Thesis Chapters by Emily Hallman
[Undergraduate Thesis]
The portrait miniatures of the Tudor and Elizabethan periods – like praye... more [Undergraduate Thesis]
The portrait miniatures of the Tudor and Elizabethan periods – like prayerbooks, reliquaries, prayer beads, and miniature altars – functioned as personal, private devotional tools for an audience that was newly Protestant. Further, they embodied humanist philosophies that centered around the agency of humankind, illuminating the shift from the spiritual to the secular. To date, scholars have demonstrated that portrait miniatures developed out of the medieval tradition of manuscript illumination, which was mostly used in the 15th and 16th centuries to decorate prayer books. However, most have eschewed the relationship of these hand-held portraits to other tools of private devotion, such as reliquaries, boxwood prayer beads, and miniature altars. The traditions and visual characteristics associated with Catholic devotional tools were assimilated into portrait miniatures, both being inherently private and reflective.
As an art form that was newly established at the height of the Renaissance as the Reformation gained momentum, portrait miniatures occupy the overlap between Catholic ritual and humanistic philosophy that culminated in examples by Nicholas Hilliard (ca. 1547–1619). Using tactics to manifest an image that was psychologically present in the eyes and imagination of the viewer, Hilliard painted Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, to appear in her miniatures as an icon: the new Virgin Mary for a Protestant and humanist audience.
[Graduate Thesis] Portrait miniatures have largely been overlooked in studies of dress during the... more [Graduate Thesis] Portrait miniatures have largely been overlooked in studies of dress during the sixteenth century, even though they embody, in many ways, exactly what it meant to wear clothing in a century obsessed with sartorial eloquence and marked by fashions that shaped the body and emerging conceptions of the self. They are not only images, but often were concealed within lockets that were placed close to the skin and ornamented the clothed body. The laborious and expensive techniques unique to the medium and mastered by Nicholas Hilliard (1547–1619) transformed portrait miniatures into intimate physical representations of absent individuals. Hence, they possess a sense of immediacy, a bodily presence not afforded by the flat two-dimensional portrayals found in larger-scale oil portraiture. Like clothing, they became deeply imbedded in the culture of gift-exchange, forming or strengthening relationships between individuals in what could be incredibly profound ways. Yet, despite the undeniable corporeality of portrait miniatures, as both material objects and living, speaking images of clothed bodies, they have not been considered in discussions of the body and dress. With the newfound rigidness of clothing in the 16th century and its role as a medium for the communication of external and internal identity came a reimagining of the body’s potential to act as a frame. Shakespeare noted this potential in his twenty-fourth sonnet, writing: “Mine eye hath played the painter and hath steeled, / Thy beauty's form in table of my heart; / My body is the frame wherein 'tis held.” The invention of portrait miniatures allowed people to display images of their loved ones, or those to whom they were loyal, on their bodies in a visual manifestation of the Renaissance ethos of self-fashioning and the building of relationships between man and man.
Papers by Emily Hallman
The Irish “pocket gospel” known today as the Book of Dimma, produced in the 8th century at the Ab... more The Irish “pocket gospel” known today as the Book of Dimma, produced in the 8th century at the Abbey of Roscrea, experienced revealing changes in its functional use throughout its lifetime. Perhaps first intended for private or personal monastic devotion, it was later altered in the 9th century with the addition of an order for the Communion of the Sick. At this time, the small manuscript likely would have been transported in the pocket of a monk’s robes to a sick or dying person’s home to provide prayers and/or healing. The colophons at the end of three of the gospels were later erased and overpainted with the name of “Dimma,” a scribe associated with a miracle of Saint Crónán, the founder of the abbey. Within the next century, the gospel book was nailed shut within a materially precious cumdach, a reliquary case. In looking closer at this modest manuscript and its history, much about the ways in which early medieval people interacted with books is illuminated. The book is representative of changing conceptions of functionality―what books had the ability to accomplish―and materiality―what books could and should look like―from the end of the Late Antique to the Early Medieval period. Finally, the Book of Dimma reflects the growing community in which it was made and altered, and it became instrumental in the ambitions of a religious institution that matured from a humble monastery to an independent diocesan see.
