Aniconism, Images and the Divine: Part 2

the demarcation of divine presence without figural representation. Uh. And that that was a definition that was given in an essay that I talked about in the last episode from the Journal Religion in seventeen by the Yale University art historian Milette Gaffman. And so in the last episode we talked about some issues with defining the concept of an iconism, and we talked about some specific examples from Greek religion and from Hindu religion. And we're back today to keep

exploring more on the topic. So, but if you if you haven't listened to the first episode, you probably really should go back and check that one out first, because that lays a lot of the groundwork for what we're

talking about today. Yeah, and I do want to remind everybody that that, again, this is a topic where it ultimately touches on an array of different cultures, different moments in time, different places around the world, and it's not something where you can really just you know, boil it all down to, you know, a universal law or too concerning like why um an iconism is utilized and you know what its values are, what it's you know, the

pros are, the cons etcetera. It's going to vary from culture to culture UM And and likewise, a lot of our I guess bigger questions about it, like what does it do? What? You know? Those two are are going to be elusive. You know, you're not gonna really be able to come up with like one solid answer UM that is going to cover everything. Though in the last episode we did talk about some specific studies of anichonism that tried to identify some trends that again are probably

not going to be universal. But for example, one of the payers we looked at last time was by a scholar named Haberman that looked at a sort of spectrum of iconicity in the religious significance of trees and stones

in some Indian rituals. And one of the trends that was extrapolated from that at least as Haberman argued was that it seems, especially devotional religious practices or religious practices that put a lot of emphasis on the relationship between the person and the god tend over time often to transform originally an iconic images such as just unadorned rocks and trees as symbols of divine presence into more iconic

versions of themselves. So you might end up decorating those rocks and trees with clothing or with masks that have a face on them. Yeah. I particularly like Haberman's ideas regarding what happens when you put a face on a god, you know, and uh, and he brought up like facial recognition and and and and how you know that leaning into personific patian an anthropomorphism regarding these intangible you know,

mythic ideas and about how you know. Ultimately it makes something more uh you know, tangible for your your brain to lock onto. So I wanted to start off today with an example of of an iconic religious representation that is sometimes known in the scholarship as divine emptiness. And this is held up in contrast to material anchionism, where you uh, you know, where where you have an object that is the marker of divine presence. But it is

in itself an object. It might be a large stone or a tree, or you know, a big sphere or something like that, or a pillar, but it's not it's not anthropomorphic, it's not theeomorphic, but it is still a material object. Is it possible to signal divine presence by calling attention to an empty space? At least in some

cases it is? And uh, the first example I want to look at is a monument on the small island known as Hulky that is spelled sometimes C H A l K E, sometimes H l k I. It's a small island off the coast of roads in the A, G and C. And here I'd like to read from that essay by Millet Gateman that I introduced in the last episode. Quote. In the late nineteenth century, Friedrich Hiller von Gertringen visited the slopes of the acropolis of the island, and as he climbed up the hill, he came across

a boulder with two rock cut seats. Upon close inspection, he noticed that each of the two seats was labeled with a divinity's name. In the genitive case, the name of Zeus appears on the left and that of Hecate on the right. And this really got the gears turning in my brain. That connects to a lot of things, including some things in Christian art that I'll mention in a second here. But um, yeah, this is very interesting.

So there are some obvious limitations on what information we can we can draw from this, like the lack of archaeological record from the site, coupled with the lack of other evidence, makes it hard to determine whether this monument was ever the object of rituals or of worship. You know,

people stand before it and bow down. But the fact that the empty stone thrones are labeled with the names of God's seems like at least pretty good evidence that this is a type of an iconic monument if we go with the index of divine presence definition, because of course it in a way notes the potential presence of a divine power without showing them in human or an

animal form. Uh. And this would be an example of empty space and iconism because the actual icon you are imagining here is the God sitting within the throne, but they're not there. It's an empty chair. And this is by no means the only example of the empty throne is an index of divine presence. This is actually he found all throughout different religions of the world. Uh, the empty throne of the Buddha, and some Buddhist start rob. I think you've got some information on that in a minute.

