Ancient, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Art and Architecture Commons^™

Of Word And Stone: The History Of Medieval Spain Through The Lens Of Architecture And Language, Samantha Hernandez

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Medieval Spain is a unique summation of religious and cultural communities. Through the built forms of Al-Andalus, there is unique preservation of societal imprints that parallel the formation of the Castilian language. These two mediums—architecture and language—are a telling of the culture and history of the region. By first observing the historical formation of Spanish, and in turn the various communities which inhabited the Iberian Peninsula, one may find many correlations with architecture created at the same time. After understanding the historical making of the Spanish language, it is important to analyze the language itself and how it differs from …

Demythologizing Homer: Investigating Religion In Minoan Crete, Elizabeth Rybarczyk

Student Research Submissions

The Minoan civilization of Bronze-Age Crete has, until recently, been obscured in mythological uncertainty. As a prehistoric civilization, the available evidence for historic analysis is sparse and ambiguous. This paper evaluates the material evidence for ritual activity to chart the religious developments of Minoan Crete. In the earliest periods of their civilization, the Minoans practiced animism, which reflected their ideals towards survival and cooperation. As their prosperity grew due to technological advancements, a social hierarchy formed. The emerging elite employed religion to justify their claim to power by appropriating religion, which culminated in a dual-monotheistic Knossian theocracy. This lasted until …

A Rouen Book Of Hours: Dynamic Religious Accoutrement, Cherished Accessory, And Looking Glass?, Sara Junkins

Art & Art History Student Scholarship

Sara Junkins ’23
Major: Art History and Creative Writing
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Elizabeth Welch, Art and Art History

Sara Junkins submitted an excellent art history thesis in which she mirrors the original owner and patron’s relationship to a 1510 book of hours made in Rouen, France, grappling like the patron with issues of faith, status, gender, and style. An external reviewer highlighted her sophisticated usage of Mircea Eliade’s theory of sacrality, saying that she “convincingly position[s] the book within the dichotomy of the sacred and profane.” Her investigation of the dynamic hybridities and dichotomies in the book—the sacred and the …

Salzburg's Baroque Architecture: A Historical Analysis And Poetic Response, Rebecca Malzer

Honors Projects

Salzburg, Austria is a city full of history. During the Baroque era from about the mid sixteenth century to the end of the eighteenth century, the Prince-Archbishops of Salzburg designed and modeled the city with Rome, Italy in mind. Their loyalty to the Holy Roman Empire and with the Reformation in full swing, these Italian influences helped to build a pro-Roman Catholic style throughout the city. The Prince-Archbishops and their architects demonstrated Salzburg’s loyalty to Rome through the structures of Schloss Mirabell, Schloss Hellbrunn, and the Franziskannerkirche. In addition, these structures make for great inspiration for creative work, to which …

The Art Of Patron Sainthood: St. Teresa, Santiago, And The Early Modern Spanish Empire, Laura Martin

Art History Theses and Dissertations

In 1618 and 1626, the Castilian Cortes, supported by the Spanish Crown, named Spaniard St. Teresa of Ávila as Spain’s co-patron saint. This declaration, supported by many cities in the empire, including Ávila, Salamanca, Valladolid, and Mexico City, was still opposed by many who saw this as an insult to the standing patron, St. James, called Santiago in Spanish. Historians have studied this period because it helps explain social, cultural, and political conflicts within the empire. However, the art of this period has not been studied in depth. This thesis examines the artistic production related to the so-called co-patronage, including …

Botticelli’S Pallas And The Centaur: Virtue Triumphant, Alice N. Nguyen

CAFE Symposium 2023

While waiting to see the Duke of Aosta in an anteroom of the Palazzo Pitti, William Blundell Spence, a painter and Florence resident, noticed a larger-than-life painting on the wall. He immediately informed Erico Rifolfi, then the Director of the Uffizi, because Spence recognized the brushwork of Sandro Botticelli in that little-known painting. Upon the announcement in La Nazione in March 1895, the forgotten piece created a sensation. However, even when exhibited in public, the painting is still veiled in mystery. Pallas and the Centaur belongs to the same time period as Botticelli's famed Primavera and Birth of Venus, commissioned …

Leonardo’S Ancient Inspiration, Willem N. Roelandts

CAFE Symposium 2023

Investigating the hidden ancient inspiration in Leonardo de Vinci’s 'Battle of Anghiari' and it’s significance to the city of Florence. How and why Leonardo chose to incorporate Greco-Roman aesthetics into his art.

