Abstract
This paper describes Raphael's famous painting "Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints." The paper provides a history of the painting. The author analyzes its composition and colors as well as the conservative style of the painting and its classical details.

From the Paper
"Rafaello Sanzio, known as Raphael, painted the "Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints" early in his career The painting was an altarpiece executed for the small Franciscan convent of Saint Antonio de Padova in Perugia and hung in the part of the church reserved for the worship of nuns. (Metropolitan Museum of Art) Also known as the Colonna Madonna or Altarpiece, a reference to Raphael's patrons, the powerful Colonna family the work consists of two main sections..."

Tags:Raphael, Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints

Abstract
This paper presents an overview of the one particular sculpture by the ancient Greek master, Praxiteles. The paper includes illustrations.

From the Paper
"The entire beauty of the earth has been preserved by the many forgeries that attempted to capture the genius of Praxiteles. He set the standard for later depictions of the goddess. Roman copies are often criticized for not portraying the form's magnificent presence. The classical Greek sculpture, Aphrodite of Knidios, changed the way women were denoted in future artworks. The visual representation of the goddess of love and beauty provided the ancient world with a positive view of female sexuality."

Tags:art, greek, praxiteles

Abstract
This paper provides a discussion of the long tradition of the influence of ancient Egyptian art on ancient Greek artists. The paper looks at how the art of both are affected by their societies' world views. The paper discusses the primary functions of Egyptian art and the different style of Greek art, particularly in relation to depiction of figures.

From the Paper
"This paper compares ancient Egyptian art with ancient Greek art and considers the ways in which the Greeks were influenced by Egyptian art. Egypt established a long and enduring artistic tradition. Greek art drew heavily on that background, using many of the same kinds of subjects and incorporating many similar symbols but then reinterpreted them through very different eyes and a strikingly different cultural perception. Both visions continue to have a profound impact on artists in modern cultures from their representation of everyday life to the varied..."

Tags:Egyptian, Greek, Bullock, Carpenter

Abstract
The display of Impressionist paintings in France in 1874 led to ridicule, but within twenty years Impressionists were to garner a large and permanent public following. This essay clearly describes how Impressionists played with lighting, color, brushstrokes, subject matter, and scenery to revolutionize art, specifically using Monet's Rouen Cathedral series to examine these changes.

From the Paper
"Impressionism was the first modernist art movement and to this day it remains the most popular (Hughes 113). Early Impressionism resulted from the work of many different painters, all sharing a common philosophy and technique and loosely organized as a group. It was at its strongest between the 1860s and 1890s and included many renowned painters such as Monet, Degas, Gauguin, Renoir, and Seurat. The fist public display of Impressionist paintings in 1874 disturbed the tradition-bound French Academy of Fine Arts and led to ridicule, but within twenty years Impressionists were to garner a large public following and were never again to be the "outcasts." Later Impressionist works built on and expanded the original style of the early artists, and in many cases the early Impressionist artists re-invented themselves and expanded their repertoire to show new forms and techniques of the movement. For these reasons Impressionism remains hugely successful even today, and works by artists in this genre are highly collectible and studied."

Tags:art, impressionism, modern, Monet, Renoir, Gaugin, revolutionize, ridicule, France

Abstract
A report on ancient Egyptian jewelry. The author focuses on how the jewelry was crafted, specific styles of jewelry, and their symbolic meanings.

From the Paper
"Ancient Egypt is known for its awe-inspiring monuments, mysterious mythologies and legendary treasures. Its history is rich and complex, reaching far back into the beginnings of civilization and spanning thousands of years. Much of what we know about this ancient culture comes from the ancient artifacts it has left behind. Among these is the multitude of its beautiful jewels. What types of jewelry did the ancient Egyptians wear and how was it significant to them? How did they manage to create such incredibly intricate and unique jewelry? "

Tags:craft, art, composition, meaning, symbolism, symbolic, symbol

Abstract
This paper defines Minimalism as the tendency by a new generation of artists towards non-allusiveness and decontextualisation from tradition, impersonality in tone, and the flattening of perspectival schema?s though the emphasis on surface, and the subsequent neutralization of depth cues. The author states that there is little agreement as to when the movement officially came into being, and who if anyone was its innovator. The paper states that Minimalism emerged primarily as a reaction against Pop and Abstract Expressionism.

