William Eggleston is sometimes called “the father of color photography.” While his subject matter is banal, all his images contain very strong formal elements of line and shape. More to the point, they all emphasize saturated hues. In this paper I look at his dye transfer photographs and the quality of their color, which is unsurpassed by anyone in the medium even today. Primarily though, I focus on his most famous image Greenwood, Mississippi, commonly referred to as “The Red Ceiling,” which is known for its overwhelming, spectrally brilliant red tone. In my research, I look at Eggleston’s work from formalist and iconographic perspectives to see what it is that makes his images, which are devoid of traditional subject matter, so captivating. To do so, I compare “The Red Ceiling” and other Eggleston works to Ernst Haas’s formalist compositions. I compare each artist’s use of color and form to understand the different functions of each artists work. I argue that Eggleston’s images are not subjectless or banal, but that they are in fact heavily steeped in symbolism and comment on American urbanization and social dynamics.

In this essay, I explore the political context surrounding Botticelli's decision to render The Calumny of Apelles. My aim is to address the Renaissance artist’s attraction to such an old tale. He takes the subject matter of his painting from Alberti’s written description of Apelles’ autobiographical painting, but adds a twist. Apelles was a prominent painter around the year 350 B.C.E., when the Egyptian king Ptolemy abruptly sentenced him to death. Botticelli transforms Apelles' portrayal of the evil king into a contemporaneous depiction—the ruler of Florence, Piero de’ Medici. In doing so, Botticelli transforms the original subject matter into a modern political context. Like Apelles, Botticelli paints an autobiographical scene. He depicts a young man, wearing only a cloth, being dragged into a royal chamber. Darkly clothed cohorts attempt to convince the Medici prince, sitting on the throne, of the dragged-in figure’s guilt. All the while, the female figure carrying the prone nude form into court bears a cold ominous expression. I use scholarship from Herbert Horne, Giorgio Vasari, and Rudolph Altrocchi to lay out the historical events associated with Botticelli's The Calumny of Apelles. My purpose is to highlight Botticelli's political commentary and the complexities of Piero de’ Medici’s court.