Ut Pictura Poesis (“As in Painting, So in Poetry”) - Horace, Ars Poetica (1st c. B.C.E.)
April Oettinger
ProfessorArt History
April Oettinger is Professor of Art History and Visual Culture, the Cushing Distinguished Professor of the Humanities, and Director of the Sweren Wogan Institute for the Study of the Book at Goucher College. Her research explores the cultural history of landscape, Venetian Renaissance Art, Renaissance print culture, and the history of science in the early modern era. She is co-editor of Green Worlds in Early Modern Italy. Art and the Verdant Earth (Amsterdam University Press, 2019) and Nature Bodied Forth. Matter and Making in Early Modern Europe (forthcoming, Brill). Her book, Animating Nature. Lorenzo Lotto and the Art of Landscape in Venice, 1500-1550, will be published through Penn State University Press in winter 2027. Grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the Warburg Institute (University of London), the Delmas Foundation, the Renaissance Society of America, the American Philosophical Society, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a Mellon Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Study at the National Gallery have supported her research over the years.
Oettinger chairs the Visual and Material Culture program, launched in 2019. In collaboration with her department colleagues, Goucher’s Special Collections and Archives, Goucher's Exhibitions Program, and colleagues across academic disciplines, the Visual and Material Culture program immerses students in hands-on learning through interdisciplinary exhibitions drawn from Goucher's "rediscovered" Art and Artifact Collection. This initiative has been supported by institutional grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (2021-2023) and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (2024-2025).
Research, Scholarship, Creative Work in Progress
Forthcoming Publications
Animating Nature. Lorenzo Lotto and the Sublime Turn in Venetian Landscape Art. State College, PA: Penn State University Press, 2027.
Nature Bodied Forth: Metaphoric Dialogues between Word and Image; Matter and Making in the 16th Century. Eds. Arthur di Furia, Karen Hope Goodchild, April Oettinger. Leiden: Brill. [Under Contract, In Process]
Green Worlds In Early Modern Italy. Art and the Verdant Earth. Eds. K. Goodchild, A. Oettinger, P. Prosperetti. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019.
Publications
"Holy Nature: In and Beyond the Devotional Sublime in Lorenzo Lotto's San Nicola Altarpiece," in Holy Laboratory: Altars and Sacred Spaces in Venice (ca. 1300-1797). Ed. Lorenzo Buonanno & Gianmario Guidarelli. Turnhout: Brepols. [In Production]
“Women Artists and Artisans in Venice and the Veneto, 1400-1750: Uncovering the Female Presence,” Ed. Tracy Cooper in conjunction with Melissa Conn. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2024, in Woman’s Art Journal, online, April 1, 2025.
“Tintoretto’s Storms,” in Tintoretto e il Paesaggio. Ed. Martina Frank & Gianmario Guidarelli. Venezia: Ca’Foscari/Istituto Veneto, 2024. 149-163.
“Ekphrasis, Landscape Painting, and the Romance of Nature in the Age of Pietro Andrea Mattioli,” in Ekphrasis. Ed. Art di Furia & Walter Melion. Leiden: Brill, 2022. 741-766.
“Rhetorical Ornament and Animated Visions: Lorenzo Lotto and the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili”, ed. Marcello Ciccuto, Humanistica XV.1-2 (2021): 247-266.
"Anthropomorphic Trees and Animated Nature in Lorenzo Lotto's 1509 St. Jerome," in Green Worlds in Early Modern Italy. Art and the Verdant Earth. Eds. K. Goodchild, A. Oettinger, P. Prosperetti. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2019.
John C. McLucas, Leslie Morgan, April Oettinger, Eds., Ariosto 500, in Modern Language Notes, 133.1 (January 2018).
Source: Notes in the History Of Art, 36, nos. 3-4 (Spring/Summer 2017). A double volume dedicated to Paul Barolsky (Commonwealth Professor of Art History, University of Virginia). Eds. April Oettinger & Karen Goodchild.
“Laughter in Paradise and the Spirit of Jest in Lorenzo Lotto’s Santo Spirito Altarpiece,” Source: Notes in the History Of Art, 36, nos. 3-4 (Spring/Summer 2017): 168-177.
“Vision, Voluptas, and the Poetics of Water in Lorenzo Lotto’s Venus and Cupid” Receptions of Antiquity and Constructions of Gender in Renaissance Art, ed. Alison Poe and Marice Rose (Leiden: Brill, 2015): 230-263.
“The Lizard in the Study: Landscape and Otium in Lorenzo Lotto’s Portrait of a Young Man (c. 1530),” Artibus et Historiae, 65.33 (2012): 115-125.
“The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: Art and Play in a Renaissance Romance,” The Journal of Word and Image, 27.1 (2011): 15-30.
“Aby Warburg’s Nymph and the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili: An Episode in the Afterlife of a Renaissance Romance,” Explorations in Renaissance Culture, 32:2 (2006): 225-246.
