Michael Grillo

Magister artis historia
Art

Dr. Michael Grillo writes on how Italian fourteenth-century images operate as primary sources that visually articulate ideas inexpressible in any other media, including the verbal realm.

Dr. Grillo received his PhD from Cornell University with a dissertation on Medieval History of Art. He continued this work with his 1997 book, “Symbolic Structures: The Role of Composition in Signalling Meaning in Italian Late Medieval Painting.”  Recent articles include ““Perspective as Structured Memory in the Wake of the Plague”Illuminated Architecture: The Influence of Manuscripts on the Palatine Chapel”, “Broadening the Gene Pool: The Value of the Humanities Future Success”,  and “The David of Michelangelo and Renaissance Neo-Platonism”.  He offers seminars on Fourteenth-Century Epistemology, Medieval and Renaissance Phenomenology, Theory and Practice in Photography, and Documentary Film History, among others.  He is also a practicing photographer, and seeks to explore how aesthetic theories play out directly in application in our world, particularly how photography operates as a cultural specific visual modality.

He directs both the interdisciplinary Medieval and Renaissance Studies minor and the Film and Video minor.

Areas of Expertise

History of Art
Photography
Portrait of Micahel Grillo with Calvin the cat
Magister artis historia