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:
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.)