What if ....virtual history shakes us out of the illusion that what we consider “normative” is fact; it does not change the facts, true, but it gives us the opportunity to think about them in new ways. What if our visual aesthetic norms had developed along a different path, if our cultural socialization today were to take place based on other models of depicting reality?

 

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The world facing us today directs our attention to Islamic culture, which arouses our interest and appears alien to us at the same time. We see, or think we see, ornaments, decorative designs, we speak of arabesques, sometimes we discover lettering. The occidental mind allocates all these elements to the category of a “framework” (accessories); what seems to be missing is the “image”, the work itself in the real sense intended by European art.

In Christian churches, especially in the buildings of the mainstream tradition, such images confront us everywhere. Among them are many which, according to the Christian codex, really should not be there at all. Every denomination recognizes the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments, handed down in the Old Testament. They include one commandment which sets fundamental aesthetic precepts (this is quoting from the Old English Bible of 1611/1958):

“Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image, nor the likeness of any form that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them”, as we read in Exodus, verses 4-5, or, almost identically, in Deuteronomy 5, 8-9.

This commandment went down in history as the prohibition on images, it reminds us in particular of the origins of our faith in Judaism. In the article on the Decalogue in the Wissenschaftlichen Bibellexikon (WiBiLex) [1], which gives a well-researched summary of scientific study to date, we find the statement that the term pæsæl “image” refers to “a sculpture made of various materials”. The prohibition on images does not therefore forbid representation in general, but the making of cultic images, in particular of Jahwe, since the depiction of other gods is already excluded by the ban on worshipping other gods (the First Commandment: “I am the Lord, thy God. [...] Thou shalt have no other gods before me”, Exodus, 20, 2-3). Jahwe cannot be represented, and is not to be represented in any form, nor is his worship to be directed as a substitute towards any such form. The prohibition on images is thus directed at the act of veneration of images (idolatry - iconolatry - iconodulism[2]) as much as at the act of representing god in such images (since we do not yet know what the original looks like, i.e., can only know His true form through the realization of eschatological promises of a future revelation, cf. 1. John 3,2: “[...] we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is”).

After the early Christian church had taken over this prohibition in principle, the majority of state churches dropped it again over the following period. It would be beyond the scope of this essay to go into all the reasons for this development. From a theological point of view, the argument always centres on the special nature of the belief in Christ as opposed to Jewish monotheism: Christ, as the Son of God incarnated in human form, seems at least in this aspect to be a legitimate object for representation.

Although allusion is made to the prohibition on images in various places in the scriptures of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Protestant church, it is omitted in the Ten Commandments as they appear in the abbreviated catechism, i.e., the form which religious instruction takes. Luther himself was faced with an iconoclastic movement to destroy all religious images in his time, to which many sculptures and paintings in churches fell victim. The Reformer opposed these tendencies, which were destructive in his view; we can imagine that he had no wish to make any contribution to legitimizing such actions by emphasizing the corresponding commandment. Whereas the question of images is thus more or less kept hidden in the Lutheran, but also in the Roman Catholic Church, the Orthodox Churches confront this problem head on in a remarkable fashion. This is already remarkable due to the fact that the Orthodox veneration of images, specifically of so-called icons, clearly contravenes the old prohibition. For this reason an iconographic controversy broke out in the Byzantine region in the 8th and 9th centuries, in the course of which the cult of icons was temporarily forbidden by the East Roman emperors. It was on the occasion of the official restitution of icon veneration that the Empress Theodora introduced the “Feast of Orthodoxy” in 843, which was henceforth celebrated every year. Since that time, iconolatry, the veneration of icons, has however been linked with the iconographic controversy: it is no longer practised as a matter of course, but must be legitimized before and after the act by an apologetic ritual. Even the liturgical consecration of the icon is combined with apologetic elements. The prohibition on making images is explicitly mentioned in this. The argument is advanced - in the middle of the rites of consecration (!) - against making and setting up so-called idols (graven images) and in favour of an imagery which has as its model the self-depiction of God as manifested in the incarnation of Christ in human form. The iconographic controversy with the victory of the advocates of iconolatry is quasi recapitulated here.

This offensive approach to the issue is also reflected in the “Bibliothek der orthodoxen Literatur in deutscher Sprache”[3] compiled online by the Russian Orthodox congregation in Leipzig. In a dictionary of Orthodoxy, the article on “veneration of icons” emphasizes that the presence of an icon on the one hand bears witness to the incarnation of Christ and on the other is “a reflection of the possibility given to Man to come to his own true nature, to close communion with God”.

