Thomas Denman.

Member since Nov 2019

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Details

Key area of interest

History

Keywords

Contemporary art, art criticism, art thory, History of Art, History, Italian, Renaissance, Vasari, Michelangelo, Baroque, Caravaggio, Europe

My background

I have a broad and long-held interest in art history and visual culture, having completed my Ph.D. on Caravaggio and Italian Baroque painting in 2017. I am available to tutor university students in the history of European art of the Renaissance and early modern periods (1400-1800). I will also consider any requests outside of this remit, so please feel free to contact me. I am also available to tutor anyone who needs help at secondary school level, in which case I'd be happy to cover any area of art history and contemporary art to help the student get through his or her exams and essays.

Experience

While I was completing my doctorate, I taught a class to undergraduates at the University of Reading on the writings of the Italian artist and biographer, Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574). In this class we discussed the text and publication history of Vasari's famous compendium of biographies, The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects (first published in 1550; republished, enlarged and revised in 1568), what is generally considered one of the first works of art history. We discussed the ideology behind Vasari's text, considering the author's aesthetic ideals and allegiance to the Medici rulers of Florence, studying the text alongside the work of the more eminent painters about whom he wrote, such as Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello, Giotto, Cimabue, Leonardo, Mantegna, Bellini, Masaccio and Botticelli. The class also included a trip to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, where we studied the drawings of Michelangelo and Raphael.

Qualifications

My education:

University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom
Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D.), Italian Studies, 2017
Full doctoral award (£40,906), Arts and Humanities Research Council
Dissertation title: ‘Caravaggio in Naples’

Università degli studi di Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy
Visiting doctoral student, May-September, 2013
ERASMUS travel grant (£800)

University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Master of Philosophy (M. Phil.), Early Modern History, 2011
Distinction

University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom
Master of Arts (M. A.), History of Art, 2010
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