iconoclasm

iconoclasm. Image-destruction has been a constant possibility in Christian history, for while for some artistic expression in sculpture, painting, or stained glass expresses the soaring upthrust of the soul to the divine, for others it is a distraction, ‘obnoxious lumber’ to be abhorred and discarded. For John of Damascus, what the written word was to the lettered ‘the icon is to the unlettered’. The Byzantine iconoclastic controversy (7th–9th cents.), driven by the astringent impact of Monophysitism, Manicheism, and Islam, created widespread devastation and led many to retreat, for instance, to the caves of Cappadocia. Medieval Cistercians, preferring their own stark abbeys, abhorred contemporary Cluniac embellishment. The 16th-cent. Reformation unleashed another iconoclastic trail of destruction, approved by Zwingli, though himself a lover of art and music, but shocking to Luther. Though Calvin was no extreme iconoclast, his followers wreaked havoc in 16th-cent. France and Scotland and 17th-cent. England, where in the Cromwellian period much of her heritage of medieval stained glass and statues was destroyed and wall-paintings whitewashed. Bible and sermon replaced imagery.

Revd Dr William M. Marshall