Leo Steinberg, Visiting Artist Lecture 1984

In this lecture, curator and writer Leo Steinberg answers questions from the participants and details the many topics he is interested in, ranging from stories of Greek Mythology to 19th century French painting. Steinberg states how he always drags things up into the loss of consciousness without thinking about issues that matter to him as artists. Steinberg relates this point to his view of 19th century artists. Steinberg states that for him, 19th century artists were the most serious about painting and about women. Steinberg says that some of the key differences he noticed was how 18th century artists and 19th century artists treated women in their paintings. 18th century painting always depicted women in a much more condescending way. He came to this conclusion by studying the tradition of women portraiture through various paintings.