Joost Keizer's research focuses on how artists in Europe in the early modern era (1500-1800) dealt with nature. This is an important question because it was precisely during this period that the natural environment in Europe went through drastic changes. Forests and inland waters disappeared, for instance, and the changing composition of air was considered. At the same time, European knowledge of nature broadened to include that of the Americas.
In response to these broad developments, Keizer is working on a project on how seventeenth-century Dutch artists dealt with the rapidly changing landscape. Furthermore, Keizer is working on a book focusing on the reorientation of European art history in the second half of the seventeenth century, in which Europeans became familiar with the art histories of Asia and the Americas. Joost Keizer is also developing a method of looking and ‘diagnosing’ art history that is of interest to doctors.
About Joost Keizer
Joost Keizer (Winschoten, 1978) studied Art and Architectural History at the University of Groningen, where he received his master's degree cum laude in 2003. He continued his academic career at Leiden University to carry out his doctoral research. In his thesis ‘History, Origins, Recovery: Michelangelo and the Politics of Art’, Keizer showed that art was used as a political instrument during far-reaching transitions in the Renaissance.
After completing his dissertation in 2008, Keizer worked as a Mellon Postdoc at Columbia University (New York) until 2010. He then joined Yale University (New Haven, CT) as Assistant Professor of Italian Renaissance Art until 2015. After his time in America, Keizer returned to the Netherlands, where he was appointed associate professor of art history (2015-2017) and associate professor of art history (2017-present), both positions at the University of Groningen. Since 2022, he has been a member of the faculty board there as vice-dean.
In his career, Joost Keizer has received several fellowships, including the Rush Kress Postdoctoral Fellowship from Villa I Tatti (Harvard University Centre for Italian Renaissance Studies) and the BildEvidenz Seminar (Freie Universität Berlin). He also created the exhibition ‘Artemisia. Woman and Power’ at the Rijksmuseum Twenthe.