Abstract
This paper examines how the Egyptians were a civilization that impressionably influenced Western society and they did so through their artwork, architecture and literature, which permeated Western society?s thought and created an architectural intrigue which still exists in present day. Incorporating a vast amount of primary and secondary resources, this paper is a detailed analysis of the Egyptian legacy.

From the Paper
"Egyptian literature varies widely including Pyramid texts, which were named for their location - in the pyramid tombs of the pharaohs, stories, hymns, wisdom texts, poems, love songs, biographical and historical texts, scientific treatises, and mathematical and medical texts. The Pyramid texts are the oldest and most popular form of Egyptian literature. They coincide with the rise of pyramids in the Old Kingdom. They served as a way to guide the tomb owner to the afterlife, enchanting him with incantations to secure his safe passage, sometimes describing his achievements on earth in order to gain favor with the gods."

Tags:architecture, egyptology, humanities, literature

Abstract
This paper traces the development of the history of art in Ancient Mesopotamia through a specific study of four well known and well preserved pieces of art. The range of dates runs from 2600 B.C. with an examination of the "Standard of Ur", through to 260 A.D. and the "Triumph of Shapur I". It looks at how this period of art history is critical to an understanding of the art of the ancient world and logically precedes Egyptian, Minoan, Greek and Roman Art.

From the Paper
"Of Standard of Ur's two main sides, the 'war side' has immediately recognizable conventions similar to those found in Triumph of Shapur I; four-wheeled war chariots ride down enemies, the bodies of which are trampled beneath the hoofs of the animals. The depictions of war and victory are common motifs in Mesopotamian art. Here, as in Triumph of Shapur I, conventionalization is used, and the four bodies trampled beneath the war chariots, like the trampled body of the Roman soldier from Bishapur, represent the many killed. On the middle tier, the victorious army leads away naked and defeated captives."

Tags:ashurnasirpal, shapur, standard, ur

Abstract
Using a compare and contrast methodology, this paper explores the propagandist values and themes present in both "The Death of General Wolfe" by Benjamin West, and "Oath of the Horatii" by Jacques-Louis David, as well as examining the artistic and stylistic differences of each.

From the Paper
"Eighteenth century virtues such as honour, valour, and love of one's country were believed to produce great people and great deeds (Gardner's 846). Other virtues including courage, patriotism, and self-sacrifice were considered 'natural' and find their place in patriotic or propagandist works of art. The theme of the 'death in battle' of young military heroes has been expressed since antiquity, both in statuary and other forms of art. This same theme of the death of a military hero is portrayed in Benjamin West's The Death of General Wolfe."

Tags:benjamin, classical, david, death, general, horatii, jacques, louis, neo, oath, west, wolfe

Abstract
This paper examines how Aboriginal art in Canada is often a subversive response to the colonial representations of Canada's First Peoples that produced, promoted and cemented stereotypes. It discusses how this "othering" of Aboriginal peoples in Canada was a tool of nationalism just as much as postcolonial responses to 19th century representations were a tool of reclamation. It also looks at how Thomas King and other Aboriginal visual artists have used postcolonial responses in humorous Aboriginal art to take slices of history and place them in new and unexpected contexts to create new frontiers. The paper also shows how humour in Aboriginal visual art and literature often finds its base in the colonial past and its relationship to the postmodern present.

From the Paper
"The "ethnographic photograph" is a theme that appears more than once in King's One Good Story, That One. In the title story, three anthropologists arrive, camera and tape recorders in hand, requesting stories. The narrator could be a tribal Elder; when Napiao arrives he gives the narrator tobacco, a traditional offering to Elders for their time and knowledge (SAHO 16). Evidently, the anthropologists are already familiar with the local customs; when the narrator "says to Napiao, Ka-sin-ta, in our language, and he laugh" (4), the anthropologists laugh also, although the purpose of the joke in this case, is to exclude the white anthropologists from the discourse. When Napiao finally urges the narrator to tell "old stories ... maybe how the world was put together" (5) the narrator starts with "Once upon a time. Those stories start like that, pretty much, those ones, start on time" (5). In terms of "writing back" to colonial discourse, this short introduction by the narrator is extremely problematic."

Tags:First, Peoples, Indigenous

Abstract
This paper analyzes the elements that determine if a piece of written work should be judged as pornograhic or erotic, Two examples are included.

From the Paper
"As author D. H. Lawrence cleverly stated, 'Man is a changeable beast, and words change their meanings with him.' Indeed, what one refers to as erotic material, may be judged as pornographic by another. But which standards affect a person's judgment? What meanings do the words "pornographic" and "erotic" enclose? And how should one contrast these two categories of sex-related material?"

Tags:deforges, erotic, humanities, literature, pornographic, pornography

From the Paper
"The work is quite simple, using simple artistic devices in order to capture this couple's one timeless moment. It successfully portrays joy pulling the viewer into the painting's depths with its brilliant use of color and shape, creating another reality. It's as if you are looking at these lovers through a glass panel, distorting them and melding them together until they themselves look as smooth as the glass that protects them."

Tags:edvard, munch

Abstract
Beginning with a definition of the term renaissance, this paper explores, through specific examples of writing, art and architecture, how and why the Italian renaissance may be characterized as a glorification of human power and human activity. Petrarch and his contemporaries are presented as examples of a return to classical idealism in Europe. Further, an exploration of the dignity of man, as well as renaissance art and architecture are detailed, giving weight to the paper's thesis. Specific art examples discussed in the paper include the Merode Altarpiece (1425-1428) by Master of Flemalle, Michelangelo Buonarrotis' David and Bramante's Tempietto.

