna). Addressing the lack of historically accurate interpretations of Bruegel’s panel, I use a wide range of sixteenth-century sources to develop fresh insights into how the work might have been understood by its original audience. The Introduction opens with a description of the painting’s iconography, provenance, current condition and conservation history. A review of previous literature relating to the panel sets Children’s Games within the trajectory of scholarship on Bruegel and other related works in his oeuvre and serves to highlight areas of scholarly difficulty and disagreement as well as current methodological trends. Considering the reception, rather than the inception, of Children’s Games, the third part of the Introduction outlines broader cultural developments which shaped habits of looking in the sixteenth century, including encyclopaedic texts, atlases, Wunderkammern and memory systems. Surmising that Bruegel’s viewers would have been adept at searching for arguments within abundant collections of material, I then introduce a number of sixteenth-century sources which detail contemporary attitudes towards game-playing. The Introduction ends with an outline of the structure and methodological approach of the thesis. Chapter 1, 'Artistic Precedents: Illuminated Manuscripts', considers the panel in relation to the iconography of popular games found in the borders of illuminated manuscripts produced in France and the Netherlands in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century. After highlighting areas of shared iconography, I discuss how Children’s Games differs from illuminated manuscripts, concluding that Bruegel rejected the 'game of the month' tradition found in the calendar borders and instead amalgamated a variety of children’s games and festive customs to create a humanistic encyclopaedia of children’s culture. A second sixteenth-century source which details popular games is François Rabelais’s book Gargantua (1532). Chapter 2 presents my research into why Rabelais’s writing is relevant to Bruegel scholarship, including archival evidence that Rabelais’s books were available in Antwerp and an analysis of the Songes drolatiques de Pantagruel (1565), a collection of woodcuts which combined Rabelais’s name with Bruegelian imagery. I then compare Children's Games with the list of 217 popular games played by Gargantua and discuss how these fictional lists related to the factual compilations of the period. Gargantua’s game-list occurs in the context of his humanist education, a context which is also relevant to Bruegel’s panel. During the sixteenth century a wealth of material on children’s play and deportment emerged in the form of humanist school colloquies and treatises. A number of these were closely related to the education system in Antwerp and were penned by members of Bruegel’s circle of associates. These have never been brought to bear on Children’s Games, and are used in chapter 3 to develop a new, historically-accurate reading of the painting. The pedagogical texts suggest that during the sixteenth century children’s play was viewed positively and was closely bound to education, and so challenge the canonical view arising chiefly from c.17th emblem books and paintings that Children’s Games makes moral points about adult behaviour. Appendix 1 - Enumerates Bruegel’s games and records comparable depictions found in manuscripts, printed images and paintings from the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Appendix 2 - Presents versions of Gargantua’s game-list from original editions of Rabelais’s text alongside standard translations and modern critical editions.

Cartoons have traditionally occupied an important place in French visual culture, and are now a permanent feature in even the most prestigious publications, including Le Monde, where they appear on the front page. Moreover, there is a long tradition of political cartooning which is firmly situated within the historical context of caricature and lampooning, which over the years has contributed to public debates on key issues such as politics, religion and social change. In this thesis, I focus on political cartoons and argue that the political cartoon is still significant as a cultural product and as a powerful journalistic medium at a time when the existence of the print media is threatened by new technological developments. In order to understand how cartoons remain a powerful mode of expression in the twenty-first century, I begin by examining the historical development of cartooning, tracing its origins in grotesque art, physiognomy and caricature. I then explore a number of events in early modern European history such as the Reformation and the French Revolution to show that the medium was used as a means of mass communication, to inform a largely illiterate public, incite protest and instigate rebellion through propaganda. I show how political graphics were used as effective political weapons against the ruling authorities, in the face of tight regulation such as censorship, and underline the French artists' commitment to defend their right of expression. As I demonstrate, this commitment continues to be pursued by contemporary French cartoonists such as Plantu who is dedicated to fighting for freedom of expression and promoting peace issues, under the banner of Le Monde and the United Nations. In analysing a corpus of Plantu's editorial creations, I underline theoretical perspectives for ‘reading' cartoons and illuminate the visual rhetoric used by cartoonists to communicate serious issues. I conclude with an assessment of the significant role that French cartoonists played during the 2006 Cartoons War to further highlight the impact of cartoons as a vehicle for political communication, and as a catalyst for debate in the twenty first century.