But they're all kinds of divine furniture. It's sometimes called in Greek religion, where this is a thing that the God will sit upon or stand upon, a footstool of the God, a throne of the God, but the God isn't in it. And a big example that came to my mind is the prepared empty throne from Christian art, which is often understood to be waiting in preparation for the second coming of Christ, so when Christ comes back, he'll sit here. This imagery seems especially common in the

Eastern Orthodox Church. I was looking up some materials on this and I found a short book published by the JP Getty Museum that was by Alfredo Tradigo and translated by Steven sarter Relli, and it's writing generally about the prepared throne tradition, but with specific attention to one icon and particular that's known as the heat toy masia, which is also a general term that's applied to a lot of this artwork. I think it means like prepared throne

or preparedness, something like that. But this particular icon that is being examined in this book is the back half of a two sided icon from Athens of the fourteenth century that's kept in the Byzantine Museum. And there are some pretty interesting common features that you find on a lot of these prepared throne artworks from Christian history. So for one thing, Tridigo writes, quote, few individual icons are

devoted to this subject. It is more often inserted into complex compositions such as The Last Judgment and Sophia the Wisdom of God. The image of the preparation of the throne or heat toy masia is usually found on the backs of icons of other subjects, such as the famous

icon of the Virgin of Vladimir. The throne being prepared is that on which Christ will sit during the Last Judgment, lying upon the empty throne or the cloak of Christ the judge, and a closed book in the icon on this page, however, the book is open to a passage in the Gospel quote, come oh, blessed of my father, for I was hungry, and you gave me food, which

is a quote from the Gospel of Matthew. Behind the throne stands across the lance, and the cane with the sponge drenched in vinegar lean against it, while the crown of thorns hangs from it. On the fourth step of the throne stands a vase with the nails. And so you've got a lot of this, uh, this this imagery that's charged imagery having to do with the passion narrative

and Christianity and other visions of the Last Judgment. But I also find it interesting that this prepared throne of the Last Judgment, this empty chair that Christ will sit in, uh, he says, is often not the center of a religious work of art, but it's so maybe somewhere off in the corner or on the back side of an icon. I'm not quite sure what to make of that, but that that seems interesting to me. It um, you know, I was thinking it It's like, okay, it's this what

it sounds like. It has all the an iconic paraphernalia, you know. Uh, And in a sense, it almost it reminds me a bit of hoarding. It's like a hoarding of an iconic symbols. And I mean you think of why do people hold onto objects and things because of their association with with with times and places and people. You know, so perhaps a similar energy going on there.

And certainly, yeah, if you if you are disinclined to show a human form or a humanoid form in the art, you have all of these additional things to draw from places that the individual was, things that interacted with the individual's history or the myths concerning them. Yeah, that's right, but it also highlights of course, you know, one of the things we mentioned in the last episode is that certainly within the history of Christianity, there is not a

lot of strict an iconism throughout its history. There's there's a pretty uh pretty complete blending of iconic and an iconic traditions throughout the centuries of the Christian Church. But part of this idea is that like this is a place where Christ is not yet but will be. This is a kind that has not occurred yet but will occur. Uh. So it makes sense that it's unoccupied, that it's unlived in. It's like you know, it's like like the like the airport and the langal ears right. Yeah, yeah, I think

that's right. So the empty throne here would seem to me to take on a special meaning in the Christian context versus say, the Greek context, which I'll come back to in just a second, because Christianity has elements of apocalyptic eschatology, which Greek religion usually doesn't. Maybe you could find some elements of it, but it's certainly not as prominent. So in the Christian context, an empty throne prepared for Christ has a special significance, meaning like, our Savior isn't

here yet, and that's why everything is so bad. Everything is messed up in his absence, but he's coming back soon and then everything will be made right. So it's actually saying something about the world, not just by pointing to the figure of Christ, but specifically by being currently empty. The current temporary absence of the thrones occupant is in

