ArtsPub Date : 2025-08-08DOI: 10.3390/arts14040092
Marta Perez-Ibanez
{"title":"The Legacy of Helga de Alvear: The Gallery, the Collection, the Museum—A Curatorial and Museographic Approach","authors":"Marta Perez-Ibanez","doi":"10.3390/arts14040092","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040092","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the significant contributions of Helga de Alvear as a gallerist, collector, and patron, a pivotal figure in the evolution of the Spanish and international contemporary art market. Her legacy is particularly notable through the establishment of the Helga de Alvear Museum in the city of Cáceres, intended to share her vast collection of over 3000 works and foster exhibition, research, conservation, and education. The study analyzes her art collection, highlighting its substantial international minimalist art component, contextualizing its development with her personal and professional journey. Furthermore, it explores the institutionalization of her legacy, from the Helga de Alvear Foundation to the creation and evolution of the museum, its innovative architecture and museography, and its impact on Cáceres’s urban landscape.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"24 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145026024","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ArtsPub Date : 2025-08-07DOI: 10.3390/arts14040084
Albert Topić, Dejan Ecet, Igor Maraš, Ivana Maraš, Miljan Janjušević, Jelena Jeličić
{"title":"Visual Culture in Architecture: Virgil Abloh’s Cross-Disciplinary Design Language","authors":"Albert Topić, Dejan Ecet, Igor Maraš, Ivana Maraš, Miljan Janjušević, Jelena Jeličić","doi":"10.3390/arts14040084","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040084","url":null,"abstract":"This paper investigates the integration of Virgil Abloh’s Personal Design Language (PDL) within the broader context of architectural methodology. Through a series of workshops, architecture students and professionals engaged with Abloh’s principles to examine how subtle aesthetic and functional adjustments, grounded in artistic disciplines, can produce transformative effects on iconic 20th-century architectural forms. These workshops underscored the potential of Abloh’s interdisciplinary approach to enhance architectural discourse by introducing a novel lens through which contemporary design methodologies can be evaluated. The findings reveal that employing weighted coefficients for less commonly utilized design principles enabled novel evaluation processes, fostering creative experimentation and innovation. Additionally, this research highlights discrepancies that may arise when employing differing evaluation methodologies in the assessment of architectural work, thereby initiating a critical discussion on the public acceptance of architectural designs and the implications of varied grading frameworks in professional practice.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145025387","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ArtsPub Date : 2025-08-07DOI: 10.3390/arts14040087
Mykola Tarasenko
{"title":"Visuality of the Invisible: The Image of Medjed in Sources of the 21st Dynasty","authors":"Mykola Tarasenko","doi":"10.3390/arts14040087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040087","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses iconographic features of the deity or “demon” Medjed (Mḏd). The specific and unusual image of this character is only found during the 21st Dynasty and is unknown in the funerary art of the New Kingdom and Late Period. Only oneYe coffin and nine papyri are known in which the image of Medjed is depicted. Eight are in the context of Spell 17 of the Book of the Dead. In the text of Spell 17, Medjed is described in lines 71–72 of Grapow’s Urk. V Abschnitt 24. The “invisibility” of this “demon” is evidently the reason for his unusual iconography: Medjed has a conical shaped body, with human legs. Although he does not have a true head, his eyes are indicated, and he wears a belt. Equally the deity could be depicted as a figure covered entirely in a conical cover except for the eyes and feet, which are visible. This curious treatment can be understood as an attempt by Egyptian artists to depict an invisible being.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"54 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145026067","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ArtsPub Date : 2025-08-07DOI: 10.3390/arts14040089
Johannes H. Loubser
{"title":"“We Begin in Water, and We Return to Water”: Track Rock Tradition Petroglyphs of Northern Georgia and Western North Carolina","authors":"Johannes H. Loubser","doi":"10.3390/arts14040089","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040089","url":null,"abstract":"Petroglyph motifs from 23 sites and 37 panels in northern Georgia and western North Carolina foothills and mountains are analyzed within their archaeological, ethnographic, and landscape contexts. The Track Rock Tradition comprises 10 chronologically sequenced marking categories: (1) Cupules/Meanders/Open Circles; (2) Soapstone Extraction cars; (3) Vulva Shapes; (4) Figures; (5) Feet/Hands/Tracks; (6) Nested Circles; (7) Cross-in-Circles; (8) Spirals; (9) Straight Lines; and (10) Thin Incised Lines. Dating spans approximately 3800 years. Early cupules and meanders predate 3000 years ago, truncated by Late Archaic soapstone extraction. Woodland period (3000–1050 years ago) motifs include vulva shapes, figures, feet, tracks, and hands. Early Mississippian concentric circles date to 1050–600 years ago, while Middle Mississippian cross-in-circles span 600–350 years ago. Late Mississippian spirals (350–200 years ago) and post-contact metal tool incisions represent the most recent phases. The Track Rock Tradition differs from western Trapp and eastern Hagood Mill traditions. Given the spatial overlap with Iroquoian-speaking Cherokee territory, motifs are interpreted through Cherokee beliefs, supplemented by related Muskogean Creek ethnography. In Cherokee cosmology, the matrilocal Thunderers hierarchy includes the Female Sun/Male Moon, Selu (Corn Mother)/Kanati (Lucky Hunter), Medicine Woman/Judaculla (Master of Game), and Little People families. Ritual practitioners served as intermediaries between physical and spirit realms through purification, fasting, body scratching, and rock pecking. Meanders represent trails, rivers, and lightning. Cupules and lines emphasize the turtle appearance of certain rocks. Vulva shapes relate to fertility, while tracks connect to life-giving abilities. Concentric circles denote townhouses; cross-in-circles and spirals represent central fires. The tradition shows continuity in core beliefs despite shifting emphases from hunting (Woodland) to corn cultivation (Mississippian), with petroglyphs serving as necessary waypoints for spiritual supplicants.