Erin Campbell

PhD University of Toronto
Associate Professor
Early Modern European Art

Fine Arts Building 135
By appointment| Phone 250-721-7944
erinjc@uvic.ca

Areas of Research

• Early Modern European art and material culture, including cross-cultural connections
• Home and the Material culture of the Early Modern domestic interior
• Cultural representations of the life stages and old age
• Gender and aging
• Aging and aesthetics
• Materiality and object studies that explore interconnections between art history, anthropology, and sociology
• Word & Image
• Art Theory and Criticism of Early Modern Europe

Courses

2012-2013
HA 241: The Image of the Artist
HA 343A: The 18th Century in Italy
HA 345: People and Things in the Early Modern Domestic Interior

2011-2012
HA 241: The Image of the Artist
HA 339: The 16th Century in Europe
HA 342A: Art and Material Culture of Italy 1550-1700
HA 345: People and Things in the Early Modern Domestic Interior
HA 447/545: Advanced Seminar on Early Modern Art: The Material Culture of the Early Modern Domestic Interior

2010-2011
HA 342A: Art and Material Culture of Italy 1550-1700
HA 342B: Art and Material Culture of Holland in the 17th century
HA 343A: The 18th Century in Italy
HA 447/545: Advanced Seminar on Early Modern Art: The Material Culture of the Early Modern Domestic Interior

Brief Biography

Erin fell in love with Europe and the art of Titian, Caravaggio, and Rembrandt while studying art history at the University of Toronto. She spent part of her MA program at Kommos, Crete, under the direction of Joseph Shaw, excavating a Minoan road and cataloguing pottery and was determined to pursue a career in Bronze Age archaeology. However, her keen interest in European art was rekindled during the PhD program by Philip Sohm, and while doing research in Venice, Florence, and Rome for her PhD dissertation on Italian art theory and criticism, she developed a passion for Italy that continues unabated. Today, her research takes her to museums, libraries, and conferences in Britain, Europe and North America, where she has been fortunate to meet scholars and students from around the world. An award winning teacher and researcher, Erin’s current research, on the Early Modern domestic interior, allows her to revive her love of archaeology and material culture by studying the objects that surrounded families during one of the most tumultuous periods in European history. Her research appears in a number of journals and essay collections, including Renaissance Quarterly, Sixteenth Century Journal, Word & Image, and The Cultural Aesthetics of Eighteenth-Century Porcelain (Ashgate: 2010). Erin is also editor and contributing author of the book Growing Old in Early Modern Europe: Cultural Representations (Ashgate: 2006). Her current book project: “Prophets, Saints, and Matriarchs: Portraits of Old Women in Early Modern Italy,” is funded by a SSHRC Standard Research Grant, and the related “Home Project” is designed to foster research at the University of Victoria on the Early Modern European domestic interior.

Selected Professional Achievements

Awards, Grants, and Fellowships

2011— Nelson Prize: Best ms submitted to Renaissance Quarterly in 2010
2010 — Faculty of Fine Arts Excellence in Teaching Award
2009-2012 — SSHRC Standard Research Grant                                       
2009 — Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, Faculty Fellowship

Books

Growing Old in Early Modern Europe: Cultural Representations. Editor and contributing author. Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2006.

Articles and Book Chapters

“Prophets, Saints, and Matriarchs: Portraits of Old Women in Early Modern Italy.” Renaissance Quarterly. 63.3 (Fall 2010): 807-849.

“‘Old Wives’ and Art in Early Modern Bologna,” in Jacqueline Murray and Konrad Eisenbichler, eds, To Have and To Hold: Marriage in Premodern Europe 1200-1700. Toronto: The Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies. [forthcoming]

“Balancing Act: Displaying Imported Porcelain in Eighteenth-Century Venice,” in Michael Yonan and Alden Cavanaugh, eds, The Cultural Aesthetics of Eighteenth-Century Porcelain, 107-118. Ashgate Publishing Ltd: 2010.

“‘Unenduring’ Beauty: Gender and Old Age in Early Modern Art and Aesthetic Theory,” in Erin Campbell, ed., Growing Old in Early Modern Europe: Cultural Representations, 154-167. Ashgate Publishing Limited: 2006.

“Creativity Across the Lifecourse? Titian, Michelangelo and Older Artist Narratives,” co-authored with Stephen Katz (Professor, Dept. of Sociology, Trent University), in Stephen Katz, Cultural Aging: Essays on Lifestyle, Lifecourse and Senior Worlds, 101-117.Broadview Press: 2005.

“Old Age and the Politics of Judgment in Titian’s Allegory of Prudence.” Word & Image 19 (Oct.-Dec. 2003), 261-270.

“The Art of Aging Gracefully: The Elderly Artist as Courtier in Early Modern Art Theory and Criticism,” Sixteenth Century Studies Journal XXXIII (Summer 2002), 321-331.

“The Gendered Paragone in Late Sixteenth-Century Art Theory: Francesco Bocchi and Pontormo's S. Lorenzo Frescoes,” Word & Image 16 (July-September 2000), 227-238.

Recent Conference Presentations

“Clothing and Culture: Comparative Perspectives on Adornment in Early Modern Italy.” The Unexpected Mediterranean Symposium, University of Victoria, March 2011.

“‘Gli ornamenti delle donne:’ Artifice and Old Age in the Early Modern Domestic Interior.” Renaissance Society of America Conference, Montreal, March 2011.

“Art and the Stages of Life in the Early Modern Bolognese Domestic Interior.” Renaissance Society of America Conference, Venice, April 2010.

“Prophets, Saints, and Matriarchs: Portraits of Old Women in Early Modern Italy.” Universities Arts Association of Canada Conference, University of Alberta, October 2009.

“Piccole Paintings for the Home: Women and the Market for Cabinet Pictures in Seventeenth-Century Bologna.” College Art Association Conference, Los Angeles, February 2009.