itself theologically meaningful. I was thinking about how the television series Game of Thrones leaned in either intentionally or sort of accidentally or just through you know, cultural um awareness of the trope into this by by promoting at least one season of the show with just an image of the iron throne unoccupied. Yes, yes, And and the emptiness of the throne actually says something about the show like

that that's very up for grabs. It's not just a symbol of the kingship, but a symbol of the sort of open potential. Yeah. Yeah, And and if you lean into it the right way, the hope that someone will set upon it and set things right right. But to come back to the example I started with the empty

thrones of Zeus and Hecate. One thing I wanted to mention is that it has been argued that the Christian tradition of empty throne, uh would you say iconography or an iconography, uh, is at least to some extent derived from the empty throne imagery in Greek religion before it, which which brings us back to those rock cut thrones from the island of hulky Um. So this, this monument on the island, raises all kinds of interesting questions about

how people think of God's when they engage in religious practices. Uh. Thinking back to the first episode, if that that cone of the cult of Aphrodite and Pathos indicates the presence of divine power without showing the goddess having a body.

I guess it is in that case. In the case of the cone left ambiguous, whether the worshipers were picturing Aphrodite as having a body at all like it, it's not clear what they were thinking about, or whether they thought of her as something more more abstract, more disembobied, audied, and so forth. But the empty thrones of Zeus and Hecate,

they are thrones. Thrones are made for bodies to sit on, and they're basically human sized, So you could argue that these thrones are indications of a figural representation without including the representation. They do ask you to picture Zeus and Hecate as essentially bipedal hominids. They indicate that Zeus and Hecate have butts, and the butts could sit in those thrones, but they don't show them to you. The iconicity is

implied and it happens in your imagination. And I do wonder how in general this would this would tend to change the religious experience. Is this somehow is this closer to the experience of the anthropomorphic icon just a straight up statue of a god, or is it closer to the non figural symbol of divine presence, like the cone of Aphrodite, or is it something something totally different altogether. Yeah.

When you start, you know, considering the idea that it's that it's that it's telling you this is a place where the gods have set or will set or can set. It raises so many questions about like why I can't see them right now? Why am I beholding an empty

throne now? Is it? Is it tied to some legacy of of the like some story about the gods having appeared here or having set here in the past and therefore thrones were built, or you know, there was a you know, you know, hallucinations of the gods occurred here and therefore these things were built. Or is it the idea that sometimes the gods can be reached and therefore this is a place prepared for them, This is a place where they can be at home. Yeah, all really

good questions. And and the one I come back to is I wonder if there is any theological significance to the current emptiness of the thrones, like you could argue there is in the Christian context. You know that Christ is not on the world right now, so it is appointedly currently empty but he will be coming. Is the

current emptiness of the Zeus and hecateate throwne. It all like that, Yeah, And then of course it also probably draws in questions about like, well, okay, if this is a place for the gods, I'm assuming humans are not allowed to sit here. Uh. So you know, there's some level perhaps of of the forbidden there as well. This is a place set aside for the gods, This is

not a place for humans, right. But of course, even though it has been argued that the Christian prepared throwne tradition could be derived from the traditions in Greek art of you know, furniture for the Greek gods, uh, it's clear that this is a motif that appears independently in other religions as well, like because there are empty thrones

in Buddhist start work. That's right. There's a great deal of Anichonism and early Buddhism so prior to the first century CE, which you know might seem surprising, you know, to to a lot of people, because when you think about Buddhism, certainly when I think about Buddhism, one of the things I think about are those of those various

images of the Buddha. You know all these fabulous works of art um you know, paintings, and you know, inscriptions and sculptures and various reproductions of a of a human form. But as Susan L. Huntington's pointed out in early Buddhist art in the Theory of an Iconism in Art Journal in nineteen nine, early images and seem to have avoided showing depictions of the historical Buddha or the the or Buddha Sakyamuni, this is a Siddharta Gattama said to have

