Becoming Leo. Steinberg e l'Institute of Fine Arts di New York: dall’eredità dei professori tedeschi allo sviluppo di un nuovo criticism
Daniele Di Cola
Leo Steinberg, born in Moscow 1920 but raised Berlin and London, arrived New York January 1945. Trained as an artist London the early 1950s, when he was already his thirties, decided to study art history at Institute of Fine Arts (IFA), where educated by Jewish-German refugee historians such Richard Krautheimer, Wolfgang Lotz, Erwin Panofsky. This essay reconsiders Steinberg’s work, which is well-known for its unconventional revisionist inter- pretations, through lens academic formation legacy German Kunstwissenschaft postwar America. Taking into account unpublished material (including university course notes papers abandoned dissertation on afterlife Romanesque art), I point out how first scholarly works, while respecting methodologies professors, same time tried “resist” their heritage. His engagement with contemporary art, example, led him challenge biases sometimes annoyance, case Ph.D. Borromini’s church San Carlino, contested adviser Krautheimer. The argues that during IFA years Steinberg had developed some concepts would characterize later intellectual trajectory: dialogue between Old Master experience, emphasis beholder’s physical psychological response artworks, epistemological reevaluation subjectivity, priority visual data over texts, hermeneutical validity ambiguity multiple levels meaning. Through these means, achieved a personal synthesis historical investigation criticism, anticipat- ing rethinking methodological tradition 1960s 1970s.
Storia della critica d'arte