Arts | August 2025 - Browse Articles

23 pages, 11210 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Conversations with the Ancestors: Pursuing an Understanding of Klamath Basin Rock Art Through the Use of Myth, the Ethnographic Record, and Local Artistic Conventions

by Robert James David

Arts 2025, 14(4), 78; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040078 - 17 Jul 2025

Abstract

Past archaeological practices have resulted in a distorted history of Native American cultures based upon western-biased research. This has been especially apparent in the rock art of the Klamath Basin in southern Oregon and northern California. In response to this, Native and non-Native [...] Read more.

Past archaeological practices have resulted in a distorted history of Native American cultures based upon western-biased research. This has been especially apparent in the rock art of the Klamath Basin in southern Oregon and northern California. In response to this, Native and non-Native scholars are striving to develop a counter-discourse that both challenges and replaces western constructs in research on Native American communities. The result of this approach is a growing trend within the discipline that has come to be called “Indigenous Archaeology.” Critical to this approach is that Native voices are transported from the margins of the research to its center, where they are intended to replace the Western colonialist narrative. Unfortunately, Native American tribal communities have been the targets of federal assimilation policies for the past few centuries, and as a result, much of their cultural knowledge unwittingly carries forward this distorted past. In this paper I explore a framework built upon ethnographic accounts of shamanism and rock art, along with a robust familiarity with local myth, and how this provides a foundation of traditional cultural knowledge against which to compare and evaluate the interpretive statements made in contemporary tribal members about rock art and other sacred material culture. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Rock Art Studies)

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27 pages, 1803 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Mural Painting Across Eras: From Prehistoric Caves to Contemporary Street Art

by Anna Maria Martyka, Agata Rościecha-Kanownik and Ignacio Fernández Torres

Arts 2025, 14(4), 77; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040077 - 16 Jul 2025

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Abstract

This article traces the historical evolution of mural painting as a medium of cultural expression from prehistoric cave art to contemporary street interventions. Adopting a diachronic and interdisciplinary approach, it investigates how muralism has developed across civilizations in relation to techniques, symbolic systems, [...] Read more.

This article traces the historical evolution of mural painting as a medium of cultural expression from prehistoric cave art to contemporary street interventions. Adopting a diachronic and interdisciplinary approach, it investigates how muralism has developed across civilizations in relation to techniques, symbolic systems, social function, and its embeddedness in architectural and urban contexts. The analysis is structured around key historical periods using emblematic case studies to examine the interplay between materiality, iconography, and socio-political meaning. From sacred enclosures and civic monuments to post-industrial walls and digital projections, murals reflect shifting cultural paradigms and spatial dynamics. This study emphasizes how mural painting, once integrated into sacred and imperial architecture, has become a tool for public participation, protests, and urban storytelling. Particular attention is paid to the evolving relationship between wall painting and the spaces it inhabits, highlighting the transition from permanence to ephemerality and from monumentality to immediacy. This article contributes to mural studies by offering a comprehensive framework for understanding the technical and symbolic transformations of the medium while proposing new directions for research in the context of digital urbanism and cultural memory. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Applied Arts)

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13 pages, 3767 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Analysis of Audio Information Streaming in Georg Philipp Telemann’s Sonata in C Major for Recorder and Basso Continuo, Allegro (TWV 41:C2)

by Adam Rosiński

Arts 2025, 14(4), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040076 - 14 Jul 2025

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Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of G. P. Telemann’s Sonata in C Major for Recorder and Basso Continuo (TWV 41:C2, Allegro), with the aim of investigating the occurrence of perceptual streams. The presence of perceptual streams in musical works helps to organise [...] Read more.

This paper presents an analysis of G. P. Telemann’s Sonata in C Major for Recorder and Basso Continuo (TWV 41:C2, Allegro), with the aim of investigating the occurrence of perceptual streams. The presence of perceptual streams in musical works helps to organise the sound stimuli received by the listener in a specific manner. This enables each listener to perceive the piece in an individual and distinctive manner, granting primacy to selected sounds over others. Directing the listener’s attention to particular elements of the auditory image leads to the formation of specific mental representations. This, in turn, results in distinctive interpretations of the acoustic stimuli. All of these processes are explored and illustrated in this analysis. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sound, Space, and Creativity in Performing Arts)

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10 pages, 264 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Кoнец фильма: Ruins, Remnants, and Remains of the USSR Army in Borne Sulinowo as an Inspiration for Performance Artists

by Małgorzata Kaźmierczak

Arts 2025, 14(4), 75; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040075 - 11 Jul 2025

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Abstract

This article analyzes the significance of the ruins and remnants of the Soviet Army in Borne Sulinowo, a former secret Soviet military base in Western Pomerania (Poland), as a source of inspiration for performance artists. This study draws from a variety of theoretical [...] Read more.

