About

Milette Gaifman is the Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Classics and History of Art at Yale University, where she also serves as Department Chair of the History of Art. She received her B.A. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1997 and her Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2005. Prior to her appointment at Yale in September 2005, she was the Hanadiv Fellow and Lecturer in Classical Art and Archaeology at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, during 2004–2005. Her scholarly focus is on ancient art and archaeology, with an emphasis on Greek art of the Archaic and Classical periods. Her research interests include the interaction between visual culture and religion, the variety of artistic forms from naturalistic to non-figural, the interactive traits of different artistic media, and the reception of Greek art in later periods. She also explores the historiography of art history and archaeology disciplines. Gaifman is the author of several significant publications, including 'Aniconism in Greek Antiquity' and 'The Art of Libation in Classical Athens,' and is working on a forthcoming book titled 'A Landmark Through Time: On Classifying Greek Art and Architecture.' She has held various academic honors and visiting positions, including at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, the University of Paris Diderot, and the University of Aberdeen. At Yale, she has served as Chair of the Department of History of Art and has previously been Director of Undergraduate and Graduate Studies in the department. Her work involves advising graduate students on topics related to Greek antiquity, art, architecture, and material culture.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Art history
• Visual arts
• Art
• Philosophy
• Epistemology

Selected publications

• Aniconism

  Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion · 2024-11-19

  reference-entry1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract In scholarship on religion and religious art, the term aniconism describes the absence of a figural representation of a deity (whether anthropomorphic or theriomorphic), primarily in the context of ritual veneration of one deity or more, but also within a visual tradition more broadly. Aniconic worship may take on a variety of forms, including veneration centered around a standing stone, open fire, vacant space, or no independent physical focal point at all. In religious art and visual culture, aniconism may also be manifested in a range of ways, such as adherence to the usage of ornament, calligraphy, or geometric forms. Although it is often treated as synonymous with iconoclasm, the word aniconism does not refer to the destruction of religious images. It may be adopted without an articulated reason or coherent doctrine, or it may be connected with an explicit theology. Worship of deities without figural representations has been widely attested for millennia in both polytheistic traditions (Greco-Roman, Phoenician) and monotheistic ones (Jewish, Islamic). The concept of aniconism, however, is modern. It was introduced by Johannes Adolph Overbeck (1826–1895) for the particular purpose of describing the presumed earliest phases in the development of Greek religion, which were construed as imageless. In the 20th century, aniconism has come to describe the absence of the figural image of a deity in worship and has been applied more broadly to certain artistic traditions such as early Buddhist, Islamic, and Jewish art. Since the manifestations of aniconism differ widely, it is vitally important to apply the concept contextually, with clear criteria for what is considered aniconic within a particular framework. Among the religions in the West from the Renaissance to the present, aniconism is notable in its emergence in certain strands of Protestantism, particularly in Calvinist houses of worship. Worship with no figural image is also often linked with primeval religions and is seen either negatively, as the practice of a less advanced culture, or positively, as a marker of higher spirituality. Claims of a complete absence of imagery and figural art in various religious traditions (e.g., Jewish, Islamic) have often been disproven, as further examination of those traditions has revealed the occurrence of figuration alongside some form of aniconism. The wide range of forms of aniconism and its coexistence with semi-figural and fully figural forms in worship and within broader visual traditions suggest that the concept is best applied through a nuanced approach which considers the nature and frequency of its occurrence rather than seeing it as an absolute negation of the figural image.

  PublisherDOI

• What Do Attributes Say About Apollo?

  2024-03-04

  book-chapterOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Visual attributes are fundamental to Greco-Roman religious art. Accompanying objects, bodily features, modes of dress, or adjacent plants and animals are indispensable for identifying gods in images. Visual attributes allow us to name the gods. Focusing on the 4th-century BCE cult statue of Apollo Patroos that stood in the Athenian Agora, the paper explores the workings of these elements. Generally, Apollo is easily recognizable as the youthful cleanshaven male deity typically portrayed with his bow and arrow and/or string instrument. In the Athenian Agora, he was shown wearing a chiton, peplos and himation and holding a kithara by his left. This was a first time Apollo Patroos was seen with these traits. What was the role of these specific attributes? What did they articulate about the god in the context of the cult? Close analysis of this example shows how visual representations of gods operated in tandem with and in equally sophisticated ways as the complex modes of naming the divine.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Flattened Greek Vase

  2023-06-09

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract The chapter explores two key publications of Greek vases from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: the Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Hon. W. Hamilton by Pierre-François Hugues (known as the Baron d’Hancarville) and the Auserlesene griechische Vasenbilder by Eduard Gerhard. In both, illustrations of vases comprise colour plates, mostly in a quadrangular format, and separate line drawings of the vases’ shapes. In both, images on vases are presented as drawings, separable from their original surfaces, while the vessels themselves have become secondary. The discussion argues that these modes of reproduction and choices of format are not the product of technological limitations and that they facilitated the conceptual flattening of the Greek painted vase epitomized in the separate treatment in scholarship of its two primary elements of form and imagery.

  PublisherDOI

• Art and Time

  The Art Bulletin · 2021-01-02

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Dear Readers,The complex relationship between art and time lies at the heart of our discipline. As art historians, we often set out to place art and architecture within particular time frames. We l...

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Frontmatter

  Edinburgh University Press eBooks · 2021

  • Computer Science
  • Computer Science

  From archaeological sites to papyri and manuscripts, we experience the ancient world through its material remains. This materiality may be tangible: from vases to votive offerings and statues to spearheads.

  DOI

• Forward-Looking Art History

  The Art Bulletin · 2021-04-03

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Dear Readers,Art history has gone through several moments of self-doubt since the mid-twentieth century, whether brought on by laments for the decline of the discipline or, worse, fears for the end...

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Coeditors’ Response

  The Art Bulletin · 2021-04-03

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Interactive Art History

  The Art Bulletin · 2020

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Art
  • Visual arts
  • Art history
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Art on the Move

  The Art Bulletin · 2020-07-02

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The child of African descent featured on this issue’s cover was drawn by Dante Gabriel Rossetti in London in the 1860s. Their name uncertain, their life story unknown, they call attention to the co...

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• Art History with or without Borders

  The Art Bulletin · 2020-10-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Dear Readers,Art history as a modern academic discipline in universities was established in late 
nineteenth-century Europe, with art objects that had been produced or collected in Europe 
as its p...

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Verity Platt

  Atkins (United States)

  9 shared

• Lillian Lan-ying Tseng

  5 shared

• Michael Squire

  5 shared

• Graham Harman

  2 shared

• Robin Osborne

  1 shared

• Katharine Earnshaw

  Birkbeck, University of London

  1 shared

• Miguel Versluys

  University of California, Los Angeles

  1 shared

• Nikolaus Dietrich

  1 shared

Awards & honors

• Jane Faggen Dissertation Prize from Princeton University’s D…
• Samuel and Ronnie Heyman Prize for Outstanding Scholarly Pub…
• Gaddis Smith International Book Prize from the MacMillan Cen…