The Departments of History of Art and Italian Studies are very happy to announce the latest addition to our faculty: Assistant Professor Henrike Christiane Lange, appointed in the field of Renaissance/Early Modern Visual Culture in the Mediterranean World. Henrike earned her Magister Artium at the University of Hamburg, Germany, and received her doctorate at Yale University. In spring 2015 she filed her dissertation entitled “Relief Effects: Giotto’s Triumph.” Following the example of Michael Baxandall, Henrike Lange bravely addresses the major changes at the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. She detects a meaningful formal shift that has major implications for questions of matter and illusion, for the framing and staging of the scenes, and for the interaction with the beholder. All of these transformations converge in the specific visual effects of relief. 

Lange sees the relief at the center of Renaissance artistic practice and visual thinking about history, power, and meaning. Her dissertation addresses the most famous frescoes in Western art, Giotto’s Arena Chapel in Padua, as it plays with the imitation of actual relief sculpture. Probing the ancient Roman roots of Giotto’s project, Henrike ... [show more]

Julia Bryan-Wilson has been named a finalist in the 2015 Absolut Art Writing Award, an international prize that recognizes exceptional achievement in art criticism. The previous (and inaugural) winner of this award was Coco Fusco.  

The Department is pleased to announce the publication of a new book by Andrew Stewart, Art in the Hellenistic World. From the Cambridge University Press announcement: "What was Hellenistic art, and what were its contexts, aims, achievements, and impact? This textbook introduces students to these questions and offers a series of answers to them. Its twelve chapters and two “focus” sections examine Hellenistic sculpture, painting, luxury arts, and architecture. Thematically organized, spanning the three centuries from Alexander to Augustus, and ranging geographically from Italy to India and the Black Sea to Nubia, the book examines key monuments of Hellenistic art in relation to the great political, social, cultural, and intellectual issues of the time. It is illustrated with 170 photographs (mostly in color, and many never before published) and contextualized through excerpts from Hellenistic literature and inscriptions. Helpful ancillary features include maps, appendices with background on Hellenistic artists and translations of key documents, a full glossary, a timeline, brief biographies of key figures, suggestions for further reading, and bibliographical references."

The Department is pleased to welcome Anneka Lenssen as our latest new Assistant Professor, in this case of Global Modern Art. Anneka earned her PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the History, Theory, and Criticism of Architecture and Art program (working with Professor Caroline Jones) and the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture (working with Professor Nasser Rabat). Even before finishing her PhD, she was hired by the American University in Cairo, where she has been directing their new Visual Cultures Program this academic year. Not surprisingly, Anneka’s time in Cairo (and before that in Lebanon and Syria) has given her unprecedented access to her research materials and an up-front seat at major social transformations: Anneka specializes in modern painting, contemporary visual practices, and cultural politics in the Middle East since the Second World War. Her research examines problems of artistic representation in relation to the globalizing imaginaries of empire, nationalism, communism, decolonization, non-alignment, and Third World humanism. Arising from her MIT doctoral dissertation, her current book project is a study of avant-garde painting and the making of Syria as a c... [show more]