This thesis analyzes the philosophical origins of dualism in Western culture in the Classical period in order to examine dualist modes of representation in the history of Western portraiture. Dualism - or the separation of soul and body - takes the form in portraiture of the representation of the head or head and shoulders at the expense of the body, and since its emergence in Classical Greece, has been the major influence on portraiture. In this respect the modern portrait's commonplace attention to the face rests on the dualist notion that the soul, and therefore the individuality of the subject, rests in the head. Art historical literature on portraiture, however, fails to address the pictorial, cultural and theoretical complications arising from various forms of dualism and their different artistic methodologies, such as that of the physiognomy (the definition of personality through facial characteristics) in the 19th century. That is, there is a failure to identify the complexities of dualism's relationship to the traditional honorific aspects of the portrait (the fact that historians are inclined to accept at face value the fact that portraits historically have tended to honour the achievements and social status of the sitter). Indeed, scholars have a propensity to romanticise the humanist individualists inherent to this long history of the honorific, particularly in canonic portrait practices such as Rembrandt's and Picasso's.

„Touching the Gods: physical interaction with cult statues in the Roman world‟ explores different forms of physical interaction with cult statues in the many cults and beliefs evident across the Roman world, and proposes wide-ranging implications of this for the understanding of Roman religions and Roman art. Despite the theoretical detachment of the cult statue in the Roman world, an ideological language of close physical interaction was developed, which manifested itself through both „regular‟ (for example, ritual decoration and washing) and „irregular‟ (such as sexual and violent) contact. Although modern scholarship accepts that cult statues formed part of religious worship within which physical interaction took place, they are generally treated as passive objects. This research addresses the implications of physical interaction for the active role of the statue within Roman societies, through the assessment of the anthropological, social and psychological functions the statue could embody. It establishes a socio-cultural definition of the cult statue in the Roman world, supported by an assessment of Greek and Latin vocabulary for statuary and an assessment of the physical evidence for cult images. The thesis separately considers the different types of interaction, including washing and clothing, verbal communication, transportation, embrace, violence and feeding. The conclusions drawn from these separate types are based partly on a broad study of the full range of interactions, with an additional focus on the points in the ancient dialogue at which their limitations are placed. The cumulative effect of the evidence, across the whole empire and across all interactions possible, illuminates the vast complexity and vast potential of images of the gods in forming, informing and being influenced by human relationships with the divine.

The Museum Learners Club is a socially mediated learning environment that welcomes diverse learners. This thesis presents its philosophical and theoretical foundations and an ethnographic account of how I tested it with learners on the autism spectrum and their non-autistic peers. In theory and in practice, the Museum Learners Club demonstrates the efficacy of museums for inclusive learning and the significance of a secure museum-school partnership. The idea of the Museum Learners Club originated from progressive learning theory that is a hallmark of the museum studies discourse. It was further developed through an examination of the personal and social nature of knowledge, the process of learning, and designs for learning from the fields of philosophy, cognitive psychology, and knowledge management. Leading forces behind my thinking include Michael Polanyi’s convictions of personal and tacit knowledge, Lev Vygotsky’s social constructivism, and Etienne Wenger’s learning theory known as “communities of practice”. The Museum Learners Club was built on the principle that learning occurs as a result of building new understanding from a prior knowledge base through participation and expansion of identities. I describe the Club as a “constructivist community of practice”. The thesis also grapples with challenges of social inclusion and inclusive education. The Museum Learners Club embraces a democratic view of the validity of all learners. It makes provisions to serve a wide range of learning styles including autistic behaviors that can inhibit communication, social interaction and learning. My work complements autism research that values socially based interventions. Success in the field indicated that the Museum Learners Club was a viable participatory framework and proved that learning in museums can enhance typical school education for a diversity of learners. It portends a larger impact for museums, schools and a multicultural world that require equitable learning solutions.

