John Shearman, an art historian, teacher and scholar who was an advisor on the renovation of the Sistine Chapel and a widely respected authority on Raphael and other Italian Renaissance artists, has died. He was 72.
Shearman died Aug. 11 of a heart attack while on vacation with his wife, Kathryn Brush, in the Canadian Rockies.
Shearman retired in 2002 from Harvard University, where he taught fine arts for 15 years and was named Charles Adams University Professor Emeritus in 1994. He had previously taught at Princeton University and Courtauld Institute of Art at the University of London, where he also earned his bachelor's degree and a doctorate.
In a statement, Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers called Shearman "a scholar of immense erudition and penetrating intellect who has made enormous contributions to our understanding of Renaissance art."
In 1966, Shearman helped assess the damage to art and architecture done by a devastating flood in Florence, Italy, and he helped in restoration there.
"He rushed out to the stricken city to help in the rescue efforts, and the short-term effect of that experience on him was shattering," the Independent of London's Julian Gardner wrote in an obituary of Shearman.
Two years ago, Shearman identified an Andrea del Sarto altarpiece that had been lost for 350 years.
He also served on the Pontifical Advisory Commission for the Restoration of the Sistine Chapel, helping oversee the delicate and important work in the Vatican that was completed in 1994. Among other things, Shearman discovered that the chapel's ceiling had been severely cracked before Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius II to paint it in 1508.
Shearman also wrote that the amazing color of the chapel's frescoes -- color that was uncovered by the restoration and that some experts believed Michelangelo had meant to dampen -- was what the master had intended. It was meant to give pleasure, Shearman believed, "like that of a bouquet."
Andrea Bayer, associate curator of European paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and a former student of Shearman, said he "was absolutely one of the most brilliant art historians of his generation" and a great teacher.
His lasting legacy, she said, will be his work on Raphael, a massive book that Shearman completed shortly before his death.
"He brought Raphael back as a living, thinking, inventive artist for a whole generation of people," Bayer said.