This article analyzes the significance of the ruins and remnants of the Soviet Army in Borne Sulinowo, a former secret Soviet military base in Western Pomerania (Poland), as a source of inspiration for performance artists. This study draws from a variety of theoretical frameworks, including performance art theory, new materialism, and the thing theory. Additionally, it draws from the ideas of Carl Lavery, Richard Gough, Ann Laura Stoler, and Georg Simmel. This text delves into the notion that the transient character of performance art mirrors the fleeting nature of power, particularly in the context of the dissolution of the Soviet regime. Following the Polish reacquisition of the site in the early 1990s, artists such as Władysław Kaźmierczak and Brian Connolly transformed found objects and the decaying environment into performance art. This article analyzes performances such as Kaźmierczak’s кoнец фильма (The End of the Movie) and Connolly’s Frieze Frame. It discusses how these works captured the emotional and intellectual responses to the remnants of military occupation. The performances demonstrate the interplay between decay, memory, and historical consciousness, employing the ruins as a medium for reflecting on the collapse of Soviet influence in Poland and the shifting geopolitical landscape. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Contemporary Visual Culture in Conflict Zones and Contested Territories)

22 pages, 14066 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Spinners as Signifiers: Eve, Mary, Sardanapalus, and Hercules

by Carlee A. Bradbury

Arts 2025, 14(4), 74; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040074 - 10 Jul 2025

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Abstract

Analyzing how spinners are represented in art is a way to understand the role of women’s work in the medieval and premodern periods. What do spinners signify? How is this work depicted? Who are spinners? Using a selection of imagery from northern European [...] Read more.

Analyzing how spinners are represented in art is a way to understand the role of women’s work in the medieval and premodern periods. What do spinners signify? How is this work depicted? Who are spinners? Using a selection of imagery from northern European medieval manuscripts and premodern prints from the 14th to the 17th centuries allows us to see how pervasive the spinner was as a symbolic device. Characters such as Eve, Mary, Sardanapalus, and Hercules are unified by their spinning. As they work with the spindle and distaff, they are makers in addition to being religious or mythological figures. Though spinning does not always (if at all) appear in their textual narratives, it is part of the established iconography for each and persisted as a way to communicate or demean the value of women’s domestic enterprises. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Early Modern Global Materials, Materiality, and Material Culture)

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16 pages, 304 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The American Centaur: The Afterlives of a Modern Myth

by Tom Peotto

Arts 2025, 14(4), 73; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040073 - 30 Jun 2025

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Abstract

Sixteenth-century Spanish accounts of the invasions of the Americas claimed that Indigenous peoples found horseback riding so shocking that they mistook cavalry for centaurs. Drawing a one-to-one connection between sixteenth-century Mesoamericans and ancient Europeans, a nineteenth-century historian claimed that this must have happened [...] Read more.

Sixteenth-century Spanish accounts of the invasions of the Americas claimed that Indigenous peoples found horseback riding so shocking that they mistook cavalry for centaurs. Drawing a one-to-one connection between sixteenth-century Mesoamericans and ancient Europeans, a nineteenth-century historian claimed that this must have happened in ancient Greece also, inspiring the centaur myth in the first place. A closer examination of Classical textual and archaeological sources and of the ethnohistory of the contact-era Americas shows this to be wishful thinking by Iberian writers desirous to believe that awestruck American societies saw them as gods or monsters. However, a closer examination of the centaur myth and the responses by contact-era American societies to horses reveals a more complicated reality behind a simple mythology of conquest. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Artistic Imagination and Social Imaginaries–Polysemous Readings of Historical Travelling Accounts)

16 pages, 1045 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Audiovisual Inclusivity: Configuration and Structure of LGBTQIA+ Production on Streaming Platforms in Spain

by Julio Moreno-Díaz, Nerea Cuenca-Orellana and Natalia Martínez-Pérez

Arts 2025, 14(4), 72; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040072 - 26 Jun 2025

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Abstract

This study presents an exhaustive analysis of LGBTQIA+ audiovisual production available on the main streaming platforms in Spain, covering both Spanish and international content. Using a sample of 1490 works from ten video-on-demand services (Apple TV+, Disney+, Filmin, FlixOlé, Max, Movistar Plus+, Netflix, [...] Read more.

