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Brubaker, Leslie. Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm; Boldrick, Stacy

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Brubaker, Leslie. Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm; Boldrick, Stacy meanings of art in varied religious, political, inverting art-making and cultural contexts. Reviews by Anne McClanan, Portland State Brubaker’s short study aimed at non- University, USA specialists offers a lucid and engaging introduction to Byzantine iconoclasm, or “iconomachy,” as she terms it. I am eager to inventing byzantine use this book in my teaching because of the iconoclasm ways Brubaker overtly models the process of historical inquiry, educating students in Brubaker, Leslie. 2012 the ways historians critically analyze primary London: Bloomsbury Academic sources. In contrast with other scholars, such as Warren Treadgold, whose interpretations striking images of these same texts differ dramatically from those of Brubaker, who follows up on ideas iconoclasms past and initially proposed by Paul Speck, she tempers present the dramatic narrative of past studies of Byzantine iconoclasm, arguing that this Boldrick, Stacy, Brubaker, Leslie, and iconoclasm gained force through the gradual Clay, Richard (eds). 2013 expansion of the notion of “real presence,” Aldershot: Ashgate extended to the portraits of saints by the late seventh century, and that the theological thinking crafted in the eighth and ninth art under attack centuries both “justified and codified” this histories of british modification in practice rather than instigated the shift (Inventing, p. 110). In this way she iconoclasm returns iconoclasm to a deeper sense of Barber, Tabitha and Boldrick, Stacy context, so that the vilification of iconoclast figures such as Constantine V (who bore a (eds.) 2013 nickname likening him to dung) is dramatically London: Tate Publishing upturned. Much like in the longer work she published on the same topic in 2011 with the politics of John Haldon, she takes several side trips into the realm of material culture but these iconoclasm sections could be more integrated into the religion, violence and the main argument. For example, how is the development of the Byzantine cross-in-square culture of image-breaking in church plan (Inventing, p. 66) connected with christianity and islam the manifestation of iconoclasm at the heart of the book? Noyes, James. 2013 When viewing this medieval Byzantine London and New York: I.B. Tauris debate about the nature and appropriateness of the holy image in comparison with This diverse group of books forces the other historical moments of iconoclasm, question: what is iconoclasm? How can we Brubaker emerges as a bit of a Byzantine 387 find meaning in this term, which is alternately exceptionalist. She dismisses any connection used here to describe the destruction between Byzantine and the early Islamic wrought by Calvin’s ardent followers, the Caliphate’s iconoclasm, and offers a exquisitely deliberate transmutations of an more ample account of interactions with art conservator, and the sly reappropriations the papacy and other western European of earlier works perpetrated by numerous contemporaries. Although her investigation contemporary artists? Taken together, these of Byzantine iconoclasm is often a “bottom four publications represent an eclectic reach up” approach, trying to get at that tantalizing for profound questions about the larger but elusive goal of the experience of a Material Religion volume 10, issue 3, pp. 387–395 © Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 2014 broader cross-section of people, her reading of display practice are also implicated in of the distinction between early Islamic and these narratives, for Fabio Rambelli and Eric Byzantine iconoclasm rests on theology Reinders’s essay on the Ko¯fuku-ji Buddha and not practices, and thus runs counter head argues that iconoclasm can be to her premises elsewhere in this fine study. “diffused” over time, as a sculpture fragments Her book provides a trenchant overview of and finds new meanings in the “temple of the arguments against the earlier theories culture,” the museum. Their interpretation about women having a particularly close yields a sense of iconoclasm in which relationship with icons, and this is an example museums “function as agents of iconoclasm,” of where the richly developed references and which resonates with other writers in this annotated bibliography sections at the end cohort of reviewed works such as Noyes, of every chapter will no doubt invite many to Cane, and Ashley-Smith who broaden the delve further into the topic. semantic range of the word iconoclasm to The book therein furnishes a remarkable include many transformations of meaning and resource for bringing an abstruse topic to a form. Megan E. O’Neil’s study of Classic- wider audience. For them, she rightly notes period Mayan