William Wallace: People mistreated paintings all the time, they would cut them down frequently without even thinking and put them into a new frame or something like that. They wouldn’t have thought [that frame] come to that importance...

Paul Crenshow: There is a method, which I am sure you are very familiar with, but I am not sure whether it is given a name, it is copywriting by Leo Steinberg，when you look at the copies and variations of the works of art, see what they can tell you about, people’s either understandings, or misunderstandings, about the work of art. And what it seems to be suggesting, I think quite really intriguing me, is that, in these, particularly, the new ones, that there is something can be seen of the reflection of Leonardo’s interest in the painting, and its relationship with nature, the raw nature, and the natural body, and so on.

Wallce: Yes, I think that is exactly right. Leo Steinberg is the person who really, instead of dismissing copies as unimportant or inaccurate, actually thought that they told us a lot. But I think you probably have that tradition in China, you know, you look at copies, and you compare them; and the copies can tell you some time and something about the history of the object. But in the west, until Leo Steinberg, that was almost never done. And particularly he did this with The Last Judgment in a very very brilliant fashion. Because there were so many copies of The Last Judgment, he was extremely interested in who made variations and why. Because people tended to clean it up, or clothe the saints , or change it in various manners. And he found those all very very illuminating, and I think he is right.

Shen Yubing: I’ve just translated one of Leo Steinberg’s masterpieces, Other Criteria. Could you please tell us a little bit more about his contributions to the Renaissance Art? (Wallce: I’d be happy to.) As he is universally recognized as a giant of Renaissance Art and Postwar American Art. But what is his main contribution to the Renaissance Art?

Wallace: Brilliant, as brilliant as his honor. Absolutely central, although Leo Steinberg as a funny story，we could convey here. He wasn’t always universally accepted in America because he himself sort of liked to be the gadfly of the society. He is sort of like a Socratic person out there, who nobody recognized, and thought that he was brilliant but sort of eccentric, and he sort of loved to play that part. And he felt like he never had really the position he deserved in American universities. I mean he taught at the University of Pennsylvania, which is a very very wonderful school with very important graduate programs,etc. But he was never invited to come to teach in Harvard or become part of Yale. He kept himself a little bit outside of the lesser people. Because I think in fact he was one of the smartest in visual art that I have ever met. And I did get a chance to know Leo Steinberg a little bit. When I was a beginning graduate student, he had already published extensively on Michelangelo. He was not only about The Last Judgment, but had a rather wonderful book about Michelangelo’s verily Pauline Chapel. That is a book I strongly recommended which influenced me tremendously. I went to talk to Leo Steinberg when I was thinking about working on Michelangelo, to get his approval. He was very nice, kind and encouraging. He thought that there were lots to do on Michelangelo.

But I think he is absolutely central to introducing very fresh, very original ways of thinking about art and methodology. And one instance I can remember very particularly is

he was giving a very prominent public lecture on the sexuality of Christ before this book came out. That was the title. I was in Columbia University at that time in New York as a student. And I remember this moment very vividly. He was invited to give this very large and impressive named talk. And I have never seen such a gigantic crowd show up, not only the scholars and the students, but people from New York, and people from other states, because everybody knew Leo Steinberg gave the most intensive and interesting lectures of anybody. Every time he gave a lecture, he was just polished, brilliant, full of ideas, beautifully written, beautifully presented, and he worked really hard on it, but he made it looked effortless, what the Italians called “a perfect attune”, which means something difficult looks effortless. And he was the master, at making this absolutely sound trimensigo.

So part of the reason the people showed up for this lecture, was the title—— The Sexuality of Christ? No! What is Leo Steinberg gonna do now? Is he gonna embarrass himself? In fact that audience was all talking, and twittering, and when he started lecturing, they were giggling and talking. And when it was about ten minutes, there was a deadly silence. There must be about 2000 people in the audience. And everybody’s jaw…just strated drop open. This man is presenting the sexuality of the Christ! He’s talking about when Christ has a stiff member, and things like this! It was unbelievable!

One of the things I think so important is not just the good ideas. He marshaled huge amounts of visual evidence to support it. He had collected hundreds of images of Christ. Once before, they haven’t even been presented. Then he had been a good Jewish scholar who also knew the theological literature very very well. So he is able to combine the visual with the literature in the most intensely interesting and honorably convincing ways. And even though some people came out of that lecture saying no no no, I think that book was trans-illuminating. I mean in the way he think about religious picture, religious imagery, even when I talked on the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, one of the scenes we all talked about is “The Temptation” form, that comes straightly out of Leo Steinberg. So I’ve been enduringly affected.

【Introduction of William Wallace】

William E. Wallace received his PhD in Art History from Columbia University in New York in 1983, and that same year joined the faculty of Washington University in St. Louis. He is the inaugural holder of The Barbara Murphy Bryant Distinguished Professor of Art History in the Department of Art History & Archaeology (since 2003). Professor Wallace is an internationally recognized authority on the Renaissance artist, architect and poet, Michelangelo Buonarroti. He was one of a select group of scholars, curators, and conservators from around the world invited to confer with the Vatican about the restoration of Michelangelo’s frescos in the Sistine Chapel (1990).

Professor Wallace has published extensively on Renaissance art: in addition to more than eighty articles and essays (including two short works of fiction), he is the author or editor of six different books on Michelangelo, including the award winning, Michelangelo: The Complete Sculpture, Painting and Architecture (1998), and Michelangelo at San Lorenzo: The Genius as Entrepreneur (1994).

He is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a year spent at Villa I Tatti, Harvard University’s Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence and a year at the American Academy in Rome. He has been a principal consultant for two BBC television programs on Michelangelo, and has taped a 36-lecture audio-visual course, “The Genius of Michelangelo” for “The Teaching Company.” His new biography of the artist, Michelangelo: The Artist, the Man and his Times recently appeared with Cambridge University Press (2010).