This study presents an exhaustive analysis of LGBTQIA+ audiovisual production available on the main streaming platforms in Spain, covering both Spanish and international content. Using a sample of 1490 works from ten video-on-demand services (Apple TV+, Disney+, Filmin, FlixOlé, Max, Movistar Plus+, Netflix, Prime Video, Rakuten, and SkyShowtime), this study examines how the offered catalogues are configured and structured in response to the commercial dynamics of the LGBTQIA+ production market. Using quantitative methodology, the research addresses the industrial production models, the agents involved and the characteristics of the most widely offered narrative genres and formats, highlighting distribution patterns and visibility in the catalogues. The findings include a marked international abundance, a reflection of the global market guidelines and the hegemony of narratives aimed at transnational audiences. National productions, although less numerous, are a significant contribution to the audiovisual landscape, incorporating cultural identities with an LGBTQIA+ representation that is more aligned with local realities. The central role of independent producers is observed in production models where international agreements are outlined as a key strategy. In addition, it highlights the prevalence of genres such as drama and comedy, together with that of the film format. The visibility and representation of sexual and gender diversity indicates a positive commercial response, although with considerable challenges. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Film and New Media)

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23 pages, 2188 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Producing Feminist Discourses in the Debris of Destruction: Maria Kulikovska’s Response to War in Let Me Say: It’s Not Forgotten

by Kalyna Somchynsky

Arts 2025, 14(4), 71; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040071 - 26 Jun 2025

Viewed by 378

Abstract

The Ukrainian–Crimean artist Maria Kulikovska’s artistic practice has addressed war in Ukraine since the Annexation of Crimea and outbreak of war in the Donbas regions of Ukraine in 2014. In 2019 she created the video-performance Let Me Say: It Will Not Be Forgotten [...] Read more.

The Ukrainian–Crimean artist Maria Kulikovska’s artistic practice has addressed war in Ukraine since the Annexation of Crimea and outbreak of war in the Donbas regions of Ukraine in 2014. In 2019 she created the video-performance Let Me Say: It Will Not Be Forgotten that responds to the ways artworks and women’s bodies are targeted by derisive retaliation and physical attacks during periods of political instability. Informed by explorations of feminism in post-Soviet countries, theories of prosthetic memory, and destruction art of the 1960s, I argue that Kulikovska does not let the destruction of her artwork silence her, but, rather, she uses destruction as a strategy to take control of oppressive forces. In their place, I argue that Let Me Say: It’s Not Forgotten demonstrates subjective and complex ways of building resilient feminist presents and futures that overcome oppressive violence and testify to continual perseverance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ukraine Under Fire: The Visual Arts in Ukraine and Abroad Since 2014)

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22 pages, 4659 KiB

Open AccessProject Report

What Does Street Art in Florence, Depicting Women, Aim to Convey to Its Residents and Tourists?

by Aleksander Cywiński and Michał Parchimowicz

Arts 2025, 14(4), 70; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040070 - 25 Jun 2025

Viewed by 592

Abstract

The article analyzes the meanings embedded in street art in Florence that portrays women, likely created by female artists. Between 18 May and 27 May 2024, during the Communities and Artistic Participation in Hybrid Environment (CAPHE) project, we observed a significant number of [...] Read more.

The article analyzes the meanings embedded in street art in Florence that portrays women, likely created by female artists. Between 18 May and 27 May 2024, during the Communities and Artistic Participation in Hybrid Environment (CAPHE) project, we observed a significant number of feminist street art pieces in Florence’s historic center. Using qualitative content analysis based on Gillian Rose’s methodology (2016), we interpreted the collected visual materials through semiotic and socio-cultural lenses. The findings revealed the deliberately interventionist nature of the analyzed works, addressing themes such as gender inequality, human rights, violence against women, and cultural stereotypes. This street art serves as a social manifesto and a means of activating both the local community and tourists, aligning with global feminist discourse while addressing Florence’s local issues. We conclude that Florence’s street art provides a space for visual resistance, education, and the promotion of gender equality and women’s emancipation in the context of contemporary social challenges. Full article

(This article belongs to the Section Visual Arts)

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12 pages, 7070 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Virtual Archaeology and Medieval Art History: Fundamentals and Applications

by Jaime García Carpintero López de Mota

Arts 2025, 14(4), 69; https://doi.org/10.3390/arts14040069 - 21 Jun 2025

Viewed by 320

Abstract

Virtual Archaeology is defined as ‘the scientific discipline that seeks to research and develop ways of using computer-based visualizations for the comprehensive management of archaeological heritage’. In essence, it involves the creation of virtual models of various types whose purpose is to represent [...] Read more.

Virtual Archaeology is defined as ‘the scientific discipline that seeks to research and develop ways of using computer-based visualizations for the comprehensive management of archaeological heritage’. In essence, it involves the creation of virtual models of various types whose purpose is to represent elements of the past based on historical data obtained from research. It is a discipline that has experienced a boom in recent years, thanks to the democratization of both technology and training, and has become one of the most fruitful branches of what is known as Digital Humanities. However, despite its name, it has applications beyond the field of archaeology, notably in Art History. In this sense, it allows recovering the original likeness of lost or altered works, the formulation of research hypotheses, or the generation of resources with great didactic and dissemination potential. This study aims to offer an overview of the fundamentals of the discipline and explore the possibilities it offers to Medieval Art History. Furthermore, this study serves as a starting point for new projects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue History of Medieval Art)

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