Table of Contents
The Emergence of Minimalism
The Influences of High Modernism
Robert Rauschenburg?s ?White on Whites?
Frank Stella?s Black Paintings
Carl Andre and the Influence of Brancusi
Dan Flavin and the Russian Avant-Garde
Sol LeWitt and the Opening Up of Space
Robert Morris and Phenomenological Vision
Conclusion

From the Paper
"Superficially Minimalism was everything that motion-painting was not, and indeed it's physical characteristics embodied, at least for the American critic Clement Greenberg, the very elements that modern formalistic abstraction had strove so hard to escape from. It's closest physical relative was early Constructivism, whilst its ideology could be said to have been initiated by Kasimir Malevich's Suprematism movement. Both Constructivism and Suprematism renounced the need for art to be visually complex, Malevich through his Black Square and Vladimir Tatlin's via his Counter-Corner relief's, although these cannot really be seen as anything more than a indicative forerunner of this new aesthetic. "

Tags:surface, perspective, constructivism, expressionism, russian

Abstract
This paper explains that the innovation of the grid as an enduring motif in modern art and its offshoot, the straight-line, opened up a relatively unprecedented mode of expression for modern abstract artists. This paper explores the philosophy and work of Piet Mondrian and other artists of the Neo-Plasticism movement. The author points out that, for Mondrian, the grid was not simply a structural mechanism but an organic solution to the Modernist preoccupation with mind/matter dualism. Examples of Mondrian's works in color included.

From the Paper
"The grid is clearly the perfect artistic means by which to affect this "liberation", as it provides a structure predicated on an inherent and infinite formlessness. Its strict horizontal and vertical axes proved an excellent format for the controlled interaction of pure, primary planes of colour, and functioned as an independent, artistically alive (plastic) organism in which ??everything counterbalances everything else.? "

Tags:barnett, lozenge, plasticism, newman, theosophy

Abstract
This essay investigates whether the natural materials and technology available influenced the development of Egyptian art. The essay argues that the wealth of natural materials Egypt had in its possession provided the Egyptians with access to a range of mediums with which they could develop art. An argument is put forward that the technology and techniques used by the Egyptians greatly influenced and contributed to the development of Egyptian art. This essay begins by looking at the earliest materials and technologies that were used during the prehistoric period followed by an examination of how these materials and techniques developed over time. Evidence is provided throughout the essay to support these arguments.

From the Paper
"Pottery was also one of the earliest forms of artwork in Egypt dating back to the Prehistoric Neolithic and Predynastic Periods. In 1985 Sir Flinders Petrie discovered a variety of Predynastic pottery vessels ranging from Badarian handmade vessels to decorated pottery from the Naqada Period that showed evidence of "exquisite craftsmanship" (Romer 1982:38). The natural materials that allowed for the creation of such pottery included Nile river silt clay, limestone and clayey shale from the cliffs (Romer 1982:45). The early technology used to produce pottery included polishing the pottery with a pebble to give a burnished red or black appearance before being fired in a kiln (Shaw & Nicholson 1995:226). Other

decorative characteristics included rippled lines that were produced by running another natural material, fish bones over the wet clay (Hart 1995:30)). Improvements in ceramic technology and the introduction of the potter's wheel allowed an increase in the range of shapes that could be produced (Quirke & Spencer 1992:178). However J. Romer (1982:70) states that the use of the potter's wheel led to a decline in the quality of Egyptian pottery. He argues that the potter's wheel, although allowing larger vessels to be made quickly and easily from clay, ultimately led to pottery becoming more utilitarian and of less artistic quality. Therefore although the standard of art declined, this is still evidence of how the technology available influenced the development of Egyptian art."

Tags:aldred, amun, faience, gold, Old, Kingdom, Middle, Kingdom, Prehistoric, Neolithic, Period, pottery

Abstract
This paper is a study on the changing role of the artist in European society, as seen in its case study of Antonio Canova. It asks whether increased demand for art, and increased commercialization, gave the artist greater freedom as it released him from the grip of his patron; or, whether this only subjugated him to new restrictions, those of a competitive market.

From the Paper
"Before the nineteenth century artists in Europe relied almost entirely upon their patrons to finance their work. It was extremely difficult, and pretty much unheard of, for an artist to finance his own profession, and there was not a large enough market to create a piece without having a specific buyer in mind. Therefore, patrons could, and often did, exert a large influence on the outcome of the work."

Tags:art, canova, napoleon, painting, patron, nineteenth, century, artists, europe, market, antonio, canova

Abstract
This paper considers the many influences on the career of Piet Mondrian, in particular theosophy, cubism, the Dutch tradition, Vincent van Gogh, neo-plasticism and his eventual move to New York.

From the Paper
"Founded on an unprecedented concern with structure, unity and subtle geometry, Piet Mondrian's landscapes reveal the origins of what was to become the major preoccupation throughout his career - universal beauty, and its abstract representation. It was a journey that would culminate in his remarkable last work Victory Boogie-Woogie, and a process which saw him grapple with Naturalistic Realism, Cubism, Symbolism (briefly) and finally Neo-Plasticism, also called the International Style, a movement he was to make his own. Mondrian's art is fascinating for the very reason it is also so hard to understand - it was a completely new way of perceiving the relationship between the external world, inner feeling and the surface of the canvas. His abstraction was not just a move away from figurative, representational art, but a step towards transcendental purity."

Tags:atlantic, boogie, cubism, dutch, gogh, grid, lozenge, painting, paintings, theosophy, victory, vincent, woogie