“Michelangelo’s Snowman and the Art of Snow in Vasari’s Lives,” in Reading Vasari. Ed. Anne Barriault, Andrew Ladis, Norman Land, Jeryldene Wood. Athens, Ga: Georgia Museum of Art, 2005. pp. 203-211.
“An Introduction to the Dreamer and the Dream in the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili,” in Miscellanea Marciana. Vol. XIV (2001): 31-46.
Exhibits or Performances
Exhibitions
Paradise Imagined: The Ideal Landscape in the Christian and Islamic World (June 23-September 30, 2012) *co-curated with Dr. Amy Landau, Assistant Curator of Islamic Art and Manuscripts, Walters Art Museum (Wall Street Journal Review: “Heaven on Earth”)
Visual Education: Selections from the Collections of Goucher College and Sidney and Jean Flah Silber ’54, Silber Art Gallery, Goucher College, September 12 – October 18, 2009. *co-curated with Dr. Gail Husch, Associate Professor, Art History
External Awards, Honors, Grants
2019 Paul Mellon Senior Visiting Fellowship. Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
2018 Gladys Krieble Delmas Research Fellowship. Delmas Foundation Venetian Research Program
2016 Summer Stipend. National Endowment for the Humanities
2015 Franklin Research Grant. American Philosophical Society
2014 Gladys Krieble Delmas Research Fellowship. Delmas Foundation Venetian Research Program
2012 Renaissance Society of America Research Grant, Renaissance Society of America
2002 Gladys Krieble Delmas Research Fellowship, Delmas Foundation Venetian Research Program
2001 Dame Francis Yates Fellowship, Warburg Institute, University of London, UK William Morris Foundation Fellowship
1999 Fulbright Fellowship, Italian Fulbright Commission
Conference Papers & Panel Participation
2026
"Verdant Veils, Material Meditation, and Memory in Lorenzo Lotto’s Portrait of a Young Man (1505)," Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA
2023
“Stormy Weather and Sublime Storytelling in Palma il Vecchio’s Legend of the Fisherman," Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, San Juan, Puerto Rico
“The Artist as Bird Catcher: Avian Poetics, Desire, and Deception in the Art of Lorenzo Lotto," College Art Association Annual Meeting, New York, NY
2022
“Holy Nature: In and Beyond the Devotional Sublime in Lorenzo Lotto’s San Nicola Altarpiece," Renaissance Society of America (Virtual)
2021
“Specimens and the Art of Storytelling in Gherardo Cibo’s Humanist Book of Nature," Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting [Virtual]
2018
“Writing the Land in 16th-Century Italy: Landscape Painting, Poetic Landscapes, and
the Early Modern Naturalists”
Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA
2016
“Of Trees and Transformation in Lorenzo Lotto’s 1509 St. Jerome,” Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, Boston, MA
2014
“Arboreal Exegesis and Forests of Devotion in Lorenzo Lotto’s Designs for the Choir of Santa Maria Maggiore”. Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, New York, NY
2012
“Viticulture, Vision, and Play in Lorenzo Lotto’s Frescos in the Oratorio Suardi at Trescore”, Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, Washington, D.C.
2010
“A Lizard in the Study: Landscape and the Vita Solitaria in Lorenzo Lotto’s Portrait of a Young Man, c. 1530 (Venice, Accademia)”. Contribution of a group of panels in honor of Patricia Fortini Brown, Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, Venice, Italy
2006
“Ekphrasis, Imagination, and the Ideal Palace Interior in 15th-Century Italy.” Contribution to a group of panels that explored “The Early Modern House.” Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA
Invited Talks
2024 “Tintoretto’s Storms,” Johns Hopkins University and Warwick University (Venice Program): Summer Graduate Workshop on the Environmental Humanities
2023 “Tintoretto’s Storms,” Tintoretto e il Paesaggio. Ca’Foscari & Istituto Veneto
2023 “Lorenzo Lotto and Art of Landscape in Renaissance Venice” Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
2019 “Animating Nature. Lorenzo Lotto and the Sublime Turn in Venetian LandscapeArt, 1500-1550," American University, Art History Lecture Series, Washington, D.C.
2016 “Laughter in Paradise: The Spirit of Jest in Lorenzo Lotto’s Santo Spirito Altarpiece, ” Symposium in Honor of Dr. Paul Barolsky, University of Virginia.
2014 “Landscape and Devotion in Lorenzo Lotto’s San Nicola Altarpiece,” Center for Advanced Studies in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C.
2013 “The Hypnerotomachia Poliphi: A Renaissance Romance," Inaugural Lecture, Singleton Center Faculty Affiliates Series," Singleton Center for Studies in Early Modern Europe. The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
2012 “The Virtual City: Renaissance Guidebooks and the Vision of Rome," Hood College Humanities Series, “The Year of the Book,” Frederick, MD
Academic or Professional Associations
National Advisory Council, Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Winston-Salem, NC (2022- )
Founding member, Baltimore Cenacolo, (2010- )
Renaissance Society of America
College Art Association
News
- February 13, 2019
Professor April Oettinger has been appointed a Visiting Senior Fellow at the National Gallery of Art's Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts.