Faculty Profiles

Matthew Milliner Headshot

Matthew Milliner, Ph.D.

Professor of Art History

On Faculty since 2011
630.752.5270



Link to CV

Dr. Milliner holds an M.A. & Ph.D. in art history from Princeton University, and an M.Div from Princeton Theological Seminary. He is a six-time appointee to the Curatorial Advisory Board of the United States Senate, and has written for publications ranging from The New York Times to First Things. He was awarded a Commonwealth fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, and is author most recently of The Everlasting People: G.K. Chesterton and the First Nations and Mother of the Lamb: The Story of a Global Icon.

 

Princeton University
Ph.D., Art and Archaeology, 2011

Princeton University
M.A., Medieval and Byzantine Art, 2007

Princeton Theological Seminary
M.Div., Theology, 2005

Wheaton College
B.A., Art History, 1998

  • Art History
  • Byzantine Art
  • Medieval Art
  • The Virgin Mary
  • Visual Theology
  • History of Art & Architecture
  • Renaissance Art
  • History
  • Contemporary Art
  • Archaeology
  • Native American Art

PBS Closer to Truth interviews

“What Men Can Learn from Mary the Mother of Jesus,”The New York Times (March 25th, 2020).

Visual Commentary on Scripture: Romans 3:9-31

https://thevcs.org/grace-works

A New Madonna Della Misericordia in Orvieto
Studio for Art, Faith and History

Our experiment [in visual ecumenism] took the form of a Madonna della Misericordia (Madonna of Mercy). The image has a longstanding history in this region of Italy. But our aim was not just to study the history of the image, but to contribute to that history ourselves.

Katy Perry and Byzantine Icons
resound

2016 Emerging Public Intellectual Award recipient uses art history and today's visual culture to tell sacred stories. (From Redeemer University College)

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Wheaton College Prof Named to Senate Advisory Board
WDCB

A Wheaton College art history professor has been named to a prestigious government advisory board. Dr. Matt Milliner is now a member of the U.S. Senate Curatorial Advisory Board. The panel, which includes 12 other historians, curators and experts from some of the country's most respected institutions, is responsible for advising the Senate Commission on Art. Milliner tells WDCB News Reporter Gary Zidek the advisory panel’s job is to help the five Senators on that Commission.

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  • Art Survey (ART 101)
  • History of Art & Architecture I (ART 251)
  • History of Art & Architecture II (ART 351)
  • Medieval & Byzantine Art (ART 352)
  • Renaissance & Reformation Art (ART 353)
  • Senior Seminar in Art History (ART 494)
  • What is an Image? (CORE First Year Seminar)
  • Mother of God: The Art & Theology of the Virgin Mary (CORE Advanced Integrative Seminar)

Mother of the Lamb: The Story of a Global Icon (Fortress Press, 2022)

The Everlasting People: G.K. Chesterton and the First Nations (InterVarsity Press, 2021)

Faith, Hope and Love at the Art Institute of Chicago, in God in the Modern Wing, (InterVarsity Press, 2021).

Emblems of the End: Byzantium's Dark Angels, Études Byzantines et Post-Byzantines, Romanian Society for Byzantine Studies (2021).

Visual Cherubikon: Mary as Priest at Lagoudera in Cyprus, in Mary, the Apostles, and the Last Judgment (Trivent Medieval Series, 2020).

Turtle Island Renaissance, Journal of the North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies (2019).

Blessed Art Thou: Images of the Virgin Mary in the Ahmanson Collection (2019)

Visual Ecumenism: The Coy Communion of Art, The Sacraments and Christian Unity, 2018

The Blessed Virgin Mary, The Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2017

Review of Matthew Crawford's The World Outside Your Head, First Things, 2016

Culture Breaking: In Praise of Iconoclasm, The Image of God in an Image Driven Age, 2016

Icon as Theology: The Byzantine ‘Virgin of Predestination,’ ReVisioning: Critical Methods of Seeing Christianity in the History of Art, 2014

Visual Arts in Education, Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception, 2014

Not So Secular Sweden, First Things, 2014

Living Offering, First Things, 2014

Review of Bissera Pentcheva's The Sensual Icon and Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon's Byzantium in the Iconoclastic Era, Logos: A Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, 2014

"A Secular Age 2.0" Review of Thomas Pfau's Minding the Modern, Books & Culture, 2014

Our Lady of Wheaton, First Things, 2013

“Ghost of Princeton Past.” Review of Inner Sanctum, Princeton: America's Campus, & Princeton and the Gothic Revival: 1870-1930, Books & Culture, 2013

Review of Cecelia González-Andrieu's A Bridge to Wonder: Art as a Gospel of Beauty, Christian Scholar’s Review, 2013

Lenten Reading: A Review of Ephraim Radner's A Brutal Unity, Books & Culture, 2013

The Brancacci Chapel and Academia’s ‘Religious Turn,' Art as Spiritual Perception: Essays in Honor of E. John Walford, 2012

Kindred Spirits Revisited: T.S. Eliot & Bruce Herman, Qu4rtets, 2012

Medieval Wisdom and the University, The City, 2012

Anchors Aweigh: The Neglected Art of Theological Interpretation, Comment, 2012

A Curse Reversed: Towards a Visual Ecumenism, Seen Journal, 2012

“Converting the Canvas.” Review of Timothy Gorringe's Earthly Visions, First Things, 2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Artists Gone Mild

Artists have a reputation for being rule breakers, but a far more pervasive theme is one of artists turning to traditional religion and illustrating that conversion through their artwork. In this TowerTalk, Professor of Art History Dr. Matt Milliner ’98 explores the theme of repentance by paralleling the lives of four artists from the Renaissance with four artists from modern times.

 

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