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145025432","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ArtsPub Date : 2025-08-07DOI: 10.3390/arts14040088
Carol Diaz-Granados, James R. Duncan
{"title":"Ancient Ritual Behavior as Reflected in the Imagery at Picture Cave, Missouri, USA","authors":"Carol Diaz-Granados, James R. Duncan","doi":"10.3390/arts14040088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040088","url":null,"abstract":"Since 1992, we have promoted the use of descriptions from ethnographic data, including ancient, surviving oral traditions, to aid in explaining the iconography portrayed in pictographs and petroglyphs found in Missouri, particularly those at Picture Cave. The literature to which we refer is from American Indian groups related linguistically and connected to the pre-Columbian inhabitants of Missouri. In addition, we have had on-going conversations with many elder tribal members of the Dhegiha Sioux language group (including the Osage, Quapaw, and Kansa (the Ponca and Omaha are also part of this cognate linguistic group)). With the copious collections of southern Siouan ethnographic accounts, we have been able to explain salient features in the iconography of several of the detailed rock art motifs and vignettes, and propose interpretations. This Midwest region is part of the Cahokia interaction sphere, an area that displays western Mississippian symbolism associated with that found in Missouri rock art as well as on pottery, shell, and copper.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"48 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145026033","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ArtsPub Date : 2025-08-07DOI: 10.3390/arts14040086
Martin Harutyunyan, Gaiane Muradian
{"title":"Armenian Architectural Legacy in Henry F. B. Lynch’s Travel Writing","authors":"Martin Harutyunyan, Gaiane Muradian","doi":"10.3390/arts14040086","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040086","url":null,"abstract":"The study of historical monuments within both architectural and literary frameworks reveals a dynamic interplay between scientific observation and artistic interpretation—a vital characteristic of travel writing/the travelogue. This approach, exemplified by British traveler and writer Henry Finnis Blosse Lynch (1862–1913), reflects how factual detail and creative representation are seamlessly integrated in depictions of sites, landscapes, and cultural scenes. This case study highlights Lynch as a pioneering explorer who authored the first comprehensive volume on Armenian architecture and as a writer who vividly portrayed Armenian monuments through both verbal description and photographic imagery, becoming the first traveler to document such sites using photography. Additionally, this paper emphasizes the significance of Lynch’s detailed accounts of architectural monuments, churches, monasteries, cities, villages, populations, religious communities, and educational institutions in vivid language. The careful study of his work can contribute meaningfully to the investigation of the travelogue as a literary genre and to the preservation and protection of the architectural heritage of historical and contemporary Armenia, particularly in regions facing cultural or political threats.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"15 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145026068","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ArtsPub Date : 2025-08-07DOI: 10.3390/arts14040091
Louise Hardiman
{"title":"Through Winter’s Window: The Modernist Potential of Ice, Frost, and Snow in Late Imperial Russian Art","authors":"Louise Hardiman","doi":"10.3390/arts14040091","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040091","url":null,"abstract":"In 1913, the Fabergé workshops in St Petersburg produced the most expensive of their famed Imperial egg commissions, the so-called “Winter Egg,” designed by Alma Pihl. Fashioned from translucent rock crystal and decked in a glittering array of gemstones, the egg followed several other designs on winter themes by the highly respected jeweller. In this article, Fabergé’s winter-themed creations are the starting point for an exploration of how ice, frost, and snow were portrayed by Russian artists of the late imperial period. Such works both reflected and realised many of the shifts in the art world from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, for example, the renewed focus on making art “national,” the rise of artistic opportunities for women, the erasure of boundaries between fine and applied art, the influx of such European movements as Impressionism and Symbolism, and the development of modernist approaches to content and style. The principal focus is on works by artists associated with the Abramtsevo artistic circle (Abramtsevskii khudozhestvennyi kruzhok). How did representations of ice, snow, and frost participate in the emerging dynamic between the national idea and the decorative, which in turn fed into the move towards abstraction? Why did these subjects appear frequently in art by women? Why was winter often presented through the lens of the imagined and the ludic? These works evidence a new subjectivity that arose from Abramtsevo artists’ greater freedom to render lived experience. The paths open to them when working outside the Academic system permitted creativity to range freely in the forging of a national modern style.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145025388","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ArtsPub Date : 2025-08-07DOI: 10.3390/arts14040090
