The Forbidden Image: An Intellectual History of Iconoclasm

Rating:
Summary: Use it in Conjunction with Others
Review: Besançon is director of studies at L'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, and expert in Russian politics and intellectual history. His entrance here into discussion of theological rejection of images is self-described as intellectual history, general history, or history of civilization, not art history or theology (p. 9). Thus, one may take with a grain of salt small specific errors such as a claim that the Pauline epistles and John's Gospel are the last written of the biblical books (p. 2) and a verbal confusion in discussion of Panofsky's analysis of differences between Cicero's notion of the artist's internal "idea" and Plato's Idea (pp. 44-45).

Besançon's book is a study of the doctrines which govern the accepted forms of representing the divine within the Greek and Roman, biblical, Early Christian, medieval, Renaissance and Baroque, and modern periods of specifically European civilization. Unusually, Besançon begins his modern section, by far the most extensive and vivacious portion of the work, with Calvin. In a move familiar among art historians, but perhaps less well known elsewhere, Besançon traces twentieth-century Modernist abstraction's roots in both the formalism of Picasso and in Russian, English, and German Romanticism, piety, and Pietism.

Besançon traces through European history the interaction of "two contrary imperatives" articulated by Plato as "two incoercible facts about our nature: first, that we must look toward the divine, that it alone is worth contemplating; and, second, that representing it is futile, sacrilegious, inconceivable" (p. 1). Overtly Christian controversies and solutions, then, become instances within a larger narrative.

Nevertheless, Besançon's own interest in his subject matter is most clearly expressed in assessments of the theological "orthodoxy," in Christian terms, of the theories and art he considers. These assessments sometimes seem tendentious. His discussion of Caspar David Friedrich's Teschen altarpiece seems to willfully dismiss as specious an apparently direct and clear articulation of traditional Lutheran faith in the effective mediatorial role of the crucified Lord in the Eucharist presented by the painting and Friedrich's own description of it. But Besançon may, in fact, simply not know Lutheranism well enough to have considered such a reading plausible.

Besançon's broad approach leads to some broad difficulties. His claim that "Mondrian embraced iconoclasm" at the point where he turned his back on "tragic" nature serves as example of a larger set of problems (p. 377). Mondrian's concern was with subject matter. The concern of the eighth-century iconoclasts was with means--the Eucharist being for them the one appropriate icon of the Lord. In equating these intellectually different constructs, Besançon additionally makes too easy an equation between depiction, representation, affirmation of the goodness of creation, and the Gospel. In the Greek icon tradition, perduringly naturalistic in contrast to the more abstract Russian tradition (a contrast Besançon does not well articulate), painted images of the risen Lord and the saints in glory depict and represent neither creation nor ahistorical, amaterial forms, but the eschatological new creation. Similarly, Mondrian's later abstract art represents, even depicts, a new creation that Mondrian believed was leaving "nature" behind and bringing into being "a truly human life," within the temporal and physical world (p. 376).

Besançon's book is a serious engagement with issues of the meaning of depiction and abstraction in painting and deserves serious consideration. But he is not a sure guide for those not already familiar with the history of art and Christian theology.

Ann K Riggs

Rating:
Summary: A college-level intellectual history of iconoclasm
Review: Forbidden Image is a college-level intellectual history of iconoclasm which examines who the representation of the divine came to be a philosophical issue, with the idea of 'graven images' receiving different interpretation by different religions. Philosophy and theology blend in a comprehensive examination of how the status of the image has changed over the centuries.

Rating:
Summary: Book cover is misleading
Review: You definitely can't tell this book by its cover. Not only are the title and the cover's synopsis very misleading, but the picture you see on the front of the book has nothing to do with the book's subject matter.

I bought this book because it was recommended by The Economist in a book review when it was first released. It appeared to be an interesting discussion about how different religions have accepted or rejected images that were memorialized in print. In light of the Taliban's destruction of the Buddha statues, I was especially interested in this topic to enlighten me about how various cultures have viewed the representation of God, gods, people, animals, landscapes, etc. The Economist review and the book's cover led me to believe that this book would enlighten me in that regard. It didn't.

Be forewarned that this book is almost entirely about religious images and Christianity. There is some discussion in the beginning of the book about images of gods in ancient times (and what Plato and Aristotle thought about them), but most of the book is about the iconoclastic and iconophilic schools of Christian theology. (The discussion about iconoclasm in Judaism and Islam is limited to a few pages.) Hence, I would characterize this book under the heading philosophy, not art.

My only other comment pertains to the writing. Keep in mind that Besancon wrote this book in French, so you are reading a translation. I don't know if it's because of the writing in the original, the translation or the subject matter, but this is a very dry read. I will confess that I keep the book on the bedside table to provide soporific assistance. Calling itself an "Intellectual History" does not, to me, give a book license to be painfully boring.

While there are some interesting passages (such as the discussion about the Trinity in Christianity, which was helpful in explaining the concept of the Holy Spirit), I rate this book as two stars. I do this primarily because it was not what it purported to be. It would have been more aptly entitled, "The Depiction of the Divine in Christian Theology." And the cover picture should have been from a painting of a crucified Jesus. But then again, that probably wouldn't sell as many copies.