James Clifton
Director, Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation
Curator, Renaissance and Baroque Painting, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Publications (as of 18 February 2014)
“Modes of Scriptural Illustration: The Beatitudes in the Late Sixteenth Century,” in Imago
exegetica: Visual Images as Exegetical Instruments, 1400-1700, Walter S. Melion, Michel
Weemans, and James Clifton, eds. Intersections: Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern
Culture (Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 545-78.
“Reverberated Enjoyment: Prints, Printmakers,and Publishers in Late-Eighteenth-Century
London,” in American Adversaries: West and Copley in a Transatlantic World, Emily Ballew
Neff and Kaylin Weber, eds., exh. catatlogue (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2013), pp. 50-61.
“A Blessing of Peace to the Humble, Vigilant, and Discerning: The Annunciation to the
Shepherds in the Netherlands around 1600,” in “Wading Lambs and Swimming Elephants”: The
Bible for the Laity and Theologians in the Medieval and Early Modern Era, Wim François and
August den Hollander, eds., Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium (BETL),
257 (Leuven: Peeters, 2012), pp. 297-321.
Elegance and Refinement: The Still-Life Paintings of Willem van Aelst, with Arthur Wheelock, et
al., exh. catalogue (New York: Skira Rizzoli, 2012).
“‘The Most Exquisite Imitation of Reality’: Northern Art and Artists at the Medici Court,” in
Elegance and Refinement: The Still-Life Paintings of Willem van Aelst, exh. cat., Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (New York: Skira Rizzoli, 2012),
pp. 25-35.
“Secret Wisdom: Antoon Wierix’s Engravings of a Carmelite Mystic,” in The Authority of the
Word: Reflecting on Image and Text in Northern Europe, 1400-1700, Celeste Brusati, Karl A.E.
Enenkel, and Walter S. Melion, eds., Intersections: Interdisciplinary Studies in Early Modern
Culture, 20 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), pp. 639-66.
“The Face of a Fiend: Convulsion, Inversion, and the Horror of the Disempowered Body,”
Oxford Art Journal 34:3 (2011), 373-92.
“‘Appositis exemplis, ac sententiis illustrata’: Philips Galle’s Series of the Sacraments and the
Works of Mercy,” in Infant Milk or Hardy Nourishment? The Bible for Lay People and
Theologians in the Modern Period, W. François and A.A. den Hollander, eds., Bibliotheca
Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium (BETL), 221 (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), pp. 297-335.
Scripture for the Eyes: Bible Illustration in Netherlandish Prints of the Sixteenth Century, with
Walter S. Melion, et al., exh. catalogue (London: Giles, 2009).
The Plains of Mars: European War Prints, 1500-1825, from the Collection of the Sarah
Campbell Blaffer Foundation, with Leslie M. Scattone, et al., exh. catalogue (Yale University
Press and Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2009).
“A Lutheran Image on the Title-Page of the Last Bible without a Confessional Label,”
Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses (ETL), 84:1 (2008), 69-86.
“Truly a worship experience? Christian Art in Secular Museums,” Res, no. 52 (Autumn 2007),
107-15.
A Portrait of the Artist, 1525-1825: Prints from the Collection of the Sarah Campbell Blaffer
Foundation, with contributions from Leslie Scattone and Andrew C. Weislogel, exh. catalogue
(Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2005).
“Adriaen Huybrechts, the Wierix Brothers, and Confessional Politics in the Netherlands,” in
Prentwerk 1500-1700, Jan de Jong, Mark Meadow, Bart Ramakers, Frits Scholten, Nederlands
Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, 51 (2001) (Zwolle: Waanders Uitgevers, 2002), pp. 105-25.
“‘Being lustful, he would delight in her beauty’: Looking at Saint Agatha in SeventeenthCentury Italy,” in From Rome to Eternity: Catholicism and the Arts in Italy, ca. 1550-1650,
Pamela M. Jones and Thomas Worcester, eds. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2002), pp. 143-77.
“A Fountain Filled with Blood: Representations of Christ’s Blood from the Middle Ages to the
Eighteenth Century,” in Blood: Art, Power, Politics and Pathology, exh. cat., Frankfurt, Museum
für Angewandte Kunst and Schirn Kunsthalle (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2001), pp. 64-87.
“Gender and Shame in Masaccio’s Expulsion from the Garden of Eden,” Art History, 22 (1999),
637-55.
“‘Let no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink’: A Note on the Iconography of Daniel
Hopfer’s B. 32, the So-called Christ’s Mission to the Apostles,” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte,
61:3 (1998), 395-406.
The Body of Christ in the Art of Europe and New Spain, 1150-1800, with contributions from
David Nirenberg and Linda Elaine Neagley, exh. catalogue (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 1997).
“Vasari on Competition,” The Sixteenth Century Journal, 27:1 (Spring 1996), 23-41.
“‘Ad vivum mire depinxit’: Toward a Reconstruction of Ribera’s Art Theory,” Storia dell’Arte,
no. 83 (1995), 111-32.
“Mattia Preti’s Frescoes for the City Gates of Naples,” The Art Bulletin, 76:3 (September 1994),
479-501.