New Studies on Old Masters: Essays in Renaissance Art in Honour of Colin Eisler

The twenty essays in this collection examine critical issues in Renaissance art. Written by students of Colin Eisler, professor at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University for fifty years, and dedicated to him, they serve as a tribute to an exceptional scholar with broad interests and as a reflection of his engagement with technical studies, connoisseurship, cultural exchanges between Italy and northern Europe, and the intersection between art and its religious and cultural contexts. Collectively they highlight how Colin Eisler’s scholarly achievements have inspired and will continue to inspire innovative research into the art of western Europe and beyond.

“This volume in honour of Colin Eisler is worthy of its dedicatee. Its twenty essays reflect the astonishing variety of Professor Eisler’s own scholarship, as well as his great impact as a teacher over a span of over half a century. Diverse interpretive methodologies on topics ranging from technical examination to iconological interpretation demonstrate the interconnectedness of the Renaissance in a way that is rarely achieved in a single volume.” 

-Laurinda Dixon, Syracuse University

“This collection of essays in honour of Colin Eisler reflects the broad range of interests (both north and south of the Alps) characteristic of the dedicatee’s work. It also exemplifies how the careful physical study of works of art and the careful intellectual study of their cultural, ideological, and social contexts can enrich our knowledge. While there is perhaps no single ideal reader (except Eisler himself), this volume will appeal to many Renaissance art historians as well as to historians of religion and of European culture.” 

-Paul H.D. Kaplan, Purchase College, SUNY

JOHN GARTON is Assistant Professor at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts and the author of Grace and Grandeur: The Portraiture of Paolo Veronese (Harvey Miller Publications, 2008).

DIANE WOLFTHAL holds the Minter Endowed Chair in the Humanities at Rice University and has authored several volumes, the most recent of which is In and Out of the Marital Bed: Seeing Sex in Renaissance Art (Yale University Press, 2010).