Research Interests

Constellation(s): Agency, Mobility/Exchange, Visual Knowledge

Christopher Nygren’s research examines how the heritage of Christian image-making was reconfigured in the early modern period. His current book project examines Titian’s career-long engagement with the tradition of Christian icon painting. This study couples intense visual analysis with an investigation of the theology and philosophy that underpinned the production of icons in early modern Europe. Examining Titian’s half-length paintings of biblical subject matters within this context demonstrates how Titian sought to leverage his distinctly modern, self-referential style against a Christian understanding of how images operate as conduits for Revelation. He is bringing this book project to conclusion during the summer of 2016. His next book-length project will examine the emergence of paintings on stone in Renaissance Italy.

His teaching encompasses a wide array of themes, periods and geographies including Italian art from 1200-1700, German and Netherlandish Renaissance and Baroque art, and early modern Iberian art. His interest in the materiality of art and religious practice have led him to begin teaching Spanish Baroque art within a global context. This work focus on the frictions – cultural, religious, artistic – created by the enhanced flow of peoples and cultures in the Spanish colonial world.