Read More

New course! Issues in the Art of Japan: Transformations in Medieval Visual Culture (ARTH 341/441)

This course will explore developments in medieval Japanese art, starting with the rise of cloistered imperial rule in the eleventh century and ending in the sixteenth century with the violent upheaval of the Sengoku era. From the expressive formations of wood sculpture, to the flowing brushwork of ink painting, and the crackling surfaces of tea ware, students will consider how visual culture embodied this dynamic period in Japanese history. We will begin with an introduction to major historical and cultural movements in Japan’s middle ages, considering the impact of art across social strata. Subsequent class sessions will delve into central themes that shape contemporary understandings of medieval art, including intercultural exchange, materiality and the natural world, and intersections of healing and image-making practices.

Read more

Read More

Reed O’Mara convenes an international symposium at the Courtauld Institute

Scholars and curators of medieval and early modern Jewish art, museology, and provenance convened in London two weeks ago to participate in the international two-day symposium Tracing Jewish Histories: The Long Lives of Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts, Judaica, and Architecture. The symposium took place in London at The Courtauld Institute of Art and was co-organized by Reed O’Mara (Mellon Fellow and PhD candidate at CWRU) and Laura Feigen (PhD candidate at The Courtauld). As a part of the program, speakers were invited to handle Judaica from the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum with V&A curator Alice Minter. The symposium covered a wide array of subjects, from synagogue architecture to manuscript illumination to the curation and collecting of Judaica, uncovering the complex histories of studying historic Jewish objects and spaces. CWRU and Courtauld graduate students took on roles as chairs and moderators for sessions, and Professor Elina Gertsman served as the primary advisor to Reed and Laura throughout the course of their symposium planning. The symposium was sponsored by the Department of Art History and Art at CWRU, Sam Fogg, the Mellon Foundation, and The Medieval Academy of America Graduate Student Committee Grant for Innovation in Community Building and Professionalization. A recording of the symposium will go live on The Courtauld’s website in the next week!

Read more

Read More

Year-end message from Elina Gertsman, the Acting Chair of Art History and Art

It was a true privilege to shepherd the department during this academic year. Despite all the complexities, we have accomplished astonishing things! Both our faculty members and our graduate students garnered extremely competitive fellowships and awards, organized international conferences, spoke at a broad variety of venues, published widely, and curated exhibitions. Our studio artists, in turn, exhibited their work across the United States. Our lecture series brought extraordinary scholars to campus; the Graduate Association for Medieval Studies and the Undergraduate Art History Club held a series of fabulous events; and the Cleveland Symposium, which celebrated its 50th anniversary, was a rousing success.

This year two new faculty members joined our ranks, and we are excited to welcome a new colleague, a specialist in medieval Japanese art, in the fall. Congratulations to our BA and MA graduates, and kudos to our PhD students who secured important curatorial appointments this year! In turn, Barney Taxel retired at the conclusion of this semester, and we are tremendously grateful for his years of service to the Art Studio program.

It was wonderful to celebrate everyone at our end-of-the-year party. I hope you have a magnificent conclusion to this academic year and a glorious summer!

Read more

Read More

The Joint Program / GAMS at the Medieval Congress

Members of the CWRU community took the International Congress on Medieval Studies by storm! Rebekkah Hart and Cecily Hughes co-organized a session “Scales of Devotion,” which featured a talk by Gerhard Lutz; Reed O’Mara led an online session on Jewish Women in the Middle Ages; Sarah Frisbie organized two sessions on medieval graffiti; and Prof. Gertsman put together two sessions on medieval materialities, one of which featured Zoe Appleby’s paper on Palermo’s lava stones. Tess Artis, Cecily, Sarah, and Rebekkah also presented papers in various sessions: on the CMA’s macabre double portrait, on sacrament niches, on the Beatus apocalypse, and on the seven sacraments fonts, respectively. Claudia Haines, Anna Farber, Rachel Sweeney as well as Sarah, Rebekkah, and Cecily helped prof. Gertsman run a day-long set of Immersive Realms HoloLens demos, brought to Kalamazoo by the fabulous Peter Gao and Anna Faxon. The gang was joined, at various times, by the alumni Laura Rybicki and Julia LaPlaca, and KSL’s digital preservation librarian and an avid member of GAMS Alyssa Pierce. And the famous book exhibit was greatly enriched by the presence of Nikki DeLuca’s freshly published book on shadows in medieval manuscripts!