In his sensual and intimate portrait of Grace Dalrymple Elliott, Gainsborough catches and holds t... more In his sensual and intimate portrait of Grace Dalrymple Elliott, Gainsborough catches and holds the viewer in a cat-and-mouse game of simultaneous concealment and revelation, a game we are entrapped in by Grace’s alluring gaze and kept playing through the inclusion of details that threaten to expose her most guarded secrets.
During the seventeenth century, a small group of wealthy Dutch wives commissioned and curated the... more During the seventeenth century, a small group of wealthy Dutch wives commissioned and curated their own dollhouses as show-pieces which often included hundreds of miniature works of art by prominent local artists and craftsmen. Those that have survived not only to provide valuable insight into the decoration of houses, but also into the concerns, responsibilities, and collecting practices of women during the Golden Age of Dutch Exploration. Mirroring cabinets of curiosities, such dollhouses present colonialist and microcosmic aspirations as knowledge of the world expanded. The miniaturization of household objects fulfilled a possessive and connoisseurial desire that allowed women to own and control something all their own, best seen in three extant seventeenth-century Dutch dollhouses, all coincidentally owned by women named Petronella.
Best known for his swirling visions of light and color, J. M. W. Turner’s sketches and paintings ... more Best known for his swirling visions of light and color, J. M. W. Turner’s sketches and paintings of ruins are often overlooked in discussions of the artist’s evident interest in the aesthetic theory of the sublime. From his beginnings as a topographical draughtsman to his final “modern” works, ruin – both natural and built – pervaded. One of the subjects most suggestive of the sublime in art and in literature is the ruin; they are the “haunts of the catastrophic imagination of man” and symbols of desolation, fallen greatness, and fantasy. In 1819, Turner embarked on his first tour of Italy, filling twenty-three sketchbooks with depictions of Rome’s famed ruins. The trip shaped his artistic practice, specifically in his visual communication of the sublime. His sketches show the artist grappling with how to portray ruins, especially for their experiential powers. Ultimately, he found the sublime to be the most profound and effective method to faithfully recreate the experience of ruins. When he returned to England, Turner’s artistic experimentation and expression evolved and dissolved, as did the ruins he painted. The dissolution and abstraction of forms so central in Turner’s later paintings mirror the dissolution of the ruins he no doubt took inspiration from.
Books of Hours sit at a revealing intersection between religion, secular life, and art. From the ... more Books of Hours sit at a revealing intersection between religion, secular life, and art. From the thirteenth century, Books of Hours were a fashionable and essential accessory for medieval women. Symbols of devotion and wealth, they could be as small as jewels and carried around to be pulled out and, in turn, shown off at increments during the day. Due to their intimate and secular nature, Books of Hours were often specially commissioned and personalized. Denise Poncher was one of the thousands of upper-class medieval women to own a Book of Hours, one that is so uniquely personalized that it reveals her (and her husband’s) hopes, thoughts, and concerns. Books of Hours are, more than anything, social and cultural documents. They give an intimate look into the lives and concerns of medieval people, and specifically the lives of women. Either commissioned by a woman herself or for a woman, “the texts provide concrete information on the concerns of a recently married aristocratic woman (or perhaps, what her father or fiancé thought her concerns should be)." The Hours of Denise Poncher are an exceptional example of this.
The portrait miniatures of Elizabethan England (ca. 1560-1600) served as the ideal vehicle for th... more The portrait miniatures of Elizabethan England (ca. 1560-1600) served as the ideal vehicle for the symbolic communication of intimacy and devotion. Only a few inches in height, miniatures contain detailed paintings of kings, queens, and nobility wearing jewels of gold and silver that appear to animate in candlelight. In a world with a taste for the enigmatic and dominated by the image, portrait miniatures served their patrons to signify ideals of status, wealth, beauty, and loyalty. Through their layers of secrecy and distinctive presence, portrait miniatures were key players in social and political games. Exchanges involving these performative “games of concealment and revelation, secrecy and display” ultimately served as a means of control in a court that revolved around the poetic image. The scholarship on portrait miniatures has just begun to get beneath the jeweled boxes in which they are contained.