In the Russian Orthodox catechism[4] the Second Commandment, prohibiting the making of images, is not suppressed. It runs, suitably interpreted and translated: “You shall not make idols, nor worship them, nor serve them”. This is followed by a long and involved explanation: “Question: how does the Christian faith interpret the Second Commandment? Answer: It is not permitted to make a surrogate for the true God, for instance to acquire a talisman to protect oneself from harm or to bring luck. Any kind of superstition is a violation of the Second Commandment. Question: Is the veneration of icons a sin against the Second Commandment? Answer: No, since it is not the wood and the paint which is intended to be venerated, but the person they depict. The icons are consecrated and therefore our veneration refers above all to Him who is the source of the consecration, to God.”

It is striking to see the extent to which the Orthodox Church is on the defensive here, even to this day. The impression given is that the prohibition on images is aimed at prohibiting the worship of another deity (the idol instead of God), although this is quite contrary to the spirit of this commandment and its independence from the First Commandment (see above).

A quite different approach is taken by the Armenian Church, which terms itself Apostolic and Orthodox, but which rejected the doctrine of the dual nature (Man and God) of Christ expounded by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 and henceforth postulated the united and unseparated God-human nature of Christ (known as Miaphysitism). The prohibition on making images continues to be effective in this Church and, at least officially, was not repealed until the Council of Sis in 1204 (the factual development of iconography, e.g., the appearance of the figure of Christ, would need to be investigated separately, however). But even after this we find a high incidence of non-representational imagery in Armenian churches. Armenian iconography focuses on the depiction of crosses[5], which can be found on the walls of churches, but mainly in the shape of free-standing cross stones, the so-called khachkars. What we see is a cross, in most cases with rich floral and/or geometric garnishings, but for the most part without the crucified Christ, not the cross of death, but rather a cross of life. Sometimes vegetative motifs grow out of the cross, thus revealing themselves as a sort of aniconic equivalent of the so-called Green Man figures[6] on the capitals of medieval European pillars (and elsewhere), where similar plant motifs seem to grow out of the mouth of a human head. In both cases life comes from God, but in the first, it is symbolized by the cross (a sort of green cross), in the second by a human being. On the other hand the cross on the khachkars is in no way a representation (even symbolic) of God, but rather of Divine virtue, the operation of the Divine spirit (otherwise it would fall, as certain radical factions in Armenian religious history suspected, under the prohibition on making images).

This aniconic, non-representational style of visualizing the Divine is mostly treated with great incomprehension in the literature. The alleged Monophysitism in Armenian theology is not infrequently invoked to explain it (instead of identifying it, correctly, as Miaphysitism, which is however difficult to define), as though the Armenian Church were to completely deny the carnal nature of Christ and thus forbid His representation in physical form. It is interesting to note how the Armenian exile scientist Vrej Nersessian (whose sympathies are clearly with Orthodox iconolatry) ignores the aniconic character of Armenian sacred art: he asserts that while zealots of various sects in Armenia had held iconoclastic views, they were not representative of mainstream Armenian Orthodox theology and doctrine: “With the growth of Christianity in Armenia, icon veneration developed and became a natural expression of piety”[7]. Here, anti-idolatry seems to be identified with iconoclasm in the pejorative sense. Whether consciously or unconsciously, the author is thus in line with a tendency which runs through the writing of European history. Anti-idolatrous positions are not infrequently equated with destructive activities antagonistic to culture, regarded as Puritanical impulses of desensualization. The alternative form of appeal to the senses here is deliberately overlooked.

 

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Where would an anti-idolatrous culture take us? Europeans might want to attach ethical considerations to this: the absence of the human figure would then be felt to be dehumanizing, whereby this verdict would be the result of a humanistic tradition which has its roots in Ancient Greek ideas. The prohibition on making images, not only that in Islam, could then be seen as the aesthetic consequence of an intolerant mindset engendered by repressive indoctrination. It is in this vein that Bazon Brock castigates it as the expression of dominance, lust for power, narrow-mindedness and diagnoses a breakdown of social communication due to the decoupling of the unity of symbolic, indexical and iconic signs, i.e., through the banning of the latter[8].