The field of angelology is vast. This thesis investigates the artistic representations of angels from the Late Middle Ages through the Reformation, from c.1450 to c.1650. This is achieved by a careful selection of material which demonstrates how the angelic form mutated in response to the religious and political changes experienced in England during this time. Thus, attention has been focussed on three main areas that form the components of this study: Chapter one investigates the integral role that angels played in the late-medieval Catholic belief system, drawing on primary and secondary literature to demonstrate how scholars viewed angels and specifically, how they categorised and differentiated the various orders of angels. Chapter two examines four case studies of representations of the angelic hierarchy at a local and national level, in different media, in order to evaluate how the doctrine surveyed in chapter one was manifested in artistic practice, with special attention to how angels were depicted on the eve of the Reformation. Chapter three examines the Reformation in terms of angelology, with particular regard to the European and English reformers’ views on the artistic representation of these celestial creatures, from the beginnings of religious change to the era of the Commonwealth. The hypothesis that angels were not represented on tomb monuments in the Elizabethan period is tested, by investigating the counties of Leicestershire and Rutland, looking at the monuments of the period c. 1550-c.1650. This chapter also addresses how the English responded to the call of the iconoclasts and investigates whether angels were treated in the same conceptual and ideological category as the saints, or if they managed to survive. I shall contend that despite the changes to Christianity in England, during the period of concern for this study, angels continued to be part of the faith as demonstrated by their continued portrayal in art and sculpture.

This thesis is a comprehensive reassessment of the role of Saint Christopher wall paintings in English (and Welsh) churches. Although the study focuses primarily on parish churches (where the majority of mural paintings survive), it also considers cathedrals, abbeys and other medieval buildings where such imagery is extant or documented. Welsh churches are also examined where appropriate, though there are only a few surviving Saint Christopher images in this geographical area. The investigation spans the period from the emergence of Saint Christopher representations in illumination (c.1250), to the beginning of the sixteenth century, when wall painting depictions of the saint were at their zenith (c.1500 for sake of convenience). The thesis begins with an examination and assessment of universal image function and reception in medieval church and society. This is a central issue to the study of churches, and it is therefore necessary to dedicate a whole chapter to the subject. Through the examination of individual paintings and documents relating to specific churches, the thesis then goes on to focus on three main themes related to Saint Christopher and his cult. First, it considers the role of Saint Christopher wall paintings (and other types of images where appropriate), secondly, the location of Saint Christopher murals within church buildings, and thirdly, the different methods of patronage associated with the wall paintings. The survey also establishes a long-overdue and revised chronology of the entire corpus of Saint Christopher wall paintings based on an examination of architectural, documentary and visual evidence, and on comparisons with other types of media from England and the Continent (such as sculpture, illumination and woodcuts). Most murals can be dated to within the nearest quarter or third of a century (and to the nearest century if the date of execution is uncertain).

This study puts forward an argument for the importance of studying museum constructions of the past in relation to the intellectual histories of archaeological scholarship involved with the investigation of material culture of the past. Informed by post-structuralist theories in the fields of archaeology and museology, this study essentially proposes to investigate why museum representations of the past come to look the way they do through a critical analysis of the discourse of archaeology, that is the disciplinary poetics and socio-politics of archaeology. Furthermore, it argues that museum receptions of the Greek classical past and the discipline of classical archaeology, with its abundance of original material, its vast body of scholarly production let alone its key role in the genesis of European thought and archaeological discipline as such, provides a fertile ground for exploring the above supposition. Thus, classical archaeological discourse and museum representations of the classical past in post-war (1950 to the present) Greece are examined in order to understand the architectonics of their interrelation in their various scholarly, socio-historical, political, ideological and economic dimensions. Essentially, it is sought to unmask how the long standing intellectual tradition of classical archaeology and its operation within a certain historical, cultural and political context informed or even governed museum constructions of the Greek classical past and their varied receptions from audiences in Greece and beyond, both in the past and in the present. Thirty four case-studies are selected and provide ample material to proceed beyond the strictly empirical analysis and experience into further philosophical reflection and theorising. National, Site, Regional, Private and University Museums together with temporary and travelling exhibitions are thoroughly examined to demonstrate how master narratives of classical archaeological discourse have been for so long endorsed and perpetuated by the Greek Museum discourse. The examination of the case studies is most revealing and empowering for making some general observations regarding the poetics and politics of scholarly traditions and the manner in which these traditions lead to specific cultural appropriations and constructions of the past in museum displays. Finally, this study also shows how such a theoretically and historically informed approach to museum constructions of the past, Greek classical and other, can potentially bring new impetus to archaeological exhibitions, their themes and forms of expression.

