J. Vanessa Lyon

Vanessa Lyon teaches early modern art with an emphasis on gender, historiography, and cross-cultural relationships in Spanish, Flemish, and British visual representation (circa 1400-1700). Her publications include an article exploring exegesis in a late medieval Burgundian manuscript commissioned by Margaret of York (Word & Image, 2009), and most recently, "Full of Grace: Lactation, Expression and Colorito in some Early Works by Rubens" (forthcoming). While an undergraduate participant in the ACM Florence Program, Professor Lyon developed an enduring fascination with Renaissance and Baroque painting that led to subsequent study in Madrid, Venice, and London. For a book project provisionally titled: 'Reynolds after Rubens,' she is currently investigating the legacy of Flemish painting in British art and art writing from roughly 1620-1790. This study brings together Lyon's diverse teaching and research interests in portraiture, aesthetic theory, allegory and the 'Baroqueness' of artists such as Titian,Van Dyck, Velázquez, and Hogarth. A former appraiser of decorative arts for a Chicago auction house, she has received fellowships and awards from the Fulbright Commission, Foreign Language Area Studies (FLAS), and the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain's Ministry of Culture and American Universities, among others. Prior to her arrival at Grinnell, Professor Lyon taught art history at the University of California at Berkeley and Reed College.