Violence against Art:Iconoclasms Past and Present

Terms/Concepts:icon, iconoclasm, vandalism, iconoclast, iconodule, vandal, socialist realism, three estates, the Enlightenment, reign of terror (Great Fear), Entartete Kunst (degenerate art),

Key Monuments: Simon Magus and Patriarch

Nikephoros, Khludov Psalter, 850-75

Jean-Pierre Houel, The Storming of the Bastille, c. 1790.

The Removal and Destruction of Religious Images from Wittenberg Cathedral, 1566.

“The defamation of ‘Racial’ Art,” from the pamphlet for the Nazi-Sponsored exhibit “Entartete ‘Kunst’” 1937, Reichskammer fur Bildende Kunst.

Loveland, Colorado, 2010

Enrique Chagoya, “The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals, 2010.

Protesters

There are many ways to express disagreement with the ideas expressed in an artwork that do not entail going against the founding principles of this country: the separation of church and state and the right to free speech. --National Coalition Against Censorship

“The protesters want the exhibit removed. They believe that taxpayers’ dollars should not be going to pornography.” --Jeanette De Melo, Archdiocese of Loveland

What is Iconoclasm?

Origin:Greek: Eikon (image) + Klao (to break) =

“the breaking of images”Definition:“The willful destruction of images” (Gambolini)

Connotations:• Motivated by some kind of ideological cause.• Often justified either legally or socially.

What is ‘destroyed’?

• Objects that are either publically or privately owned.• Objects acknowledged as art or not.• Objects that appear autonomous or

directly associated with a particular group or set of values.

Who destroys?

• Individual or collective.• Known or anonymous.• Have a lot of power or have little

power.• Basically any one with the motive

and opportunity.

“Quarrel of the Images”Byzantine Iconoclasm 726-843 CE

Icons

Christ Virgin and Child

Angels

Saints

Festal Narrative

Iconoclasts1) Icons are akin to the “graven images” mentioned in

the second commandment: “4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:5 thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.” (Exodus 20: 4-5)

2) Icons are man made, as opposed to relic, and do not deserve to be venerated: “The divine nature is completely uncircumscribable and cannot be depicted or represented by artists in any medium whatsoever.” (Iconoclastic Council, 754)

Iconodules:1) Icons are powerful didactic tools: “An image is, after

all, a reminder; it is to the illiterate what a book is to the literate, and what the word is to hearing, the image is to sight.” (John of Damascus)

2) Icons are a valuable proxy by which the faithful could demonstrate their love and honor for the divine: “God created man to his own image” (Genesis 1:27)

3) Icons are a valid way to communicate Christ’s humanity and suffering: “How, indeed, can the Son of God be acknowledged to have been a man like us—he who was deigned to be called our brother—if he cannot be depicted?”

Simon Magus and Patriarch NikephorosKhludov Psalter850-75

Theodora Instructing her Daughters in the Veneration of Icons, Madrid Skylitzes, 12th Century CE

Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, Constantinople, 1400

The Removal and Destruction of Church Images, from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, 1563

The Removal and Destruction of Religious Images from Wittenberg Cathedral, 1566.

Political Iconoclasm:The French Revolution 1789-1799

Louis XIV, “The Sun King”1643-1715

Hyacinthe Rigaud, Portrait of Louis XIV, 1701.

• Feared the intrigue of this courtiers and nobles.

• Required his nobles to spend the majority of their time at his court in Versailles.

• Establishes a court life based on the systematic neglect of noble estates and the peasants who worked them.

Third Estate: Everyone Else

Taxed

3 % of the Population

95 % of the Power

Three Estates

Second Estate: NobilityFirst Estate: Clergy

Untaxed Untaxed

Jean-Pierre Houel, The Storming of the Bastille, c. 1790.

The Overthrown Idol, 1791.

“We shall support it to the last drop of blood.”

The Greatest of Despots Overthrown by Liberty, The Dismantling of the Equestrian Statue of Louis XIV, 1792.

Radiating Chapels and Ambulatory, St. Denis, Cathedral, Paris, France, 1145, defaced 1792.

Ideological Iconoclasm:Nazi-Era ‘Entartete Kunst’

“Blut und Bodent” Poster for the Hitler Youth, c. 1937.

Hubert Lanzinger, Der Bannertrager (The Standard Banner), 1934-1936.

Ivo Saliger, The Judgment of Paris, 1939.

Cover of the pamphlet for the Nazi-Sponsored exhibit “Entartete ‘Kunst’” 1937, Reichskammer fur Bildende Kunste.

Degenerate

“Art”

“The defamation of ‘Racial’ Art,” from the pamphlet for the Nazi-Sponsored exhibit “Entartete ‘Kunst’” 1937, Reichskammer fur Bildende Kunst.

“No further comment is needed here” from the pamphlet for the Nazi-Sponsored exhibit “Entartete ‘Kunst’” 1937, Reichskammer fur Bildende Kunst.

Patrons at for the Nazi-Sponsored exhibit “Entartete ‘Kunst’” 1937, Reichskammer fur Bildende Kunst.

Loveland, Colorado, 2011

Enrique Chagoya, “The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals, 2010.

Protesters

There are many ways to express disagreement with the ideas expressed in an artwork that do not entail going against the founding principles of this country: the separation of church and state and the right to free speech. --National Coalition Against Censorship

“The protesters want the exhibit removed. They believe that taxpayers’ dollars should not be going to pornography.” --Jeanette De Melo, Archdiocese of Loveland

Major Goals

• Understand the different motivations for destroying images.

• Understand the difference between vandalism and iconoclasm.

• Understand the connection between violence against art and violence against humans and ideas.

• Understand the similarities among all iconoclasms.