To date, the study of communist visual culture in the museum environment has been limited. While interest in revolutionary art continues to develop thanks to its twenty-first century appropriation and ‘kitschification’ in Western contexts, communist art remains problematic. Taking Saidian discourse as a theoretical starting point, this thesis explores the collection, interpretation and display of the visual culture of the Chinese Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) in contemporary British museums. It explores the image of China in the popular consciousness and looks for intersections between the contemporary political Sino-British relationship and interpretive approaches to this material. The historiographical survey analyses contemporary primary sources to reveal images of the Cultural Revolution during three periods which correspond with mind shifts in the British response to China. Interviews with key members of curatorial staff situate the thesis in contemporary practice. The thesis is divided into three sections. The first, the ‘pre-historical’ context to the main body of the thesis establishes a methodological approach, theoretical grounding and surveys the Sino-British relationship from the Enlightenment to the foundation of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Section 2 looks at the contemporary British response to the Cultural Revolution and how these visions of China were translated into exhibitionary practice. Section 3 explores the collections and practice of three case studies. It examines the different and diverse reasons for the establishment of these collections and how they have interpreted (as art, artefact or document). The thesis concludes with the argument that museums and collecting institutions have a key role to play in the difficult debate which envelopes the West’s historical response to communism and the legacy of the Cultural Revolution, in the light of challenges to the grand narrative.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the efforts which were made during the life of Jacob Epstein and at the time his death to fix a particular identity that has thus shaped his legacy. The question that this thesis wishes to address is: how was Jacob Epstein's legacy carved? The first part of this thesis, entitled 'Remembering Epstein', seeks to unpack and examine the written discourse surrounding his death. This will be done by assessing the themes, debates and considerations of Epstein's position in the history of art and will focus on four case studies: the obituaries and memorial pieces that were written immediately after Epstein's death; a memorial service that was held at St. Paul's Cathedral; a failed proposal to tum Epstein's home studio into a museum; and the organisation and critical reception of the Epstein Memorial Exhibition held in Edinburgh in 1961. The second part of this thesis, entitled 'Writing a Legacy', attends to the analysis of texts which were written about or by Epstein throughout his career. This will be done through a close examination of those texts which have come to shape our understanding of Epstein's place in the history of art and will focus on five case studies: the writings of T. E. Hulme; Epstein by Bernard Van Dieren; a series of interviews with Epstein by Arnold Haskell, entitled The Sculptor Speaks; Epstein's role in protesting against repairs to ancient sculpture in the British Museum; and a chapter entitled 'My Place in Sculpture' from the 1954 edition of Epstein's autobiography. The final part of the thesis, entitled 'Selected Works', will focus on six separate sculptures as case studies for assessing different aspects of Epstein's artistic output. The works which will be examined: The Rock Drill (1913), The Risen Christ (1917-19), Madonna and Child (1926-27), Genesis (1929), Albert Einstein (1933), and Madonna and Child (1950-52).

This thesis is an investigation into the legitimacy and limits of the term "body art" in its vernacular sense, wherein it refers to methods of decorating or ornamenting the body, such as tattooing or piercing. Though the term is widely used and widely understood, it has rarely appeared in any writing which takes an explicitly arthistorical or art-critical approach, and has never been subjected to any sustained analysis which uses the methodologies deployed by specialists when engaging with other forms of art. If tattooing and its coincident technologies are "body art", they have not as yet been understood as such by art historians. The arguments made over the course of this work thus amount to a case for the applicability of art-historical and art-theoretical methodologies to body modification practice. The thesis first establishes the existence of a rhetorical yet broadly undefended case for the artistic status of practices which alter the form of the body. This claim is to be found amongst both the contemporary subcultural body modification community and amongst plastic surgeons. With particular reference to theories of art and aesthetics by John Dewey, Richard Shusterman, and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, the work investigates whether such claims are tenable. In light of these investigations, the thesis then presents a number of problems which immediately arise from such a claim - problems of authorship, ownership, objectivity and value - and attempts to resolve them through detailed analysis of a number of case-studies.