lived fifth to the fourth century BC. So instead of depicting that individual or some version of that individual in these these early settings, there seem to have been a strong emphasis instead on showing trees and wheels, um stupas and thrones, and those of course can be deeply tied

into the story of the Buddha as well. For example, I know, one of the biggest images in in Buddhism, other than the Buddha himself embodied, is say the Bodhi tree, which it has said that the Buddhist sat underneath, right, And that's that's uh, that's definitely connected also to this idea of of the throne um, particularly at the diamond throne or of Vadrasana, the enlightenment throne of the Buddha. And this is um uh. This is an example of an actual empty throne, that that is that is still

still around. You can go and see this. It's located at at a Maha Bodhi temple at bowd Gaya in India. So it is a stone slab installed beside the Bodhi tree, and this is said to be where the Buddha attained enlightenment in five BC. Now the slab itself is thought to have been built by the emperor Asoka around two fifty or two two thirty three b C. And the tree there, the Bodhi tree, is not the original Bodhi tree,

but it is said to be an offspring of that tree. Uh. And this the current tree is estimated to have been planted around two fifty b C, or at least it's been it's been said to have been planted there, So not the original tree, but it's said to be the offspring. And anyway you look at it, potentially a very old tree. UH. The sacred fig or Um or Ficus religiosa. Can live in estimated nine hundred to fifteen hundred years, and some

specimens are said to be much older. So even if this is you know, this is not the original Bodhi tree, if it's you know, some descendant of the Bodhi Tree, it's still like a really old, really impressive tree. So you can look up images of this. But the Diamond throne is this essentially this stone platform that is then decorated. Uh. Sometimes there is like this um this parasol there as well, uh and various other um you know, iconic implements. But

there is no individual on the throne. There's no statue of the Buddha on the throne. And basically, you know, I mean we have to come back at the end of the idea that this is something from a particular moment in the story of the boot of the idea that they have achieved enlightenment, that ultimately the Buddha has um you know, has has has has moved on into Nirvana and you know, is beyond you know, the limitations

of the physical form in this life, etcetera. And so there's a lot of that in the an iconic aspects of the image. Oh that almost seems an inverse of the Christian prepared throne, right like if the if the empty throne of Jesus is that, well it's empty now, but he's coming back and he'll sit in it. The empty platform here is almost like, well he was here,

but he left. Yeah, I mean, I guess if I was going to to compare it to something in Christianity, I would I would think about the empty tomb right with the stone rolled aside, you know, the idea of being what he is not in here. He's gone on, He's moved on to other things, a sign of what he transcended right now. The author of this paper, I

should I should point out Susan L. Huntington's um. They argued that such an iconic images in Buddhism are quote, not substitutes or symbols for something else, but are important emblems of Buddhist devotion in their own right. And and they argue that that these are not indicative of an quote unquote an iconic period during which there were laws or you know, pressure against the icons of the Buddha. Uh. This was apparently not the predominant interpretation prior to that,

but I I am to understand it. You know, like basically Susan Ol Huntington's was was kind of a well dare I say, an iconoclast in uh in bringing around this this new understanding. And certainly I think there have been there's been various um, you know, findings that backed this up as well. Like it's not like there were

no images of the Buddha prior to this. Um it was you know, it was it was, you know, certainly a trend in depicting um the you know, the the the story of Buddha and uh and and you know, various aspects of of of Buddhist belief. Uh. But uh, but again a lot I think it seems to be tied more to that story of the Buddha. Again, like this is a this is a this is an actual place in the history of the Buddha. This is a time in the history of Buddha, and this is what happened.

