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Item Flesh as relic: painting early Christian female martyrs within Baroque sacred spaces(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2019) DuBois, Stormy Lee; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Todd LarkinMichelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio's Burial of Saint Lucy (1608) in Santa Lucia al Sepolcro, Syracuse, Domenichino Zampieri's Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia (1614) in San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome, and Giovanni Francesco Barbieri's Burial of Saint Petronilla (1623) in Saint Peter's Basilica, are remarkable Baroque depictions of Early Christian female martyrs which illustrate a tendency toward establishing a dialogue between the expiring or lifeless body of the saint and her own venerated grave or relic. Eschewing the requirements and textual authority laid down by the Council of Trent, which prompts the theatrical and violent imaging of saints and martyrs, each piece exhibits a juxtaposition of martyred female body, earth, and altar that transcends naturalist and classicist aesthetics. Rather than offering a dramatization of a saint's life or martyrdom, each artist chose to render a funeral scene directly and with minimal distractions. In the intersection of the traditional veneration of relics and Counter-Reformatory developments in the veneration of martyrs and gendered behavior in church, the following thesis will suggest that each artist rendered the transformation of mortal flesh to saintly relic in order to facilitate the contemplation of the martyred female body implicit in the veneration of saints without transgressing gendered relations within sacred spaces.Item Locating the ancient of days: appropriation and syncretism in the development of a Byzantine christological motif(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2018) Jacobson, Kearstin Alexandra; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Regina GeeConstantinople, capital city of the Byzantine Empire established by Constantine in the fourth century, carried the economic, military, and multicultural advantages of a city that had already existed as a desirable settlement location for nearly a millennium under numerous polities and names. Strategically located on the Bosporus Strait linking the Sea of Marmara and Black Sea, thus the major Euro-Asiatic trade routes, Constantinople benefitted from its position of power as a metaphorical hinge between East and West to gather various stable iconographies and mythologies whose meanings were mutable and could be reconceptualized to fit the Empire's Christian contexts. As didactic devices for translating complicated Christian dogma to the masses became increasingly accepted and necessary in the Byzantine Empire by the second half of the sixth century, Constantinople's transcultural environment facilitated a continuous supply of simplified motifs, like the Ancient of Days used to illustrate Christological preexistence, originating from Greco-Roman, European, Near Eastern, Semite, and Asiatic cultural sources. Depicting neither God the Father nor Christ the Son, the Ancient of Days motif -- an aged man with long hair and beard -- stood for the eternal, immaterial essence of the Christian god. As the Christian god had not been witnessed in a human existence on earth, the Ancient of Days motif can be understood as the syncretic outcome of various divine, eternal, prophetic, and philosophical types familiar throughout the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world. While no single definitive visual model exists for the Ancient of Days, numerous pagan, philosophical, and monotheistic textual sources mentioning either an aged male figure with white hair and beard who imparts wisdom, an entity called the Ancient of Days, or conceptual notions of eternity, exist as further testament to a syncretic contextual basis for the Byzantine motif. Understandably few examples of the pre-Iconoclasm Ancient of Days motif are known. However, the range of format, media, and geography displayed by the Italian diptych, Constantinopolitan mosaics and icon, and Cappadocian frescoes considered here are suggestive of a much larger tradition where the simplicity of the Ancient of Days motif allowed for adaptability into socio-cultural variants across the Byzantine provinces.Item Manhattan Christian School : a unique educational institution(Montana State University - Bozeman, 1971) Regnerus, LouisItem An investigation of commentaries, canon law and directives, and other procedures undertaken in painting 'Apocalyptic Visions'(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 1963) Conkey, Edna KirkItem Remote Worship(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2008) Burrows, William Frederick, Jr.; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Ralph Johnson; Chere LeClair (co-chair)I am a Christian. In my opinion, this is the most important way I can describe myself as a person. As a son, brother, friend, employee, and student my Faith undeniably affects every facet of my life. In an effort to make my last year as a student resonate on a personal level, I have combined my spiritual journey with my academic one. My intent was to characterize my Christian faith in order to introduce an architecture that embodies the duality of a personal connection to God and a community experience based on fellowship. My ten-week investigation of my beliefs, the Christian church, and architectural precedents has pointed me towards designing a remote worship destination in an effort to explore the intersection that occurs between the spiritual and earthly realms and between the individual and society. My hope is that this design will embody my concept of the Christian faith as a process, or journey, and the nature of that process causing a spiritual separation from society. My intention is to symbolically represent a journey, a point of rest and introspection, and to capture the nature of worship with an architecture and how that architecture responds to a site. My process thus far has been incredibly introspective and educational on so much more than an academic plane. My early research was fueled by cynicism and frustration with how I have seen the Christian faith and church represented in America today. However, diving deeper into the spirituality of Christian worship I have gained a beautiful perspective on our relationship with God and each other. I can only hope that my solution will reflect the spiritual growth I have experienced. If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans. Folk Proverb