Taxidermy specimens and displays have become increasingly liminal features in contemporary society. Viewed variously as historical curios, obsolete relics or more malignantly as ‘monstrosities’, they can be a source of discomfort for many. Taxidermy objects have become uncomfortable reminders of past scientific and colonial practices which have sought to capture, order and control animated life and as such have become increasingly problematic items for their owners. As a result many taxidermy displays have been dismantled and mounts relegated to ‘backstores’ to gather dust. The paradox is that taxidermy as a practice is a quest for ‘liveness’, to impute life back into the dead. Much like the taxidermist, my goal in this thesis is to revive and restore: to renew interest in and reassert the value of taxidermy collections by recovering what I shall term as the ‘biogeographies’ of their making and continued maintenance. Considerable academic attention has been paid to the ‘finished’ form and display of taxidermy specimens inside cabinets, behind glass – in other words, to their representation. By way of contrast, this thesis recovers the relationships, practices and geographies that brought specimens to their state of enclosure, inertness and seeming fixity. These efforts are aligned with work in cultural geography seeking to counteract ‘deadening effects’ in an active world through a prioritisation of practice (Dewsbury and Thrift 2000), and elsewhere draw on research arguments and approaches originating in historical geography, and the history of science. The thesis firstly investigates historical developments in the scientific and craft practice of taxidermy through the close study of period manuals, combined with ethnographic observations of a practicing taxidermist. Critical attention to practice then facilitates the recovery of the lifeworlds of past taxidermy workshops and the globally sited biogeographies behind the making of individual specimens and collections. The thesis required the purposeful assemblage and rehabilitation of diffuse zoological and historical remains to form unconventional archives, enabling a series of critical reflections on the scientific, creative and political potentials of taxidermy.

Fine art, in the form of oil paintings, prints and drawings, accounts for a considerable proportion of the collection formed by the Scottish anatomist, Dr William Hunter. This thesis examines the contexts for the various works of art that were either bought or commissioned by him or were the result of donations and gifts. It covers the period from the 1740s, when Hunter arrived in London until his death in 1783 and follows his collecting activities from their origins in the specialist, anatomical-antiquarian interests of his predecessors in the 1750s to the more elaborate works that were increasingly available to him through his contacts with artists and dealers by the 1770s. This involves placing Hunter within a chronology of collecting during the eighteenth century, a period characterised by an expansion of cultural activity within all the arts. Such a commodification of culture brought with it various implications for the production and reception of the arts that had been predominantly the reserve of the aristocracy. William Hunter was a professional, a new type of Gentleman Connoisseur, whose motivations to collect were inspired by an innate empirical curiosity that dominated the era. Therefore, curiosity as a type of investigative phenomenon is considered in the thesis as the driving force behind the accumulation and calculation of of collectible objects. Hunter's incorporation of a fine art collection within a museum dominated by anatomy and natural history calls for a re-considertation of the place of art derived from the close study of nature during the period. His influence as a teacher and patron of the arts is also re-considered here by a closer examination of the part he played in the community of artists that emerged in London during the 1760s. The thesis employs a methodology that combines the techniques of micro-history, a close cultural-anthropological analysis viewed through a framework of more general, theoretical themes, classicism, antiquarianism and consumerism that seek to impose an understanding on the sheer diversity and range of interrelated ideas that constitute the practice of collecting during the eighteenth century. It reveals that, rather than standing on the periphery, William Hunter played a crucial, if not central, role in the promotion and dissemination of the fine arts in Britain.