sculpture concludes that rulers’ that iconoclasm is a relatively new word in monuments, even when fragmentary, could English and one only applied to Byzantine not be “neutralized.” history about sixty years ago. That said, One of the great strengths of this iconoclasm is now ensconced as the term anthology is that it often ranges outside of of art in English-language scholarship the best-studied periods of iconoclasm. on the topic. How well served would her Thus several of the other Striking Images reader be—who apparently needs very entries explore seemingly unlikely topics basic background explained, such as the such as Renaissance Italy (Anna M. Kim), Book Reviews tidbit that Constantinople was founded by the Allegorical Tomb of Lord Somers (Lauren Constantine—by Brubaker’s insistence on a Dudley), the Enlightenment Museum (James neologism, “iconomachy,” over the standard Simpson), and the two World Wars (James usage, “iconoclasm”? This is an odd choice, Noyes). All of these instances challenge us but in sum, a relatively minor concern, as to reappraise our definition of iconoclasm, this book renders an important service by as for example Noyes takes the intriguing showcasing current scholarship on this topic methodological premise of viewing central to understanding Byzantine visual iconoclasm as the “established tradition culture and religious history. of destruction according to the specific In addition, Brubaker contributed one conditions of its age” (Striking, p. 130). of many engaging studies included in the Likewise Simon Crane and Jonathan anthology Striking Images: Iconoclasms Past Ashley-Smith’s “Iconoclasm as Conservation, and Present. Her essay gives more ancient Concealment and Subversion” pushes the Roman context and in some ways it reads like boundaries of the definition of iconoclasm. impressively erudite lecture notes, complete In a thought-provoking and intelligent study, with a bullet-point exposition of iconoclast they question whether the interventions theory. In the next essay, “Iconoclasm in of the conservator serve to suppress the European Prehistory? Breaking Objects objects’ history and problematize the all- and Landscapes,” Henry Chapman and important element of a work we take as its Benjamin Gearey open up the very definition “authenticity.” Thus their essay, while on the Issue 3 388 of iconoclasm by asking if it is possible to face of it seeming to explore what is the very 10 Volume contemplate iconoclasm in a prehistoric opposite of the purposeful destruction of context; that is, must we have extant the iconoclast, gets at something essential contemporary texts to interpret evidence to the inner workings of iconoclasm—the of destruction as iconoclasm? Their essay way that iconoclasm engages fundamentally conveys some of the patterns we discern with art as objects and how as sensing in historical moments of iconoclasm that beings we relate to these works as their run through human existence before their audience, or more actively, as their users. It meaning found a lasting voice in writing: may be the numinous quality of a thing that how weapons carried an importance beyond attracts the iconoclasts’ attention, but it is the functional, for example, or the how the the corporal entity that is attacked. Thus the purposeful destruction of druids’ sacred trees labors of the conservator, transforming the might be construed as iconoclasm. Histories physical attributes of the work, can serve as Material Religion “a deliberate strategy to remove elements the perspective given of the Taliban’s actions that obscured the idealized, authentic image” in Iconoclash (Bruno Latour’s provocative (Striking, p. 192). Some examples in the 2002 ZKM exhibit looms large over several of essay though remain debatable, such as the the works reviewed here) and instead brings inclusion of the Staffordshire Hoard cross as a more nuanced perspective to the ways an instance of iconoclasm. The sight of an the Taliban’s actions were negotiated and abject, crumpled medieval cross may seem informed by a complex dialogue with media as self-evident an example of iconoclasm as reactions to the unfolding events. there is (Striking, Plate 1; Figure 1), and the The Striking Images project comes out authors vaguely allude to the “intentional” acts of an international working group’s sessions of destruction in the archeological record. funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Items in Anglo-Saxon and other hoards of Council. The overall structure of the book this time, though, were crumpled for ease is well-balanced, and casual readers will of transportation, trade, and refashioning, especially appreciate the enframed abstracts as part of their return to the status of a raw that precede each essay. Given the richness material. While it is interesting that modern and heterogeneity of the essays, it is a missed conservation practices do not condone
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