First Place Undergraduate Winner of the SCAD 2021 Larry W. Forrest Writing Competition
Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History, 2020
Born in the wombs of shells and polished by mother nature herself, pearls were regarded as gifts ... more Born in the wombs of shells and polished by mother nature herself, pearls were regarded as gifts from the gods. For millennia, the creation of pearls was credited to the tears of heavenly creatures or the formation of sun-touched dewdrops. Countless civilizations, both Western and Non-Western, have their own myths and legends surrounding the pearl, a mark of their mysterious allure. The artform of jewelry, favored by the Roman aristocracy, took advantage of naturally perfected pearls to create stunning pieces with staggering prices. The pearl’s meaning evolved throughout the Roman Empire and into Early Christian Rome, setting up a contradictory legacy of earthly decadence and divine modesty. Deciphering the language of the pearl through perhaps the most recognizable period of Western history allows for a closer examination of the social customs of a world superpower. During the Roman Era, pearls went through a dramatic period of metamorphosis which mirrored the state of empire. The ancient Romans transformed pearls from a symbol of the gods to a memento of mortal decadence, finally ending their evolution as gems of the heavens.
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Thesis Chapters by Emily Hallman
The portrait miniatures of the Tudor and Elizabethan periods – like prayerbooks, reliquaries, prayer beads, and miniature altars – functioned as personal, private devotional tools for an audience that was newly Protestant. Further, they embodied humanist philosophies that centered around the agency of humankind, illuminating the shift from the spiritual to the secular. To date, scholars have demonstrated that portrait miniatures developed out of the medieval tradition of manuscript illumination, which was mostly used in the 15th and 16th centuries to decorate prayer books. However, most have eschewed the relationship of these hand-held portraits to other tools of private devotion, such as reliquaries, boxwood prayer beads, and miniature altars. The traditions and visual characteristics associated with Catholic devotional tools were assimilated into portrait miniatures, both being inherently private and reflective.
As an art form that was newly established at the height of the Renaissance as the Reformation gained momentum, portrait miniatures occupy the overlap between Catholic ritual and humanistic philosophy that culminated in examples by Nicholas Hilliard (ca. 1547–1619). Using tactics to manifest an image that was psychologically present in the eyes and imagination of the viewer, Hilliard painted Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, to appear in her miniatures as an icon: the new Virgin Mary for a Protestant and humanist audience.
Papers by Emily Hallman
First Place Undergraduate Winner of the SCAD 2021 Larry W. Forrest Writing Competition
The portrait miniatures of the Tudor and Elizabethan periods – like prayerbooks, reliquaries, prayer beads, and miniature altars – functioned as personal, private devotional tools for an audience that was newly Protestant. Further, they embodied humanist philosophies that centered around the agency of humankind, illuminating the shift from the spiritual to the secular. To date, scholars have demonstrated that portrait miniatures developed out of the medieval tradition of manuscript illumination, which was mostly used in the 15th and 16th centuries to decorate prayer books. However, most have eschewed the relationship of these hand-held portraits to other tools of private devotion, such as reliquaries, boxwood prayer beads, and miniature altars. The traditions and visual characteristics associated with Catholic devotional tools were assimilated into portrait miniatures, both being inherently private and reflective.
As an art form that was newly established at the height of the Renaissance as the Reformation gained momentum, portrait miniatures occupy the overlap between Catholic ritual and humanistic philosophy that culminated in examples by Nicholas Hilliard (ca. 1547–1619). Using tactics to manifest an image that was psychologically present in the eyes and imagination of the viewer, Hilliard painted Queen Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, to appear in her miniatures as an icon: the new Virgin Mary for a Protestant and humanist audience.
First Place Undergraduate Winner of the SCAD 2021 Larry W. Forrest Writing Competition