Botticelli's Adoration Of The Magi: The Power And Beauty Of Individual, Trang B. Nguyen

CAFE Symposium 2023

Adoration of the Magi in Uffizi was a commission from banker Guasparre dal Lama for his chapel in Santa Maria Novella. The altarpiece was painted by the famous artist Sandro Botticelli. It illustrates one of the most famous scenes in the Bible: The Epiphany of the three Magi greeting the birth of Jesus who would bring salvation and peace to the world of sins. This beautiful piece now resides in Uffizi Museum in Florence. Adoration of the Magi represents the peak of Renaissance art, and carefully reflects the political message of Florence in the 15th century through the figures of …

Botticelli's Marvelous Mystery: Idealized Portrait Of A Lady, Alessia M. Buoso

CAFE Symposium 2023

A detailed visual analysis of Sandro Botticelli's "Idealized Portrait of a Lady" that incorporates gender roles in Renaissance Florence and discusses Botticelli's hidden messages and common themes within his works.

Mysteries Of The Gothic, Addison Duvall

CMC Senior Theses

By examining the histories of the Notre-Dame and Chartres cathedrals, I will consider three academic schools of thought regarding the high Gothic Cathedrals: the balanced and rational feat of engineering, the communal and social rituals that bond humans to this space, and the iconographic manifestation of the supernatural. Functionalist engineering paradoxically lays at the heart of these cathedrals' capacity to open the human consciousness to the sacred by using recurrent symbolic patterns from nature, music and mathematics to create divine ratios that transport us. Integrated into these larger architectural designs the repeating visual patterns exalting both biblical and supernatural icons …

Art And Power: How The D'Este Family Ruled Renaissance Ferrara, Luke Ziegler

Tenor of Our Times

During the Renaissance, the d'Este family ruled the Northern Italian city of Ferrara. To make up for their modest land holdings, the d'Este chose to exert influence and control over Italian politics through artistic patronage. The court of Ferrara became known for its beauty, intelligence, and sophistication. All the dukes of Ferrara contributed to the city's cultural significance, and elevated Ferrara as one of the dominant cities on the Italian peninsula.

Laying Out A Space: Spectral Geographies, Fictions Of The Soul, Erin D. Yerby

Theses and Dissertations

Laying out a Space: Spectral Geographies, Fictions of the Soul, arises out of my artistic practice, and thoughts behind my current project and MFA exhibition, Spectral Geographies.

Linking the problem of the world ‘out there’ or external space, to inner experience through painting as both medium and practice, my work expresses what I call inner geographies, spaces where intimate immensities, folding inside and outside, find expression. I think of my paintings as beginning with this gesture of laying out a between-space where the intimacies of waking dreams and visions are opened by, and grow into, actual places, …

From Mouth To Mind: A Close Examination Of Two Carved Boxwood Peapods Through Print, Paint, And Sculpture & References To Fertility, Amanda Jane Mason

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

The following three chapters consider the boxwood peapods against the context gathered from different sources. In chapter one, I look at the inspiration for the shape of the carvings: the peapod. Today, peapods like snap peas and snow peas, are common throughout the world, and while the medieval world had more seasonal access to the plant, peapods and similar legumes were often still a staple food throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, so much so that they were mentioned in the Old Testament. Chapter two turns to representations of peapods …

I Femminiellə: Unearthing Sanctified Queerness, Francesca Stone Houran

Senior Projects Spring 2023

This project serves as an unearthing, in the figuratively archeological sense, of the religious roots and foundations of queerness, often overlooked in contemporary gender discourses, through the exposing of pre and post-modern queer religious iconography specific to the Neapolitan third-gender community of the femminiellə. Although the femmininellə have origins in a long lineage of non-binary forms and figures throughout global and Italian history, they have been more recently brought to the surface of gender discourses through the avenue of photography, showcased in digital and physical exhibition spaces.

