• Paul, Benjamin
  • Position: Associate Professor
  • Ph.D. Harvard University
  • Phone: (848) 932-1203
  • Office Hours: On Leave
  • Office Location: 60 College Ave., Rm 101A

Biographical Information:

Benjamin Paul is a specialist in Italian Renaissance art, focusing on Venetian architecture and painting of the early 16th century. His recent publications include the book Nuns and Reform Art in Early Modern Venice: The Architecture of Santi Cosma e Damiano and its Decoration from Tintoretto to Tiepolo (London, 2012) and the edited volume Celebrazione e autocritica. La Serenissima e la ricerca dell’identità veneziana nel tardo Cinquecento (Rome, 2014). In the latter appeared the study “’Convertire in se medesimo questo flagello’: autocritica del Doge Alvise Mocenigo nel bozzetto di Tintoretto per il dipinto votivo a Palazzo Ducale.” Paul is also working on the tombs of the doges of Venice, on which he is currently editing a volume with the proceedings of a conference he organized. On that topic he recently published the article “Les tombeaux des doges vénitiens: de l’autocélébration dans une République,” in Mémoire monarchique et la construction de l’Europe. Les Funérailles princières en Europe, XVIe-XVIIIe siècle. 2. Apothéoses monumentales, ed. Juliusz A. Chrościcki, Mark Hengerer, and Gérard Sabatier (Rennes, 2013), pp. 159-178. His next book project deals with Venetian art in the aftermath of the Battle of Lepanto (1571) and is entitled “The Agency of Art in the Crisis of Late Sixteenth-Century Venice.”

Paul is also a critic writing on contemporary art in journals such as Artforum and Springerin. His most recent publications include “Ghosts of History,” in  John Sparagana: Crowds & Powder (Chicago, 2013) and “Constructive Destruction: On Arturo Herrera’s Books,” in ArTuro Herrera: Books (Chicago, 2013). He also curated Wolfgang Tillmans: Still life (exh.cat., Harvard  University Art Museums, 2002), the first solo exhibition of the German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans in the US.


Current Interests & Research:

Ducal tombs
Semiotics of Style
Art and Reform
Tintoretto
Artistic exchange between Venice and Rome

Undergraduate Classes Taught:

Venice
High Renaissance in Italy
Titian
Venetian rivals: Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese
Methodologies of Art History

Graduate Classes Taught:

Images of Disasters
Italian Tomb Sculpture
Art and Reform in Early Modern Italy
Methodologies of Art History

Books:

paul

Celebrazione e autocritica: La Serenissima e la ricerca dell’identità veneziana nel tardo Cinquecento. Venetiana 14, edited by Benjamin Paul (Rome, 2014).

Nuns and Religious Reform in Early Modern Venice: the Architecture of the Benedictine Convent of Santi Cosma e Damiano and its Decoration from Tintoretto to Tiepolo, London, 2012.

Select Publications:

“’Convertire in se medesimo questo flagello’: autocritica del Doge Alvise Mocenigo nel bozzetto di Tintoretto per il dipinto votivo a Palazzo Ducale,” in Celebrazione e autocritica: La Serenissima e la ricerca dell’identità veneziana nel tardo Cinquecento. Venetiana 14, edited by Benjamin Paul (Rome, 2014), pp. 123-156.

“Les tombeaux des doges vénitiens: de l’autocélébration dans une République,” in Mémoire monarchique et la construction de l’Europe. Les Funérailles princières en Europe, XVIe-XVIIIe siècle. 2. Apothéoses monumentales, ed. Juliusz A. Chrościcki, Mark Hengerer, and Gérard Sabatier (Rennes, 2013), pp. 159-178.

“Ghosts of History,” in John Sparagana: Crowds & Powder (Chicago, 2013), pp. 3-10.

“Constructive Destruction: On Arturo Herrera’s Books,” in Arturo Herrera: Books (Chicago, 2013), pp. 3-6.

"Auf Distanz," in Marc Bauer, ed. Roland Wäspe, Heidelberg 2011, pp. 55-60. (reprint of "Viewing Distance," Artforum International [January 2011], pp. 43-45.)

 Longer List of Publications


  • Short Bio: Benjamin Paul teaches Italian Renaissance art at Rutgers, with a focus on Venice. His book Nuns and Reform Art in Early Modern Venice. The architecture of Santi Cosma e Damiano and its Decoration from Tintoretto to Tiepolo appeared in 2012. In addition, he has published an edited volume on the crisis in late sixteenth-century Venice (Celebrazione e autocritica. La Serenissima e la ricerca dell’identità veneziana nel tardo Cinquecento, 2014) and another on the tombs of the doges (The Tombs of the Doges of Venice from the Beginning of the Serenissima to 1907, 2016). Currently he is writing a monograph on Jacopo Tintoretto and another book entitled The Agency of Art in the Crisis of late Cinquecento Venice. Paul also works as a curator and critic. In 2001, he has organized an exhibition of Wolfgang Tillmans’ still life photographs and he is a regular contributor to Artforum.