Introducing the OK Art Historian

Who is the OK Art Historian?

My name is Maria Maurer, and, you guessed it, I live and work in the state of Oklahoma. I research, write and teach about gender and sexuality in Renaissance art. I’m particularly interested in art that upsets our preconceptions about the Renaissance, so I write about women as viewers of early modern erotica, mistresses who built chapels in convents, and men who depicted themselves as ardent and tormented lovers. Quite simply, I love the seamy side of the Renaissance.

I started this blog because I wanted to share my love of Renaissance art and erotica with a broader audience. But I’m an also educator, and so I also want to help people understand the past through its images and practices. So many of our own modern preconceptions are rooted in the art and culture of this period, and so I think it is important to consider just what it was that Renaissance people saw when they looked at a nude David or a reclining Venus.

In movies or on TV this period is often characterized as one of refined taste and noble pursuits in which everyone spoke with a polished British accent. On the other hand, infamous families such as the Borgias, the Tudors and even the Medici have been depicted as oversexed libertines who had no compunctions about sleeping with their siblings and murdering anyone who looked at them askance.

But truth is often stranger (and more complicated) than fiction. Read on to see how.