Alongside such condemnation - predicated on political and moral grounds, but only verifiable to a limited extent (thus representations of the human figure must also be open to challenge from socio-critical arguments, and no prohibition on images excludes iconic signs on principle) - we may learn much from a comparative consideration of anti-idolatrous religions. They are religions of the Book, based on scriptures. The prohibition on making images in Judaism is presented in written form on the Tablets of the Law; Moslems derive their fundamental beliefs from the Koran[9], Christians from the Bible, the “holy scriptures”. But it is not only the criticism of image-making, even the imagery which is then conceded, and which no religion can do without, refers here to the word and the scriptures. The admissibility of figurative representation in Early Christianity is justified by the argument, among others, that the faithful, in the main illiterate, could be taught the stories in the Bible in this way. When Reformation zealots storm the churches in their iconoclastic fury, they are doing it against the background of a theology which places a premium on the scriptures. Faith develops through the word, preaches Luther, following the doctrine of the apostle Paul, and this Word should be made comprehensible to people in their own language (by translating the Bible). The image as a medium to convey information is subordinated to the word. There are paintings which were painted in the Pre-Reformation period and whose “Catholic” elements (representation of saints etc.) were replaced, not by other images, but by simple written passages from the scriptures.

Let us make a leap of imagination and stand in our mind’s eye in front of Islamic mosques or madrassahs; I am thinking here of the overwhelmingly magnificent edifices in Samarkand or Bukhara in Uzbekistan. The walls are decorated with ornamental devices which merge into lines of script with verses from the Koran. Many of these ornaments consist themselves of stylized characters, indeed we might go further: each ornament can be referred, at least virtually, to writing. The image is here truly pre-figured by writing. Remember, this script itself evolved out of a process of abstraction which had its origin in more or less iconic images. In this sense, script can be seen as a sublimation of imagery, taking it onto another level.

This process has intensified in recent European cultural history: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and even more so his epigones, speak of the end of art. In the Twentieth century this ending (which can seemingly find no end) of art is performed and demonstrated in the art scene: the palimpsest of the image, its remodelling through the word, its replacement by so-called aphoristic art or concept art (concepts which are only illustrated in the reader’s imagination). Are we perhaps confronted here with a latter-day secularized variant of iconoclasm?

History does not come to an end with the storm on the galleries or with the triumph of writing. But what can it mean: this overwriting of images, this transitory predominance of writing? In José Saramago’s novel Manual of Painting and Calligraphy, a portrait painter becomes alienated from his art: “But it would always be an image, never the truth”[10]. He begins to write and muses over what he expects to gain from it: “My task is now something else: […] to separate, divide, confront and understand. To perceive. Precisely what I could never attain while painting”[11]. And he admits that he reports on what he has seen, even without knowing what it is that he has seen: “I have not transformed it into knowledge. Not yet”[12]. In writing, he is aiming at a goal of knowledge which he believes he is unable to achieve through painting. And yet it is only a period of passage in his life, which emerges into a new phase of image-making and thus takes him back to his own art. Criticism of image-making, however “furiously” it may rage, does not lead to the abolition of the forms and contents it attacks, but only, in the best case, to their metamorphosis and renewal.

 

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Anti-idolatrous religious prescriptions never lead to the absence of images, to a culture without images. What is generated is another type of imagery, and the question arises as to what it is that characterizes or could characterize this. We would like to venture a (hypo)thesis: anti-idolatrous attitudes, in as far as they do bear cultural fruit (!), favour a visual minimalism which consists in intricately nuanced variations of single models or patterns. Think of the numerous versions of similar cross stones in Armenia, first and foremost the “green cross” form we described above. Alongside abstract, sometimes geometrical patterns we also find representations of animal and, above all, plant motifs (stylized acanthus leaves, pomegranates, bunches of grapes and vine tendrils), yet these form part of minimalistic structures; i.e., even such representational motifs, by being repeated and varied, fit into a pattern which approximates formally and expressively to patterns of abstract elements. And their overall effect is one of a nexus of seething primordial vitality, an intermeshing throng of elements striving towards life, which encompasses both physical and metaphysical worlds in its wealth of meanings. In the case of a representational style predicated on the human figure (in the Hellenistic tradition), in contrast, the polarity between the physical and the metaphysical associations is often problematic.

When the depiction of Christ was permitted in the East and West Roman Church, the at least partially human nature of Christ was given as justification, the coexistence of the human with the Divine component, whereby the former was “available” for depiction, as it were. This of course begs the question whether or indeed how, the other “part”, the Divine nature, is expressed in such a naturalistic representation. Does not such representation in the end encourage - to use a modern term - a deconstructivist aesthetic, a representation apperceptible to the senses in which the (deeper) meaning is lost? Does not the iconic representation of the Son of God lead, stretching in a huge arc of tension, all the way to that complex of questions facing the aesthetic philosophy of our own day: I mean the problem field surrounding the concepts of presence and representation? Do not forms of representation exist which virtually exclude the presence of that which is purportedly represented? And what sensuous forms are there in which meaningfulness can be made present (vergegenwärtigt), or, to put it another way: is not physical presence bound to the presence of metaphysical elements (whereby metaphysics, as Giorgio de Chirico and Alberto Savinio taught us, would also include the inner world, the immanent)? Does not the naturalistic representation, perfect reproduction though it may appear to be, not lose something of its “presence”, that character of its (innermost) being of which Martin Heidegger often spoke, and unfortunately also often lost in a welter of words? Do we not have to - figuratively speaking – forego the image of the crucified Saviour (as we can learn from the example of the Armenian khachkars) in order to discover once more the meaning of the cross - by the way not only for Christianity?

