Eyes Are Part Of The Mind

This thesis is dedicated to Leo Steinberg((July9,1920–March13,2011), one of the most distinguished and influential art historians and art critics of the20th century. Leo Steinberg was highly admired for his erudition, wide‐ranging interest and ability of original thinking; while he also differed greatly from most “masters” we knew well: during his lifelong career, he never ceased to creating controversy and debate. Whether as an art critic or as an art historian, Leo Steinberg made his appeal as a rebel against orthodoxies. He was one of the pioneers to break the monopoly of Greenbergian formalism in art criticism, while he challenged continually the discrimination of text to image and the dependence on old cliché; in either area he was, his openness to “subjectivity” marked a great difference comparing with the scholars and critics with earlier generation.In this thesis, I choose the most brilliant work of Leo Steinberg—the Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion to do a case study, while my purpose is to understand how “subjectivity” works its best in Steinberg’s methodology.