From the Paper
"The Renaissance, from the French word renaissance and the Italian word rinascita, both meaning rebirth, is considered by some to have officially begun in 1341 when Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374) was crowned in Rome with the Laurel wreath, the ancient symbol of victory and merit. Petrarch, as one of the first humanist writers, explored modern life through the lens of the ancient Romans and Greeks. Both Petrarch and his contemporary Boccaccio (1313-1375) "were famous in their own day as poets, scholars and men of letters - their achievements equivalent in honor to those of the heroes of civic virtue." As the word humanism suggests, the principle concerns of its advocates were human values and human interests, which are distinct from, but not entirely opposed to, the other worldly values of Christianity."

Tags:bramante, merode, michelangelo, petrarch

Abstract
This paper is about Sigmund Freud's concept of 'unconscious' and its relevance in the arts. The author discusses how Freud is commonly recognized as having invented the concept of the "unconscious". The author explains that the subordination of the "pleasure principle" by the "reality principle" is done through a mental process that Freud refers to as sublimation. According to Sigmund Freud, dreams and fantasies (or phantasies) are the symbolic expression and fulfillment of wishes and desires that as a result of sublimation by the "reality principle" cannot be fulfilled through daily life and are consequently repressed into the "unconscious." To Freud, "the motive forces of fantasies are unsatisfied wishes, and every single fantasy is the fulfillment of a wish, a correction of unsatisfying reality" (Freud 485). Freud affirms that dreams are disguised, hallucinatory fulfillment's of repressed wishes. He concludes that if expressed in undisguised form, they would be so disturbing that it would wake the dreamer from sleep. Freud's fundamental assumption is that the sublimation of the artist's unsatisfied libido is responsible for producing all forms of art and literature whether it be painting, sculpting, or writing. David H. Richter notes in his introduction to "Sigmund Freud" that Freud was once criticized by Carl Gustav Jung, a fellow psychoanalytic theorist, for insinuating that artists were diseased individuals creating art out of their own personal neurotic needs. The writer feels that Freud insinuates that art is primarily an escapist method, that "in an ideal world in which everyone had matured sufficiently to replace the pleasure principle by the reality principle, there would be no need for art" (Storr 103).

From the Paper
"The historical tradition of scholarly theory has been one in which literary texts are subjected to scrutiny regarding whether they are either implicitly or explicitly ideological in nature. Arguably so, nothing reflects a society's fears, hopes, and desires about gender, class, and power more than what the society maintains about art and artists. A literary text is credible of fully reflecting the culture in which it was written, that is to say, it has the potential to embody certain sociological assumptions presented in the dichotomy between "normal" and "abnormal." Sigmund Freud, the patriarch of psychoanalysis, is associated with Charles Darwin and Karl Marx as being "one of the three original thinkers who have most altered man's view of himself in the twentieth century" (Storr 145). Yet, even literary theorists, including Freud, realized that "any comprehensive vision of human nature such as he provides must have implications for the nature of happiness, and for the relation of man's natural capacities to his normal or ideal state" (Sousa 196). That is, numerous later theorists and critics believe that Freud's own theories about the function and nature of the mind uncovered some fundamental truths about how an individual's notions of "self"are formed and how culture and civilization operate and are affected by these notions. Coinciding with Freud's own account, the significance of everyday action is determined by motives that are far more numerous and complex than people are aware of or commonsense understanding takes into account. The most basic and constant of motives that influence our actions are those of the unconscious, moreover, those that are difficult to acknowledge or avow. Freud's conception of the unconscious and his rediscovery of the importance of dreams encouraged painters, sculptors and writers to pay serious attention to their inner world of dreams; to find significance in thoughts and images they previously would have dismissed as absurd or illogical. Therefore it is plausible that notions of art and literature as described by Sigmund Freud, are created through the ramifications of the unconscious or the sublimation of an unsatisfied carnal appetite.""

Tags:conscious, dreams, fantasies, phantasies, pleasure, principle, reality, unconscious

Abstract
This paper explores the differences in High Renaissance and Mannerist portraiture through an examination of two key figures in the history of art, Raphael and Bronzino. It also shows how the compare and contrast method is a useful technique for students of art history to focus on the most important aspects and key differences of each respective work and artist.

From the Paper
"Raphael's 1514 oil work Baldassare Castiglione is an excellent example of the artist's portraiture. The subject, the above-mentioned friend of Raphael, Baldassare Castiglione, is portrayed from the waist up, or in half-length. Castiglione is richly garbed in darkly coloured clothing of black and purple, and capped in a dark coloured hat. The life-like Castiglione beholds the viewer directly, though his body and head are not rigidly frontal, but at a three-quarter view; one is reminded of the three-quarter view used in the Mona Lisa. Indeed, such a view became popular in the 1500's. Baldassare Castiglione is one of several works Raphael painted in Rome."

Tags:renaissance, mannerist, rome

Abstract
This paper provides an examination and analysis of Dali's famous painting, with prime concentration upon the elements and historical aspects of the particular piece of art. It discusses how his inspiration for "Metamorphosis of Narcissus" came from a conversation overheard between two fishermen discussing a local man who would stare at himself in a mirror for hours.

From the Paper
"Salvador Dali was a Spanish artist who is considered to be one of the most impressive artists of the 20th century. His inspiration for Metamorphosis of Narcissus came from a conversation overheard between two fishermen discussing a local man who would stare at himself in a mirror for hours. One of the men described the man as having a "bulb in his head"; a common conversation meaning that he was mentally ill. Dali combined this image with the ancient Greek myth of Narcissus."

Tags:analyze, art, aspects, elements, historical