Golden Temptresses: The Petrifying Beauty Of Pre-Raphaelite Women, Zoe Julienne Claire Manwiller

Senior Projects Spring 2023

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

This project considers the tension between fear and desire, a tension that makes Pre-Raphaelite paintings, and the women they depict, dangerously powerful and alluring. Chapter One focuses in particular on the inner nature of these women using visual signs that suggest complexity beneath the surface. I use the term hybridity to think through the tension of fear and desire. Chapter Two shifts to look at the outer environments and the way in which the danger and fear are mediated by solitude, weaving, reflections, and the expectation of piety.

Tintoretto: Painting In The Chaotic Reformations, Summer Markham

OUR Journal: ODU Undergraduate Research Journal

The following essay investigates Tintoretto’s, a Venetian artist during the 16^th century, artist techniques in his painting the Last Supper and how the period is reflected within it. For instance, the chiaroscuro and sfumato techniques in the painting are used to allude the darkness surrounding the self-indulgence, financial abuses, and religious corruption during the Counter-Reformation. Research of underlying symbolism and historical events further reveal how the Last Supper reflects the dark, confusing time that Europe was in during the Counter-Reformation. Understanding the Last Supper and understanding it’s historical context aids in the ability to observe the emotions during that …

Ritual, Spectacle, And Theatre In Late Medieval Seville (Chapter 1), Christopher B. Swift

Publications and Research

From the fall of Islamic Išbīliya in 1248 to the conquest of the New World, Seville was a nexus of economic and religious power where interconfessional living among Christians, Jews, and Muslims was negotiated on public stages. From out of seemingly irreconcilable ideologies of faith, hybrid performance culture emerged in spectacles of miraculous transformation, disciplinary processionals, and representations of religious identity. Ritual, Spectacle, and Theatre in Late Medieval Seville reinvigorates the study of medieval Iberian theater by revealing the ways in which public expressions of devotion, penance, and power fostered cultural reciprocity, rehearsed religious difference, and ultimately helped establish Seville …

Καθαρός, The Pure: Setting Narrative In The Fourth-Century Roman Empire, Emma Branstetter

Honors Program Projects

This thesis illustrates the development of the Christian historical fiction novella named Καθαρός set in the early fourth century of Christian history closely following the events of the Great Persecution and its long-term effects on Christian communities in Asia Minor and North Africa. Previous Christian novels set in the Roman era primarily focus on the first century, and with the significant thematic potential found in later centuries after the life and resurrection of Christ, I embarked on this writing project. The research that affects my narrative is separated into four categories: the history and effects of Diocletian’s Great Persecution, fourth-century …

Navigating Femininity: Queen Elizabeth I And The Armada Portrait, Julia Maurer

Capstone Showcase

By analyzing the iconographic program of the Armada Portrait, this essay demonstrates the various visual strategies that Queen Elizabeth I employed in order to navigate certain gendered, cultural barriers present in Early Modern England. I argue throughout this essay that Elizabeth was meticulous in her delicate dance of bolstering her individual authority, while not radically undermining the patriarchal dispensation in which she lived and ruled. In particular, I demonstrate that Queen Elizabeth I effectively utilized the visual arts to control the public perception of her reign in ways unique to female regnants, as she both confirmed and denied her femininity. …

Botanical Illustration In The Fourteenth Century, Sara Anne Hook

Graduate Scholarship and Professional Work

No abstract provided.