Prior to his career as a painter, Walter Richard Sickert (1860-1940) was employed for a number of years as an actor. Indeed the muse of the theatre was a constant influence throughout Sickert’s life and work yet this relationship is curiously neglected in studies of his career. The following thesis, therefore, is an attempt to address this vital aspect of Sickert’s œuvre. Chapter one (Act I: The Duality of Performance and the Art of the Music-Hall) explores Sickert’s acting career and its influence on his music-hall paintings from the 1880s and 1890s, particularly how this experience helps to differentiate his work from Whistler and Degas. Chapter two (Act II: Restaging Camden Town: Walter Sickert and the theatre c.1905-c.1915) examines the influence of the developing New Drama on Sickert’s works from his Fitzroy Street/Camden Town period. Chapter three (Act III: Sickert and Shakespeare: Interpreting the Theatre c.1920-1940) details Sickert’s interest in the rediscovery of Shakespeare as a metaphor for his solution to the crisis in modern art. Finally, chapter four (Act IV: Sickert’s Simulacrum: Representations and Characterisations of the Artist in Texts, Portraits and Self-Portraits c.1880-c.1940) discusses his interest in the concept of theatrical identity, both in terms of an interest in acting and the “character” of artist and self-publicity. Each chapter analyses the influence of the theatre on Sickert’s work, both in terms of his interest in theatrical subject matter but also in a more general sense of the theatrical milieu of his interpretations. Consequently Sickert’s paintings tell us much about changing fashions, traditions and interests in the British theatre during his period. The history of the British stage is therefore the backdrop for the study of a single artist’s obsession with theatricality and visual modernity.

In Fatal Strategies, Jean Baudrillard argues that music and literature are seductive in themselves. Given his later interest in photography and the work of Sophie Calle, it could be argued that seduction is also an attribute of the visual arts. But what makes a work of art seductive? My research is concerned with the relational and psychodynamic aspects of the encounter between the work of the art and the viewer; one that, when seduction operates, is characterised by interplay, flow and conflict. The first step towards disentangling this problem is to define seduction, a concept that is contingent, ridden with confusion, contradictions and connotative interpretations, even in the gallery space (as recent exhibitions on seduction demonstrate). Any attempt at pinning down the term, however, shows that it is pervasive and as a ruling principle, it operates everywhere – especially where efforts to study it are made. The problem, then, becomes a methodological one: how might one study seduction as it operates in the encounter with works of art? I put forward a subjective, practice-led approach, comprised of three strands: artistic – in particular photography – psychoanalytic and writing practices. All three enact the self-reflexive methodology that is at the core of the contribution my project aims to make and which is constituted of three steps: recognition, capture and reflection. The context for the research is multiform, interdisciplinary and is located in converging fields concerned with textual and visual material: eighteenth-century libertine novels, in particular Les Liaisons Dangereuses and the writings of the Marquis de Sade; Giacomo Casanova’s memoirs; Frank Sinatra’s peculiar arrest in 1938; Sigmund Freud’s abandonment of the seduction theory; Søren Kierkegaard’s games between Johannes and Cordelia; Karl Marx’s commodity fetishism; Naia del Castillo’s works, which are linked to Surrealist concerns, and Jacques Lacan’s mysterious objet petit a, the object cause of desire. All these play a part in delineating seduction. My own (nearly missed) encounter with a work of art, Marcel Duchamp’s Étant donnés, and a bold shoe in a New York shop window are used as support for the writing, together with the occasional appearances of a detective – who will provide the forensic gaze required of PhD studies – and other minor characters.

This thesis focuses on paper hangings, an hitherto understudied material in comparison to other components of the Eighteenth century domestic interior. Drawing on recent theories of consumption and the nature of domestic space, the thesis uses study of extant and reconstructed schemes, surviving papers and archival material to illuminate the material's increasingly important role in decoration during the second half of the century. Papers studied include Chinese papers and English papers in the Chinese style, English papers imitating architectural, sculpted and painted ornament and late century English and imported prints and panelled schemes. Three key issues are examined. Firstly, the thesis focuses attention on the structure of the trade, constructing a new model for understanding the way in which the manufacture, retailing, distribution and hanging of papers was organised. Examining the role of imports as well as the rapid expansion of the domestic trade, the thesis argues that control of this trade was contested by both new, and established, trades involved in decoration. Secondly, the role of design is analysed, particularly in terms of the relationship between imitation and innovation. Study of papers' sources further illuminates this issue, for example by examining how far English manufacturers sought to imitate Chinese originals and also how some Chinese papers rework European models. The relationship with other types of wall decoration and three dimensional ornament is also considered; the argument here is that far from merely copying printed designs, papers appropriated design sources from stucco, ceramics and textiles. Thirdly, and finally, aspects of consumption are examined. The thesis investigates how far the selection of paper supports the argument that the period witnessed increased differentiation of space, by gender or function. It questions easy distinctions between the choices of male and female consumers, arguing that both negotiated the materials' positive and negative associations.

