Eliza Garrison
Professor of History of Art & Architecture and Department Chair
- Office
- Mahaney Arts Center 213
- Tel
- (802) 443-5296
- egarriso@middlebury.edu
- Office Hours
- Fall Term 2024- Monday 3:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m., Tuesday & Thursday 3:45 p.m., -4:45 p.m., and by appointment
Eliza Garrison’s research focuses on the art of the Carolingian and Ottonian Empires, the historiography of medieval art, and on the importance of copies, copying, and simulative practices in the Early Middle Ages. She is also broadly interested in processes of political representation, theories of portraiture, and the incorporation of spolia into medieval art objects. Her work has appeared in Word & Image, the Oxford Art Journal, Gesta, Peregrinations, and Postmedieval Forum. Her first book, Ottonian Imperial Art and Portraiture: The Artistic Patronage of Otto III and Henry II, appeared in 2012 with Ashgate. A second book dealing with the simulative qualities of Ottonian artworks is in the works.
Courses Taught
FYSE 1032
Bayeux Tapestry
Course Description
Models, Contexts, and Afterlives of the Bayeux Tapestry
In this course we will look closely at the late eleventh-century Bayeux Tapestry (also known as the Bayeux Embroidery), examining its historical and literary sources, the details of its creation, and its reverberations throughout the arts of the medieval and modern eras. We will also consider how this embroidered textile entangled its medieval and modern viewers in the stories it tells and those it avoids. We will discover that it can tell us much about attitudes toward gender and masculinity, the taming of the natural world, and the terrors of war. Hands-on assignments will familiarize us with some of the techniques and materials used to create this monument of medieval European Art History.
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0100
Intro to Global Visual Culture
Course Description
An Introduction to Global Visual Culture
This course is an introduction to the visual cultures of the world, with an emphasis on how images, objects, and monuments are made, experienced, exchanged, and used by groups of people with diverse religious, socio-economic, and cultural backgrounds. We will focus on themes that have been taken up by different cultures and adapted over time, such as monumentality, the sacred, embodiment, science, and technology. Through a close study of these themes, we will consider how materials, cultures, and histories are transformed and negotiated through making and viewing works of art. In the process, we will challenge the art historical canon by shedding light on marginalized periods, regions, and artworks. 2 hrs. lect./1 hr. disc.
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0214
Northern Renaissance Art
Course Description
Northern Renaissance Art: The Rhetoric of the Real
This course will provide students with an overview of art objects created in a variety of media in Northern Europe between the 15th and 16th centuries. We will analyze the changing uses of art in cultures where people defined themselves and the depths of their piety in relation to their material wealth and social standing. During the last few weeks of the semester, the class will look at the emergence of genre painting and the representation of peasant life. We will consider how these phenomena were tied to the histories and careers of individual artists and their workshops. General questions will include: How does the convincing representation of "reality" make for a persuasive image? What are the benefits of fusing secular and religious subject matter? Is it valid to speak of a new artistic self-awareness? 3 hrs. lect.
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0219
Current
Early Medieval &Romanesque Art
Course Description
Understanding Early Medieval and Romanesque Art: Seeing Ste. Foy
This course is an introduction to key artworks and architectural monuments made and built in Europe during the eighth through twelfth centuries. We will study such structures as Charlemagne's Palace Chapel and the reliquary statue of Ste. Foy at Conques to explore how these monuments were products of independent cultures that valued the creation of a visual fusion between the Judeo-Christian God and humankind. Likely lines of inquiry include: the persistence of a Classical ideal and its myriad adaptations; the coordination of art objects to specific locations; and, not least, the self-conscious staging of political and ecclesiastical power. 3 hrs lect.
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0251
Upcoming
Court, Castle, & Cathedral
Course Description
Court, Castle, and Cathedral: The Gothic World
This survey course will consider closely the major architectural monuments of the Gothic period in Western Europe, using them as a point of departure in a larger consideration of the artistic culture of this time. In looking at Gothic art and architecture, the class will ask some of the following questions: How were buildings embedded in the promotion of distinct political programs? How do liturgical considerations determine the shapes of buildings and sites? How can we track the emergence of a non-Christian "other" in art of all media? How can we characterize the visual and intellectual culture of "courtly love"? 3 hrs. lect.
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0257
Bayeux Tapestry
Course Description
The Bayeux Tapestry: Models, Contexts, and Afterlives
In this course we will take a close look at the late eleventh-century Bayeux Tapestry (also known as the Bayeux Embroidery), examining its historical and literary models, the details of its creation, and its varied reverberations throughout the arts of the medieval and modern eras. Along the way, we will consider how this 230-foot long embroidered textile entangled its medieval and modern viewers in the stories it tells and those it avoids. We will discover that it offers much food for thought in relation to issues of gender and masculinity in the European Middle Ages, the representation of the Other, the visualization of disability, the taming of the natural world, and the terrors and banalities of war. Hands-on assignments will familiarize us with some of the techniques and materials used to create this monument of medieval European Art History. No prerequisites. Some familiarity with art history and/or medieval history helpful but not required. (Not open to students who have taken FYSE 1032) 3 hours lct/disc.