So it's not empty as a result of a prohibition on depiction of the Buddha, but it's empty as a result of a deliberate choice stemming from the story that it's based on. I guess it's kind of like if you go to a museum, say it's a historic house or something. They may have, Hey, here's the writing desk desk of this individual. Now sometimes they might have a wax version of that, you know, like founding Father or whatever, setting at the desk, But plenty of times you're not

going to encounter that. It's just going to be here's the desk where they set. Imagine what that was like, if you will. So I don't think it's particularly you know, like lofty theological concept for us to wrap our heads around, because I think if anybody who's gone to a museum or historic location has encountered something of this nature, it just, you know, is inevitably not as as sacred a story

and sacred a figure. So in looking at these examples in particular, a question that really interests me is is there any difference on average for the mental experience of a religious adherent of occult with a figural icon like a statue of Zeus or something versus an empty space icon like these examples of sacred furniture, you know, the diamond throne or the empty throne of Zeus and Hecate. I was trying to see if I could find any

possibly applicable scientific research here. I did find something that might tell us something interesting, though I want to be careful not to over interpret. But we'll see if this seems at all relevant. So I did find a study from the Journal of Cognitive Psychology in two thousand eleven by William L. Thompson, Yawling Siao, and Stephen M. Koslin called Dissociation between visual attention and visual mental imagery. And this study addressed the question what is the difference in

the brain between focused visual attention and mental imagery? In other words, what is the actual difference between seeing and imagining? And in a way, this paper is responding to some some theorists who had said they're actually in many ways the same thing. And we've known for a long time that there is clearly some overlap between visual perception and

mental imagery. For example, there are experiments that show that they make use of some of the same parts of the brain and compete for some of the same resources, so that one can potentially be mistaken for the other, and they can sometimes interfere with one another. But despite this overlap, there are also indications that visual perception and

visual imagination are not exactly the same thing. There are some differences in how they usually function, and the authors here are responding to theories that mental imagery might be nothing more than a specific form of actual visual perception of visual attention specifically, and so the article tried to demonstrate that difference and explore one of the ways that

these two processes are different. So in reading their them describing their experimental process, they say, quote in this study, we used a size manipulation to demonstrate that imagery and attention are distinct processes. We reasoned that if participants are asked to perform each function, both imagery and attention, using stimuli of two different sizes, large and small, and that stimulus size effects two functions differently, than we could conclude

that imagery and attention are distinct cognitive processes. Our analyzes showed that participants performed the imagery task with greater facility at large size, whereas attention was performed more easily using smaller stimuli. This finding demonstrates that imagery and attention are distinct cognitive processes. So the task involved them like trying to notice the appearance of small dots within differently sized

spaces and then uh contract the contrasting test groups. There were sometimes those spaces were occupied by a shape where they were applying visual attention, and other times those spaces were occupied by something on which they were asked to

project mental imagery. And what they found was that the people were better at the attention task, meaning actually looking visual perception when they were dealing with a smaller space, a smaller square, and they were better at the imagery task, the the imagination task when they were dealing with a larger square. So I'm not sure this tells us anything about empty space anichonism versus direct iconic representation, but it might.

I mean, I wonder if this this has something to do with like feelings of a sort of spatial expansiveness in in how you manipulate imagined imagery versus how you would actually respond to a physical statue that's right in front of you and you're looking at it, focusing your

actual visual attention on it when you're concentrating on the divine. Yeah, I mean, I think these these findings are really interesting, But yeah, I feel like you could kind of cherry pick them and apply them all over the place to some of these examples we've looked at, you know, because I'm I'm tempted for example to you know, come back to what Ekartole said about, you know, find this small piece of nature and focus on it, you know, focus your attention on this bird or um you know, or

this uh, this this crystal or whatever. Um. You know. I'm thinking about the you know, the the idea of using the Christna stone and focusing on that as opposed to the mountain that is also Krishna out of which

the stone was was harvested, you know. Um, like you know both, I can see sort of see the value of both, you know, and and sort of the largeness of a god or a goddess or the relatability of a god or a goddess, the the the you know, at what points is it more advantageous or desired to feel a sense of of like personal connection and concentration regarding a divine figure And other times is it better, you know, to have that sort of awe moment like

just thinking about Buddha imagery, you know, uh is it that you know what if it's one You have the Buddhas of all sizes, right, you have Buddhis that tiny little statues that you carry in your pocket. You have Buddhas that are are human side you have Buddhas that are carved out of mountains and are like titanic and inspiring works to look at. Well, I think about the ways that different sizes of the same icon are I think supposed to target people different emotions in in believers.