In this practice-based PhD project I investigate the categories of wealth, luxury, aspiration and desire. Through a collaborative approach using artistic means, I explore a range of subjective responses to these categories against the background of the / current global proliferation of cultures produced by the neo-liberal age: 1. Through the analytical approach of a lecture, using contextual images, artist's video andtext, Fairy Tales of Wealth, investigates how the changing landscape of the global rich shapes the visual language associated with luxury and wealth. In this lecture I also identify commonalities between the luxury goods sector and the world of contemporary art such as the mechanisms of value creation and its function as a form of social distinction. 2. In a series of 23 photographs, Service World, I examine car wash businesses in different metropolitan contexts as an example how the semiotics of wealth, big business and success, become inscribed into the urban space. Visual references to global brands play an important part in the layout and presentation of these businesses. The photographic series explores the everyday practice of amalgamating local and global signs as a way to assimilate into local cultures. 3. In the After Gertrude Stein film trilogy, I collaborate with young actors in Johannesburg, Berlin and Brussels, and employ narratives and acting as a methodology to articulate aspirations. The Gertrude Stein script, Dr. Faustus lights the lights, functions as a starting point and methodological reference. By assembling and merging narratives, developed in teamwork and by individual participants, the trilogy stages a multitude of voices. The methodologies applied in this research project uniquely produce and capture local and.translent individual singularities. Yet when seen within the broader context of the research project, these sensibilities also become expressive of globalisation, as is contextualised in the lecture manuscript and the written document.

This thesis concerns drawing as a form of enquiry, figuration and knowledge, specifically relating to perceptions of the body and embodied experience. The primary method and object of research is the practice of direct mark-making in response to perceptual experience, here termed observational drawing. The skills and habits of this learnt practice have been destabilised: by attempting a phenomenological approach; by drawing faces and bodies in conditions of movement and change; by progressively subtracting elements of manual and visual control. Following from observational drawing, the creative research methodology incorporates other modes of drawing, re-working of scanned drawings, note-making, reading and writing. The thesis includes a written overview (Part I), and a digital archive of drawings (Part II), jointly comprising a narrative of the research process. The study starts by considering drawing as a cognitive process; as a means of understanding corporeality; and as constitutive of embodied knowledge. Through drawing, issues are raised regarding the contingencies and contexts of my own observational practice, and the histories that inhabit it. A retrospective investigation through reading and writing has produced twelve texts, interconnected to become one website/diagram (Part III). This research contributes to the growing recognition of art practice as enquiry. Part III of the thesis locates the manual/visual operations of drawing, and the rhetoric of the hand, eye and mind used to describe them, within an epistemological and historical context. This is done from the specific perspective of the creative practitioner. Reference is made to philosophical, art historical and feminist texts; to delineations of the animal and critiques of anthropocentric accounts of knowledge. The conclusion identifies paradoxes within my practice, and oscillations in modes of looking, that characterise its knowledge-making operations. It is suggested such provisionality enables a multiplicity of figurative outcomes that can contribute to understandings of corporeal experience.

The Ordination Scroll of Empress Zhang (1493) in the San Diego Museum of Art, a highlight at the Taoism and the Arts of China exhibition in 2000, is an unusual object among surviving visual material from Ming dynasty China (1368 – 1644). At over twenty-seven metres long, the scroll contains meticulously painted images and a detailed inscription that records the Daoist ordination of Empress Zhang (1470 – 1541), consort of the Hongzhi emperor (r. 1488 – 1505) by the Orthodox Unity institution. The event it documents, which elevates the empress into the celestial realm, would be unknown to history if not for the survival of this scroll. This dissertation is an in-depth study of the Ordination Scroll that also considers its implications for understanding the activities of empresses and their representations during the Ming dynasty. The first three chapters of this dissertation closely examine the material, visual and textual aspects of the Ordination Scroll. The remaining two chapters situate the scroll within the broader activities of Ming empresses. A complete translation of the main inscription in the scroll is provided in the appendix.