Random order: The first fifteen years of Robert Rauschenberg's art, 1949-196

This dissertation presents a comprehensive monograph on the first fifteen years of Robert Rauschenberg's art, from 1949-1964, examining his art from the vantage point of today. The year 1964 presents a natural breaking point in Rauschenberg's $oeuvre$, as it was then that he withdrew from his artmaking methods of the past to devote himself to performance art and to experiments in art and technology. When he resumed painting and sculpture in the 1970s, the work often looked back to concerns expressed earlier in his art.;In this study, I review the artist's development and reveal that Rauschenberg's unique sensibility was in evidence at the very beginning of his career. The consistency of his attitude, as his style and concerns changed, and as his activities extended into a variety of media, is explored. I reevaluate the notion of his "dependence" upon de Kooning, Schwitters, and Cage, and reconsider the nature of his relationship to the art and thought of Duchamp. Rauschenberg's hitherto neglected interest in Surrealism, and particularly in the work of Joseph Cornell, is revealed. One of the primary aims of this thesis is to elucidate Rauschenberg's novel approach to content and to explore the range of themes with which his art was involved. Rauschenberg's art is revealed as a kind of language which utilized visual, mental/verbal, and kinesthetic phenomena. The more one engages in the work and becomes adept at reading this language, the more Rauschenberg's wit, irony, and intelligence are revealed.;This study also considers Rauschenberg's relationship to his Abstract Expressionist, Assemblage, and Pop Art contemporaries, as well as to artists who came after them, in order to determine the nature and extent of his influence. Rauschenberg's formative influence on Jasper Johns is explored in detail. Finally, through a review of the literature and criticism which surrounded Rauschenberg's art at each stage of its development, I explore the changing conceptions of Rauschenberg's art.