For example, the tiny crucifix that somebody wears around their neck versus the Christ their redeemer statue in Brazil, which is gigantic, you know, I think those are supposed to create different feelings. One is a feeling of all, you know, that that you are small and that God is big and uh, and that you can kind of surrender yourself to this gigantic, awesome power with the you know, with the big statue versus the crucifix that you wear around

your neck. I often take as a sign of intimacy, like closeness with God what sometimes Christians would call the personal relationship. That that's probably not a term that that everybody who wears a crucifix would use. Yeah, this is all interesting, this will be something well well to hear

from listeners about as well. But but on the subject of of mental images and visual images, um I started thinking about this question of of you know, again, what's what's the difference, what how do you compare the two? And in looking into this, I I ran across an interesting article by David van Drounen and it's titled Pictures of Jesus and the Sovereignty of Divine Revelation, published in

the Confessional Presbyterian in twenty nineteen. So this is like a theological journal where like there it's for for people

within the church discussing church matters. Yeah, but I found it pretty relatable though, and what they're talking about here because they're not really like diving deep into theology here, They're just they're ultimately ultimately asking like, what's what's the difference between these two and observing like sort of the push and pull of an iconism and iconism um and within this tradition all right, pointing out a quote many

traditional reform discussions of the Second Commandment, again referring to the Ten Commandments idea of you know, graving images and all have clearly taught that it prohibits forming mental images of God as well as representing him artistically, which I found really really fascinating because so much of what we've been discussing so far, as you know, especially when we were talking about the Christian example earlier, the idea that if you have a very anichonistic medium with which to

um engage with, you know, this this stone that does not look like a person, then you can kind of summon whatever anthropomorphized incarnation of Krishna you want, you know. Uh. And so basically, you know, I end up just sort of taking the mental image portion of that for granted, Like, of course you're going to then imagine Krishna in whichever form relates to your your current circumstances or you know, or you know what what you are looking for most

out of your religious life. Likewise, we were talking about about God images of God when we're just asked, you know, god reaction, what does God look like? And you end up picturing the sky God from the Sistine Chapel or from Monty Python or whatever. Yeah, and I alluded to this in the last episode. But there there's actually tons of debate among Jewish scholars about how best to interpret the second commandment, you know, thou shalt not make under

the any grave and images. What exactly does that mean? What are the limits of that? I mean, I think it's clear from the historical context that one big thing was that many of the other tribes of ancient canaan Uh they had religious practices that would be centered around

a central cult icon. So they would have an idol that would be a statue of some kind, and their worship in some way was was around that or directed toward it, And so the banning of idols was in in one sense, I think you could interpret that as just a way of saying, hey, we're not like any of these other religions around us. They've all got idols,

but we don't. But that's kind of interesting because one way that the ban on grave and images has been in herported is not just like, don't make idols of other gods and worship them, but also don't make idols of me, the god who is speaking this commandment to you. I do I do not want to be represented in

a in an animal form, say as a golden calf. Yeah, so I was, But I was kind of surprised when we reach the level where where some people take it in the next phase and say, do not form a mental image of the god in question, don't even do it in your head. Yeah, which you know, and we'll get into the like the major I guess arguments against that, but it makes me think again of that this the idea of the monty Python God, where if there's nothing else to draw on, I'm going to draw on that

that one image, you know. Um. But but yeah, but basically you reach the point in the argument where you have to deal with the inevitability of mental images. It's just hard to ignore. Um that this is one of the points that Van Dronna makes in this is like it's just something that happens automatically. It's that that gut

instinct imagining of the Monty pythe on God again. Uh. And so critics of this have argued that if mental images are inevitable, well then that means visual images are perhaps permissible as well, like people, which I think that

that I can understand that argument. It's like people are going to imagine what Christ looks like, and if we don't give them some guidance, then then you know they're gonna cling to something or another, you know, which I feel like is kind of the case with these images of the Dao Christian God, where it's like you didn't give me anything to picture, so I'm only going to picture the sustained chapel. I'm only going to picture of Stephen Colbert skit or or the Monty Python depiction of

