The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion

Rating:
Summary: Scandalous and brilliant
Review: Several art historians of my acquaintance, experts in the period, say that this is the best art history book ever written. I'm not an expert, but I can say that it's terrific, and one of the few academic books that, at first reading, had me lying on my back on the floor with my feet in the air, laughing hysterically. Steinberg had the audacity to wonder, looking at a Renaissance painting, why is it that Jesus's male member is so, well, *prominent*? Instead of averting his eyes (which is what most of us would do) he started looking for other paintings with which to compare it, and lo and behold, he discovered lots of them where indeed the painter seems to be deliberately *accenting* a part of the anatomy which normally one would expect to be concealed. He concludes that the painters were trying to show that the son of God had become Incarnate as a man in the most literal sense. In that sense, what seems scandalous to us is simply a manifestation of Renaissance humanism.

Beyond the screamingly funny prose lies a serious argument, about the Renaissance, and the way to do art history. Finally, Steinberg teaches the reader's eye how to look at a painting.