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The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion
Leo Steinberg
Leo Steinberg's *The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion*, published by Pantheon in 1983, is one of the boldest works of art history of its century. Steinberg noticed something hidden in plain sight: across hundreds of revered Renaissance images, painters deliberately drew attention to the genitals of the infant and the dead Christ - and that generations of scholars had trained themselves not to see it. His argument is that this was no lapse of taste but a theological statement: proof that God had truly become flesh, fully human. Dense with plates and unafraid of controversy, the book changed how a generation looked at sacred art. It is learned, provocative, and written with a detective's relish. For readers drawn to how images carry hidden meaning, it remains electrifying.
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The author
Leo Steinberg (1920-2011) was a Moscow-born, London-raised art historian who became one of America's most original interpreters of Renaissance and modern art, teaching at Hunter College and the University of Pennsylvania. He was known for looking harder than anyone else at what pictures actually show.
The book
First published in 1983 and later expanded, the book assembles overwhelming visual evidence that Renaissance artists emphasized Christ's sexuality to affirm the doctrine of the Incarnation - that the divine had taken on complete human nature. Steinberg reads the imagery of the infant and crucified Christ as deliberate theology, not accident.
How it has aged
The book provoked immediate debate and remains a landmark; its expanded second edition answers critics and deepens the argument. Whatever one makes of particular readings, it permanently changed the viewing habits of art historians.
For more context
Read alongside Steinberg's essays in Other Criteria for the same relentless attention turned on modern art.
Sources
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Leo Steinberg
- Publisher
- Pantheon
- Place of publication
- New York
- Year
- 1983
- Edition
- First edition
- ISBN
- 0-394-53580-4
- Shelf
- Art
- Location
- Maine
Added from photo pass