Jill Burke is British historian, art historian and writer best known for her work on the art and culture of Renaissance Italy.
She is Professor of Renaissance Visual and Material Culture in the University of Edinburgh School of History, Classics and Archaeology . [1] [2] Her work has appeared in The Guardian [3] and The Daily Telegraph, [4] and BBC Radio 4 [5]
Burke was born in Leeds, UK and studied at Benton Park School. She completed her undergraduate studies in Modern History at Trinity College Oxford, then went on to an MA and then PhD at Courtauld Institute of Art.
She was a postdoctoral fellow at Villa I Tatti, the Harvard University Center for Italian Renaissance research 2000-1 and joined History of Art at the University of Edinburgh as a Research Fellow in 2003, then going on to becoming a lecturer, senior lecturer and chair at Edinburgh College of Art after the 2011 merger between the two institutions. She moved to the History department in 2023. [6]
In art history, the High Renaissance was a short period of the most exceptional artistic production in the Italian states, particularly Rome, capital of the Papal States, and in Florence, during the Italian Renaissance. Most art historians state that the High Renaissance started between 1490 and 1500, and ended in 1520 with the death of Raphael, although some say the High Renaissance ended about 1525, or in 1527 with the Sack of Rome by the mutinous army of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, or about 1530. The best-known exponents of painting, sculpture and architecture of the High Renaissance include Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Bramante. In the 21st century, the use of the term has been frequently criticized by some academic art historians for oversimplifying artistic developments, ignoring historical context, and focusing only on a few iconic works.
Dame Winifred Mary Beard is an English classicist specialising in Ancient Rome. She is a trustee of the British Museum and formerly held a personal professorship of classics at the University of Cambridge. She is a fellow of Newnham College, Cambridge, and Royal Academy of Arts Professor of Ancient Literature.
Lisa Anne Jardine was a British historian of the early modern period.
Lavinia Fontana was an Italian Mannerist painter active in Bologna and Rome. She is best known for her successful portraiture, but also worked in the genres of mythology and religious painting. She was trained by her father, Prospero Fontana. She is regarded as the first female career artist in Western Europe, as she relied on commissions for her income. Her family relied on her career as a painter, and her husband served as her agent and raised their 11 children. She was perhaps the first female artist to paint female nudes, but this is a topic of controversy among art historians.
In culture, a "fig leaf" or "fig-leaf" is a literal or figurative method of obscuring an act or object considered embarrassing or distasteful with something of innocuous appearance. The use of an actual fig leaf for the purpose originates in Western painting and sculpture, where leaves would be used by the artist themselves or by later censors in order to hide the genitalia of a subject. Use of the fig plant in particular came about as a Biblical reference to the Book of Genesis, in which Adam and Eve used fig leaves to cover their nudity after eating the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Andrew Michael Graham-Dixon is a British art historian, art critic, author and broadcaster. He is best known for his work as chief art critic at The Independent and The Telegraph newspapers, and for presenting numerous art documentaries for the BBC, as well as five series of Italy Unpacked - in which he explored the culture and cuisine of Italy with chef Giorgio Locatelli. Graham-Dixon currently lectures all over the world; hosts private art tours; writes for various journals; creates online content for his website and YouTube channel, and creates video and written content for Sotheby's. He is writing a book about the life and work of Vermeer, which is due to be published in 2025.
The Portrait of a Young Woman is a painting by the Italian High Renaissance master Raphael, made between 1518 and 1519. It is in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Palazzo Barberini, Rome.
The Sleeping Venus, also known as the Dresden Venus, is a painting traditionally attributed to the Italian Renaissance painter Giorgione, although it has long been widely thought that Titian completed it after Giorgione's death in 1510. The landscape and sky are generally accepted to be mainly by Titian. In the 21st century, much scholarly opinion has shifted further, to see the nude figure of Venus as also painted by Titian, leaving Giorgione's contribution uncertain. It is in the Gemäldegalerie, Dresden. After World War II, the painting was briefly in possession of the Soviet Union.
The nude, as a form of visual art that focuses on the unclothed human figure, is an enduring tradition in Western art. It was a preoccupation of Ancient Greek art, and after a semi-dormant period in the Middle Ages returned to a central position with the Renaissance. Unclothed figures often also play a part in other types of art, such as history painting, including allegorical and religious art, portraiture, or the decorative arts. From prehistory to the earliest civilizations, nude female figures were generally understood to be symbols of fertility or well-being.
Wendy McMurdo specialises in photography and digital media. In 2018 she was named as one of the Hundred Heroines, an award created by the Royal Photographic Society to showcase global female photographic practice.
The Venetian painter Titian and his workshop made at least six versions of the same composition showing Danaë, painted between about 1544 and the 1560s. The scene is based on the mythological princess Danaë, as – very briefly – recounted by the Roman poet Ovid, and at greater length by Boccaccio. She was isolated in a bronze tower following a prophecy that her firstborn would eventually kill her father. Although aware of the consequences, Danaë was seduced and became pregnant by Zeus, who, inflamed by lust, descended from Mount Olympus to seduce her in the form of a shower of gold.
Afua Hirsch FRSL is a British writer and broadcaster. She has worked as a journalist for The Guardian newspaper, and was the Social Affairs and Education Editor for Sky News from 2014 until 2017. She is the author of the 2018 book Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging, receiving a Jerwood Award while writing it. Hirsch was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2024.
Deborah Janet Howard, is a British art historian and academic. Her principal research interests are the art and architecture of Venice and the Veneto; the relationship between Italy and the Eastern Mediterranean, and music and architecture in the Renaissance. She is Professor Emerita of Architectural History in the Faculty of Architecture and History of Art, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge.
Marjorie Elizabeth Cropper is a British-born art historian with a special interest in Italian and French Renaissance and Baroque art and art literature. Dean of the National Gallery of Art’s Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) from December 2000 through May 2020, she previously held positions as Professor of Art History at Johns Hopkins University and director of the university’s Charles S. Singleton Center for Italian Studies at Villa Spelman in Florence.
Helen Hills is a British art historian and academic. She was appointed Anniversary Reader of Art History at the University of York in 2005 and promoted to Professor of History of Art in 2008, making her the first woman professor of Art History there.
David Edward Hemsoll FSA is a British art and architectural historian, specialising in Renaissance art and architecture, especially that of Rome, Florence, and Venice. He has published numerous catalogue essays and books that address architectural theory and the methodology of architectural design. He is currently (2020) Senior Lecturer in the Department of Art History, Curating and Visual Studies at the University of Birmingham.
Aimee Ng is a Canadian art historian, curator, author, and podcaster. She is a specialist in Italian Renaissance art and currently serves as a curator at The Frick Collection, in New York City.
Tamar Herzig is an Israeli historian of Early Modern Europe who specializes in religious, social, minorities, and gender history, with a focus on Renaissance Italy. She is the Konrad Adenauer Professor of Comparative European History at Tel Aviv University and since 2021 also serves as the Vice Dean for Research of the Faculty of Humanities.
Whitewashing in art is the practice of altering the racial identity of historical and mythological figures in art as a part of a larger pattern of erasing and distorting the histories and contributions of non-whites. It mirrors the racial biases and prejudices of those times, which continue to impact society today. It encompasses various facets reflecting historical biases.