 

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The iconoclastic controversy is not only a quarrel about how reality should be represented on different levels, so that it can only be resolved by way of a more differentiated concept of mimesis. The reproduction of something assumes knowledge of the thing to be reproduced, the imitatio knowledge of what is to be imitated. And is not such knowledge often faked? The imitatio dei is - if we take theology at its word - a sheer impossibility. And once again it is interesting to see how the Orthodox churches deal with this logic. The icon is “not understood as the product of the creative imagination of a human artist, i.e., not as the work of mankind at all, but rather as the apparition of the heavenly archetype itself”, as “the self-depiction, self-imprinting of the heavenly archetypes”[13]. The example quoted is the alleged self-imprint of the face of Christ in the cloth of St. Veronica (whose name derives from vera, Latin, meaning true and eikon, Greek, meaning image). Orthodoxy denies in this way the act of representation and asserts that what occurs is an epiphany, pure presence. The dialectic tension of representation and presence, from which we cannot escape in our human reality, is here abrogated and defined as a sacred mystery.

Yet how can the unknown be expressed without simulating what is known? Artists in classical Modernism have wrestled with this question. For Willi Baumeister, painting was first and foremost “the art of making something visible which only becomes visible through it, and was previously not there, which belonged to the realm of the unknown. [..] In all representational and non-representational works, just as in ornament and writing, there is also a hidden reality which the observer is intended to absorb”. Nevertheless, the representational and non-representational approaches to painting are not suited to the same degree when it comes to expressing this unknown. Colours and forms “have in them elemental forces, stronger primordial forces than those in the imitations which are reproduced. [..] The object which is depicted in representational art is a mask concealing the primordial forces”[14]. “Representational art” also contained “determinability in its limited fashion, whereas abstract art [did not stay] within the narrow confines of the determinable”[15]. And finally, non-representational art protects us from the pretence of false familiarity. “Because what had previously been unknown is manifested in its purest state in the formal, the artist does not reveal his secret even when it has become known”[16]; put another way: the unknown does not lose its main characteristic even when it is depicted in a work of art. Abstract painting (Baumeister, like Kandinsky, prefers the term “concrete”) shows itself here to be a modern manifestation (though of course drawing on different traditions) of anti-idolatrous thinking. Worlds which are not available to corporeal sight, which are not anthropocentric, nevertheless exist, and not in some “beyond” unconnected to human needs, but in relation to these. With anti-idolatrous representation these other worlds are not merely assimilated, we cross a frontier into a new dimension. But we have not yet arrived at the goal of our hopes with the abstractions of the Twentieth century, since their iconography is increasingly beset by the danger of self-reproduction, in which the image is only a pathetic imitation of its predecessor, in which the veneration of images is turned into a farce. In our day, non-representational art no longer protects us from the pretence of false familiarity.

In Luigi Nono’s last great work for the music theatre, Prometeo, first performed in 1984, scenic representation was reduced to a minimum. Massimo Cacciari, the librettist of this unusual opera, spoke of the scandal of the “Hear, O Israel” verse (Deuteronomy 6.4) which stands in opposition to the “eidetic-haptic logic of a Thomas Aquinas, to the gods of the West who reveal themselves, or to the God who revealed himself in the epiphany of the Incarnation”. This anti-idolatrous scandal opens up the realm of the possible, of a potential reality, a dimension becomes thinkable “in which reality is no longer reduced to a simulacrum”[17]. Representing possibilities would mean presuming that they are known. It would thus be reproduction and not the bringing into the light of potential worlds.

Prometeo marks a hiatus, although not the end of that flood of images which is often lamented in our times. Did this flood of representations really only come with the advent of electronic mass media? Or does it not rather have its roots in the idea, identified as pre-historic, that the object represented can be dominated and mastered by means of images/likenesses understood to have magic power? According to this thesis, human thinking in images would be - long before any religious orientation enters into it - anchored in archetypal structures. What happens when Man pulls this anchor up?

 

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What if …. another culture, not restricted to the visual aspect alone, appears on the horizon.[18] It is part of the freedom of the human mind to plumb the possibilities of such alternative worlds.

 

 

Version 2016