Faculty
Professor Perry Chapman received her B.A. in Art History and History from Swarthmore College and her Ph.D. from Princeton University. She served as editor-in-chief of The Art Bulletin from 2000 to 2004. Her field is Northern Baroque art, with a specialization in seventeenth-century Dutch painting. Her book Rembrandt's Self-Portraits: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Identity (Princeton, 1990) examines Rembrandt's representations of himself against the background of early modern notions of individuality. She has published articles on Rembrandt and Jan Steen, on seventeenth-century art theory and biography, and on the artistic impact of the Dutch Revolt. Professor Chapman served as co-curator of the major exhibition Jan Steen: Painter and Storyteller (catalogue: Yale, 1996), at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, in 1996-97. In 1990-91 she was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington, D.C., and in 1993-94 she held a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
In her teaching and research, Professor Chapman utilizes an interdisciplinary approach that links history, literature, politics and religion to related art and artists. Her particular interest in the changing social and intellectual status of artists has led to the creation of a course on the artist's role in society. Many of her courses involve field trips to museums and study in the University Gallery to see original works. Recent seminar topics have included "Approaches to Rembrandt," "Vermeer and Dutch Genre Painting," "Jan Steen and the Comic Mode," "Dutch Painting and the Issue of Realism," "The Home and Dutch Art," and "The Baroque Artist."
