The Icon

Perhaps no form of visual culture is more closely associated with the history and religious life of the Byzantine Empire than the painted icon. Known from the Early Byzantine period in encaustic images, its theological and liturgical functions are usually understood in light of theory that emerged in the wake of the Iconoclastic Controversy. As the imprinting of sacred form on matter, icons provide access to the sacred. Although often characterized as static and unchanging, they were produced in a variety of media, and over time new formats and new image types appeared. Recent discussions of Byzantine icons have successfully employed anthropological theory. Continued investigation of the reception of icons beyond the empire’s borders will similarly illuminate the history of their meaning and form.

Rome, the Arabs, and Iconoclasm

By the early seventh century a combination of Persian invasions and, ultimately, Arab conquests removed the Roman Empire from the Middle East and North Africa. Although the emperor Heraclius sparked a brief but dramatic Roman resurgence in the early 630s, these traumatic losses pushed Romans to reintroduce the rhetoric of decline and renewal. Instead of focusing on the traditional, pagan Roman past as Romans had done in earlier centuries, their seventh- and eighth-century counterparts thought about how the empire’s Christian religious practices had fallen away from the ideals that had once made Rome a powerful Christian empire. One result was the Iconoclastic controversy, an argument between Romans who embraced the role of icons in Christian worship and others who wanted to suppress their use. Both sides claimed that the religious practices for which their opponents advocated had broken with the traditions that had once made the empire strong.

Polemics on Iconoclasm and the Predetermined Terms of Life in the Homiletical and Liturgical Works of Theodore the Studite

Although Theodore the Studite is primarily known as a monastic leader and champion of icon-veneration, he was also a prolific homilist and hymnographer. This aspect of his literary heritage is discussed from the perspective of the theological debates during the time of Theodore the Studite’s life – not only the Iconoclastic Controversy which repeatedly surfaced in his writings, but also the debate on the predetermination of the terms of human life. A focus will be made on the extent the turbulent events of his life and polemics he was engaged in made an impact on his homiletical and liturgical works.

Classical Conceptions of Visuality and Representation in John of Damascus' Defense of Holy Images1

The Defense of Holy Images by John of Damascus stands as the archetypal exposition of the Christian theology of images. Written at the outbreak of the Iconoclastic Controversy, it has been mostly valued for its theological content and given scholarly short shrift as a narrowly focused polemic. The work is more than that. It presents a complex and profound explication of the nature of images and the phenomenon of representation, and is an important part of the “history of looking”in western culture. A long chain of visual conceptions connects classical Greek and Roman writers, such as Homer and Quintilian, to John: the living image, the interrelation of word and image, and image and memory, themes elaborated particularly in the Second Sophistic period of the early Common Era. For John to deploy this heritage so skillfully to the thorny problem of the place of images in Christianity, at the outbreak of a violent conflict that lasted a further 100 years after his writing, manifests an intellect and creativity that has not been sufficiently appreciated. The Defense of Holy Images, understood in this context, is another innovative synthesis of Christianity and classical culture produced by late antique Christian writers.

Fashioning Holy Figures

This chapter chronicles how the fashion industry again expanded its use of Christian elements by placing Christian holy figures onto designer garments in the 1990s. Prior to this decade, designers shied away from incorporating representational religious figures in their designs—a trend influenced by iconoclastic controversy in the history of Christianity. The chapter first examines early instances of this trend with the designs of Rei Kawakubo, Kansai Yamamoto, and Gianni Versace. It then analyzes the controversy, lack of comment, and celebration that accompanied subsequent designers’ forays into more figural designs. The chapter places a particular emphasis on Dolce & Gabbana’s “Stromboli” collection, which incorporated numerous images of the Virgin Mary and was the first collection thoroughly dedicated to a Christian theme. It met with widespread celebration from fashion critics and helped establish a Marian focus in fashion design.

