Jas’ Elsner

Jas’ Elsner works on the receptions of Classical and Byzantine art — both in antiquity and in later periods, including in ekphrasis, in travel writing and pilgrimage, in museology and collecting, in the historiography of art history.  Since the modern investments and ideological agendas in relation to ancient art (from canon-formation to ancestral identities) are huge and overdetermined, this has led to a wide-ranging exploration of issues in nineteenth and twentieth century reception in its modern historical contexts.  He has taught at Cambridge, the Courtauld Institute, Oxford and the University of Chicago.