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0301
Ways of Seeing
Course Description
Ways of Seeing
In this course we will focus on the various methods and theories that can enrich and deepen our understanding of art, architecture, and visual culture. Students will hone their analytical skills, both verbal and written, often with recourse to objects from the College Museum and the campus at large. In general, this seminar will develop students’ awareness of objects of culture broadly construed, and sharpen their understanding of the scope and intellectual history of the field. To be taken during the sophomore or junior year as a prerequisite for HARC 0710 and HARC 0711. 3 hrs. sem.
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0306
Upcoming
Medieval Manuscripts
Course Description
Materiality and Meaning in Medieval Manuscripts
Before the invention of the printing press in the middle of the fifteenth century, all books were written by hand, a manual process that informed the term “manuscript.” The most luxurious of medieval manuscripts were illuminated with all manner of images, and these, along with the books themselves, were often understood as embodiments of divine wisdom. In this seminar we will consider medieval manuscripts as artworks and study the history of medieval manuscript illumination. Along the way, we will analyze the functions of various types of texts, learn about the rich relationships between text and image, consider the emergence of silent reading, and study the diverse audiences for medieval books. Over the course of the roughly one thousand years that we will cover in this course, we will see the book change from a mysterious receptacle of sacred wisdom to a commodity created for a mass market. 3 hrs. sem.
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0353
Medieval Bodies
Course Description
Medieval Bodies
In this seminar we will examine how medieval European thinkers and artists theorized and visualized the body in ways that are vastly different from the ways in which the body is conceptualized today. Indeed, the “medieval body” was not a monolithic entity, but rather a shifting constellation of ideas and practices that waxed, waned, and coexisted throughout the Middle Ages. A body could be understood as an earthly body — sexed, fleshly, corruptible — as well as a heavenly and divine body, including Christ’s own. Our considerations will further contextualize representations of gendered, racialized, clerical, monstrous, animal, virginal, non-Christian, heretical, resurrected, and uncircumscribable bodies. Readings of the secondary literature will broaden readings of primary source materials, and our discussions will remain cognizant of gender-, sexuality-, race-, and performance-critical methods. There are no prerequisites for this course, but students will find it helpful to have some familiarity with either the history of art or with medieval history. 3hrs sem.
Terms Taught
Requirements
HARC 0510
Upcoming
Advanced Studies
Course Description
Advanced Studies
Supervised independent work in art history, museum studies, or architectural studies. (Approval Required)
Terms Taught
HARC 0710
Current
Senior Thesis Research Seminar
Course Description
Senior Thesis Research Seminar
In this course students will conceive, undertake research, and plan the organization of their senior thesis in art history or senior museum studies projects. Seminar discussions and workshops will focus on research strategies, conventions in art historical writing, project design, and public presentation skills. (HARC 0301; Approval Required) 3 hr. sem.
Terms Taught
Publications
Book, Ottonian Imperial Art and Portraiture: The Artistic Patronage of Otto III and Henry II (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2012; Second Edition, Routledge, 2017)
Co-editor and contributing author, Naked Truth: Approaches to the Body in Early Twentieth Century German-Austrian Art, ed. Richard Saunders, Eliza Garrison, Bettina Matthias, and James Van Dyke (Middlebury: University Press of New England, 2015)
- Essay entitled “States of the Body in the Work of George Grosz and Otto Dix,” 49-59
Journal Articles
Article, “Mimetic Bodies: Repetition, Replication, and Simulation in the Marriage Charter of Empress Theophanu,” Word & Image vol. 33, no. 2 (2017): 212-232
Article, “A Curious Commission: The Reliquary of St. Servatius in Quedlinburg,” Gesta, volume 49, number 1 (2010): 17-29
Article, “Otto III at Aachen,” Peregrinations, volume 3, number 1 (Summer 2010): 83-137
Article, “Ottonian Art and its Afterlife: Revisiting Percy Ernst Schramm’s Portraiture Idea,” Oxford Art Journal, volume 32, number 2 (June 2009): 205-222
Book Chapters
Chapter, “Motion and Time in the Egbert Psalter,” in Imago libri: Les représentations carolingiennes du livre, ed. Charlotte Denoël, Anne-Orange Poilpré, and Sumi Shimahara (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018), 163-171
Chapter, “Engaging the Lothar Cross,” in Engaging the Passion, ed. Larry Yarbrough (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015), 239-246
Chapter, “Henry II’s renovatio in the Pericope Book and Regensburg Sacramentary,” in The White Mantle of Churches: Architecture, Liturgy and Art Around the Millennium, ed. Nigel Hiscock (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003), 57-79
Forthcoming
Chapter co-written with Evan Gatti, “A Reliquary Revisited: The Saint Servatius Casket and its Contexts,” for publication in A Companion to the Abbey of Quedlinburg in the Middle Ages, ed. Karen Blough, under contract with Brill
Chapter, “The Golden Spaces of the Uta Codex (Munich: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, CLM 13601),” for publication in Illuminating Metalwork: Metal, Object, and Image in Medieval Manuscripts, eds. Joseph Ackley and Shannon Wearing, in preparation