Zofia Koszewicz, Rafał Krupiński, Marta Rusnak, Bartosz Kuczyński
{"title":"Analysis of the Relationship Between Mural Content and Its Illumination: Two Alternative Directions for Design Guidelines","authors":"Zofia Koszewicz, Rafał Krupiński, Marta Rusnak, Bartosz Kuczyński","doi":"10.3390/arts14040090","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040090","url":null,"abstract":"As part of contemporary urban culture, murals support place making and city identity. While much attention has been paid to their role in activating public space during daylight hours, their presence after dark remains largely unexamined. This paper analyzes how mural content interacts with night-time illumination. The research draws on case studies, photographs, luminance measurements, and lighting simulations. It evaluates how existing lighting systems support or undermine the legibility and impact of commercial murals in urban environments. It explores whether standardized architectural lighting guidelines suit murals, how color and surface affect visibility, and which practices improve night-time legibility. The study identifies a gap in existing lighting strategies, noting that uneven lighting distorts intent and reduces public engagement. In response, a new design tool—the Floodlighting Content Readability Map—is proposed to support artists and planners in creating night-visible murals. This paper situates mural illumination within broader debates on creative urbanism and argues that lighting is not just infrastructure, but a cultural and aesthetic tool that extends the reach and resonance of public art in the 24 h city. It further emphasizes the need for interdisciplinary collaboration and a multi-contextual perspective—encompassing visual, social, environmental, and regulatory dimensions—when designing murals in cities.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-08-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145026072","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ArtsPub Date : 2025-07-23DOI: 10.3390/arts14040083
Olga Kosachova
{"title":"From Painting to Cinema: Archetypes of the European Woman as a Cultural Mediator in the Western genre","authors":"Olga Kosachova","doi":"10.3390/arts14040083","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040083","url":null,"abstract":"The Western genre has traditionally been associated with American identity and male-dominated narratives. However, recent decades have seen increasing attention to female protagonists, particularly the European woman as a cultural mediator within the frontier context. This study aims to identify the archetypes of the European woman in the Western genre through a diachronic and comparative analysis of the visual language found in European painting from the late 17th to early 19th centuries and in 20th–21st century cinema. The research methodology combines narrative, visual, and semiotic analysis, with a focus on intermedial and intertextual parallels between visual art and film. The study identifies nine archetypal models corresponding to goddesses of the Greek pantheon and traces their transformation across different aesthetic systems. These archetypes, rooted in artistic traditions such as Baroque, Classicism, Romanticism, and others, reappear in Western films through compositional, symbolic, and iconographic strategies, demonstrating their persistence and ability to transcend temporal, medial, and geographical boundaries. The findings suggest that the woman in the Western genre is not merely a central character, but a visual sign that activates cultural memory and engages with deep archetypal structures embedded in the collective unconscious.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145026069","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
ArtsPub Date : 2025-07-23DOI: 10.3390/arts14040082
Alex K. Ruuska
{"title":"Ancient Earth Births: Compelling Convergences of Geology, Orality, and Rock Art in California and the Great Basin","authors":"Alex K. Ruuska","doi":"10.3390/arts14040082","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040082","url":null,"abstract":"This article critically considers sample multigenerational oral traditions of Numic-speaking communities known as the Nüümü (Northern Paiute), Nuwu (Southern Paiute), and Newe (Western Shoshone), written down over the last 151 years. Utilizing the GOAT! phenomenological method to compare the onto-epistemologies of Numic peoples with a wide range of data from (G)eology, (O)ral traditions, (A)rchaeology and (A)nthropology, and (T)raditional knowledge, the author analyzed 824 multigenerational ancestral teachings. These descriptions encode multigenerational memories of potential geological, climatic, and ecological observations and interpretations of multiple locations and earth processes throughout the Numic Aboriginal homelands within California and the Great Basin. Through this layered and comparative analysis, the author identified potential convergences of oral traditions, ethnography, ethnohistory, rock art, and geological processes in the regions of California, the Great Basin, and the Colorado Plateau, indicative of large-scale earth changes, cognized by Numic Indigenous communities as earth birthing events, occurring during the Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene to Middle and Late Holocene, including the Late Dry Period, Medieval Climatic Anomaly, and Little Ice Age.","PeriodicalId":30547,"journal":{"name":"Arts","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2025-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145026076","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}