Eric R. Hupe
Degrees
- Ph.D., University of Virginia
- M.A., Washington University in St. Louis
- B.A., Fordham University
Biography
Benvenuto! I am a specialist in Italian Renaissance art. More specifically, I study the relationship of art, optical science, and theology in early modern Italy. My current book project titled, Venetian Perspectives: Art, Optics, and Theology in Renaissance Venice, uses pictorial light as a lens to explore the history of optics and perspective in Venice. Challenging the traditional focus on Renaissance Florence, my study explores the varied techniques by which artists like Giovanni Bellini incorporated this new knowledge into their art and places their artistic practice in conversation with the humanist and theological debates occurring in Venice. My research has appeared in Predella, Source: Notes in the History of Art, and Artibus et Historiae.
In the classroom, I am a big proponent of immersive experience and am working to integrate Virtual Reality technology with my teaching to transport students to the sites we study.
Instagram & Twitter: @profhupe
Research Interests
Italian Renaissance art, Franciscan art, Aesthetic theology, art and science, optics, cross cultural exchange in the early modern period, Venetian Renaissance painting, Virtual Reality and teaching, photogrammetry
Courses Offered
Art102: History of Western Art II (Spring 2022); Art 223: Italian Renaissance Art (Spring 2022); Art224: Baroque and Rococo Art; Art225: Northern Renaissance Art; FYS: Color: A History of Making and Meaning
Selected Publications
- Eric Hupe and Caitlyn Carr, “The Virtual Renaissance: Adopting Virtual Reality to Transform How Art History is Taught,” in Media Technologies and the Digital Humanities in Medieval and Early Modern Studies, eds. Katharine Scherff and Lane Sobehrad, 128-141. New York: Routledge, 2023.
- “The Journey into the Mind of Bellini: Bonaventure and the Frick St. Francis,” Source: Notes in the History of Art 41, no. 1 (2021): 5-13.
- “Giovanni Bellini’s angelus cristallum: Light, Incarnation and the London Agony in the Garden,” Artibus et Historiae 42, no. 84 (2021): 51-66.
- “In the Midst of a Cloud: Giovanni Bellini and the Optics of the Resurrection,” Predella: Journal of Visual Art, Festschrift in honor of Prof. Diane Cole Ahl, no. 47 (2020): 221-234.
- “Michelangelo’s Strozzi Tondo?: Securing Status with Art.” In Michelangelo in the New Millennium, edited by Tamara Smithers, 47-78. Leiden: Brill Press, 2016.
Research Projects
Professor Hupe is the Principal Investigator for ZeuxisVR: Immersive Art History a digital initiative that creates virtual reality environments of art historical sites to advance teaching and research.
Prof. Hupe photoscanning Michelangelo’s New Sacristy in summer 2021.