Riflessione su e a partire dal “Flatbed” di Leo Steinberg

Through a review of the works dedicated by Leo Steinberg to Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg during the 1960s and early 1970s, the essay attempts to reconstruct the genesis of the “flatbed picture plane” concept with which, in 1972, he described a new kind of picture. Examined are the two terms, horizontality and flatness, that connote the new picture device; a device the author recognizes as a reversal from nature to culture, and that we can identify as an expression of the cultural turning point of the postmodern age. This last hypothesis constitutes the object of the present essay: to assess whether flatness and horizontality, in addition to constituting the physical and symbolic assumptions of a new picture device, can be considered paradigms of postmodern cultural change. The investigation considers the works of Rauschenberg and Johns in the context of Steinberg’s analyses, enumerating the different definitions of the terms horizontality and flatness, and therefore the different aspects of postmodern with which they can be indexed. In addition to research aimed at identifying the sources of images or words used by Steinberg, the investigation seeks to verify the usefulness and scope of his conceptual and terminological legacy.