A Byzantine Logician’s “Image” within the Second Iconoclastic Controversy. Theodore the Studite

The paper is devoted to the reconstruction of the “iconophilistic” logic theory built by Theodore the Studite in his pro-icon writings during the “scholastic” period of the Second Iconoclasm Christological controversy. We argue that Theodore the Studite invented the non-Aristotelian identity distinction and implemented the two types of identity (the identity of nature and the identity of hypostasis) within his Christological argumentation, demonstrating how the contradictory properties of the two natures of Christ should be accepted consistently. The main issue of the present paper is to discuss the examples of non-classical logical thinking undertaken by Theodore the Studite, which are devoted to the description of how the identity principle should work, why the icon principle is self-referential, and why the duality of the properties of Christ should be accepted by all Christians in order to be iconophiles and logically correct at the same time.

Las imágenes sagradas en Bizancio (siglos VI-VIII). Teología e iconografía entre mito y realidad.

The focus of this paper is double: an overview of the theological discussion from the Council of Chalcedon to the Council of Nicaea II about the status of the sacred images in Christianity, and a global inquiry around the iconography proofs in monumental art before the so called “Iconoclastic controversy” (726/730-843). The interconnection through theological speculations, conciliar decrees, mosaics and frescoes in the apse or on the floors of the churches, aims at restoring the complexity of the role and diffusion of the sacred images between the 6th and 8th centuries in the Byzantine Empire. A detailed presentation of the respective Christological positions of iconomachs and iconophiles and an overview of the main iconographical subjects preserved in the churches will help to overcome some myths that historiography has consigned to history and to achieve a more faithful approach to historical realities.

Miejsce ekfrazy w bizantynistycznej historiografii artystycznej

In Byzantium, writing ekphrases was one of the standard literary skills, de­veloped during school instruction. Yet, in Byzantine art history, the analysis of Byzantine ekphrases had long been beyond the scope of researchers who favoured rather the iconographic and formal comparative methods. It was not until the dis­covery of the role of rhetoric in the shaping of pictorial formulae and iconographic programmes of paintings, by H. Maguire, that the importance of ekphrases was fully recognised – especially as far as interpretation of the contents of art works and the understanding of mechanisms governing the development of iconographic and compositional programmes that ‘defied’ the canon were concerned. The examples of ‘reversed’ compositional schemes in the Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem scene in the Church of the Virgin at Daphni or the Holy Myrrhbearers at the Sepulchre in the Mileševa Monastery, discussed in the present paper, consi­dered within a broad context of architectural space and the liturgy, have demons­trated that the Byzantine artist was able to freely shape his pictorial formulae while looking for new ways of visualising dogmatic content, especially in the period after the Iconoclastic Controversy (726-843). An example of Michael Psellos’ ekphrasis of an image of the Crucifixion fur­ther proves that also Byzantine writers were faced with a similar problem of fin­ding adequate forms for expressing dogmatic content in keeping with the literary canon. In his description of the image, Psellos not only identified its particular elements (schemata) but also referred to the experience and knowledge of the recipient who was supposed to be able to discern in the picture also the reality that could not be represented using artistic means. Thus, the above affinity between the artistic and literary stances seems to re­lease the researchers of Byzantine art from strict adherence to stereotypical inter­pretations in keeping with the methodological canon.

The Iconoclastic Controversy

Earlier Eastern Christian authors saw the veneration of images as idolatrous. Yet from the late fifth century, representations of Christ and the saints grew increasingly popular. Official hostility also grew. In 726, Emperor Leo III ordered a mosaic image of Christ to be removed from the palace in Constantinople. Controversy continued through the middle of the following century. Key figures were Emperor Constantine V, a critic of image-veneration, and Patriarch Nicephorus, whose writings in its defense provided—along with the council at Nicaea in 787—the main theological arguments linking this practice with the orthodox understanding of the person of Christ. Other important defenders were Patriarch Germanus of Constantinople, the monk John of Damascus, and the monastic leader Theodore of Stoudios. The conflict was finally resolved on March 11, 843, by the gesture of a procession with icons. The veneration of images was now accepted as standard Church practice.