Read more

Read More

The Department of Art History and Art is delighted to announce the hire of Dr. Rachel Quist, who will be joining CWRU in the fall. Dr. Quist specializes in Buddhist visual culture of medieval Japan, and is especially interested in the interactions between Buddhist icons, their worshipers, and their natural environs. She received her doctoral degree from the University of Kansas with the  dissertation “Forging Bonds through Icons and Ritual: Imperial Patronage of Daigoji,” which illuminates the centrality of sculptural icons within the complex interplay of medicinal rituals, imperial politics, and the cosmic worldview of premodern Japan.

Read more

Read More

Join us for the Provost’s Forum for Breaking Boundaries, where Professor Elina Gertsman and Maggie Popkin will present their ground-breaking research into mixed-reality modeling and their collaborative work with institutions across campus! More information on the event here.

Read more

Read More

Diekhoff Nominations Announced

Congratulations to Prof. Elina Gertsman and Prof. Maggie Popkin who were both nominated for the 2024-2025 John S. Diekhoff Award for Distinguished Graduate Student Mentoring/Teaching! The award, created in 1978, recognizes exceptional contributions to graduate student education at CWRU through exemplary advising, teaching, and mentoring.  Up to four winners...

Read more

Read More

Medieval Academy Round-Up, Part I

Several grad students joined Prof. Gertsman at the Medieval Academy of America’s centennial meeting at Harvard University.  Cecily Hughes delivered an award-winning paper in the session on Scandinavian art (more on that separately!). Claudia Haines reports that she had the opportunity to hear several fascinating papers (on topics ranging from the integration of music into the social fabric of thirteenth-century Lille, to the diaphanous pages of the Lindisfarne Gospels, to the construction of identity in Scandinavian literature, to narratives of enslavement in Iberia, and beyond), visit many of Boston’s fabulous libraries and museums, reconnect with familiar colleagues and meet new ones—all in all, it was a hugely enriching experience! Rebekkah Hart, in her capacity as a member of the MAA Graduate Student Committee, co-organized and co-chaired a panel on working across institutional and disciplinary boundaries. Sarah Frisbie had a wonderful time attending sessions on materiality, optics, and medieval epistemologies, cheering on Prof. Gertsman, Cecily, and Rebekkah, spending her lunch breaks in the Harvard Art Museums, and eating more than one cannoli. Anna Farber, for whom the MAA was her first conference, says that all the sessions, panels, and gallery visits she attended significantly improved her understanding of the diverse methodologies and subjects with which other medievalists are engaging in the field. Tess Artis, who presented her paper, “Prudent Giving: A Gold Girdle Book and the Rise of the Crokes Under Henry VIII,” at the RSA – held at the same time in the same city – nevertheless made her way to Cambridge to partake in several sessions. And Prof. Gertsman organized and chaired a session on “Form, Thought, and the Pleasure of Looking,” which featured Herbert Kessler, (Johns Hopkins), Megan McNamee (Edinburgh), Jeffrey Hamburger (Harvard), and Vincent Debiais (EHESS).

Read more

Read More

Tracing Jewish Histories Program is up!

We are tremendously proud to announce the Tracing Jewish Histories symposium, co-organized by Reed O’Mara, with sessions introduced and chaired by several of our graduate students! See the full program here.

Works of art and architecture made by or for Jewish communities in the medieval period are often examined through the lenses of persecution and expulsion, or are contrasted against Christian or Muslim “styles.” This symposium seeks to expand and nuance these narratives in order to highlight how works of art and architecture can uniquely trace the history of particular Jewish communities by mapping their movements and traditions across generations and geographies. Medieval Jewish objects and spaces can also serve as loci to examine ideas related to collective memory and cultural identity. To that end, the symposium seeks to open new dialogues regarding the “afterlives” of medieval Jewish art more broadly, initiating discussions regarding the ways in which works of art and architecture continued to bear witness to the richness of Jewish life and culture long after they were created.

Organised by Laura Feigen and Reed O’Mara, this symposium is supported by Sam Fogg and the Mellon Foundation with additional support from The Department of Art History and Art at Case Western Reserve University.

Read more