Date of Award
2008
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Program
Visual Arts
Supervisor
Dr. Madeline Lennon
Abstract
This thesis examines spatial, textual, and visual elements in the fifteenthcentury Florentine paintings of the Annunciation as systems for classifying experience. Thematic in approach, this text follows various art-historical methodologies, specifically feminist and semiotic. I argue that the Annunciation classifies and reflects both fifteenth-century social ideas as well as twentieth and twenty-first century theories. The Virgin Mary is viewed as an embodiment of various gender roles—she is dutiful, silent, and chaste. Chapter one explains how spatial and architectural forms correspond to changes in cultural ideas. The following chapter, how verbal theory and visual practice are interrelated through varied Humanistic and Patriarchal theories—the image is read as a text. In the final chapter, the gaze is examined as an instrument of social control. Each Annunciation reflects the possibilities of difference, rather than being pure and isolated images.
Recommended Citation
Copeland, Krystle Victoria, "THE ANNUNCIATION: VISUAL, SPATIAL, AND TEXTUAL IDEOLOGIES OF DIFFERENCE IN QUATTROCENTO FLORENCE" (2008). Digitized Theses. 4539.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/digitizedtheses/4539