the Almighty. But then Van Drummond points out that that it has gone in the opposite direction as well, people saying well, if visual images are not allowed, then we cannot have mental images either. Why on earth would we allow? Would we wed said? Would we say no visual images? If we're going to still let people have mental images? Though, again, how do you enforce them? Well, this kind of reminds me of some of the teachings of Christ about how to obey the Torah, and I think this was something

that was taught by other rabbis. Well that you have heard thou shalt not commit murder, but in fact, if you're angry with someone, you've committed murder in your heart. So it's like, not only don't do it physically, don't even go there mentally, which I think you could. You could look at that multiple ways, but one way to look at it is that's a sort of like extra safety valve. Right, It's like, if you can't even go that far, then you're not even going to get close

to committing a physical murder. Yeah, yeah, I can definitely see the connective tissue between those two concepts. Yeah, um, which I mean ultimately, I guess this is something that

you get at in any of these religious traditions. It's like there's there's the external world of symbols and imagery and literature and and and so forth, but then there is there is inevitably the inner experience as well, and um, you know the two are connected, but they are also these these walls between them and and and at various points in history people have really gotten caught up on that that inner world, Like how to I mean, ultimately,

that's where we all are, Like, that's where that's where all the main battles are taking place, right, That's where you're trying to to enter some sort of meditative state. That's where you're trying to obtain peace. So I think it's interesting to note that there have been strong trends not just of an iconism, but sometimes of pronounced actual anti iconism in all three of the major Abrahamic religions. And remember in the first episode we made the distinction there.

Just because a religion is largely an iconic, say, they don't use figural representations of the divine presence doesn't mean they're necessarily anti iconic. It wouldn't necessarily imply that they think figural representations are bad, though sometimes in some religions that the figural representations are prohibited or are preached against. Yeah, and in this we we really get into the subject of of iconoclasm and iconoclass, which we well we touched

on already, I believe. But uh, you know, all of this is very much tied to the discussion of an iconism. Now a lot of you've probably heard various are and thinkers referred to broadly as iconoclass. I say, unfortunately, like that's the thing that comes to my mind first, instead of like examples from Byzantine history. It's more, uh, you know, various Rolling Stone headlines. And in fact, I did a

search for iconoclass on Rolling Stones website. Okay, here just a few of the people that come up being described as iconoclass or being mentioned in articles where the word

iconoclass is used. So Anthony Bourdain, Noel Gallagher, Justin Thurreau, Golfer, David Ferret, I believe that's Ferret, and I don't know this, Golfer, Lady Gaga, Tom Petty Chance, the Rapper, Frank Zappa, Amy Winehouse, Iggy Pop York, George Romero, slipnot slip not so just just to name of you, now I should say, like this is all perfectly fair, because iconoclass has come to mean anyone who attacks or breaks down cherished beliefs or institutions.

You know, someone who says, you might think rock and roll is this, but it's actually this. It's often synonymous with rebel or contrarian. Maybe yeah, and it's it's you know, there's sometimes I think where it's an overstatement an artist contribution, but I don't know. It's ultimately all fair in the in the game of like rock and roll pr right.

But more specifically, an iconoclassed is a supporter of the eighth and ninth century movements in the Byzantine Church who sought to abolish the veneration of icons in other religious imagery. But we see iconoclasms in plenty of other religions as well, And I think this might be you know, the better way to think about an iconism in a way, you know, outburst movements and crisis points in uh an iconism that leave lasting effects on the culture. Um. We can see

examples of this of iconoclass them in ancient Egypt for instance. Okay, so with like the the Akanatan movement, the pushed towards something like a monotheism way in in ancient Egypt. Yeah, with the Sun disc and and autonism and so forth. Um you know, the shift to that and then the subsequent return to um Uh to the familiar Egyptian pantheon.

Both shifts involved iconoclasm. Now, and as far as Islam is concerned, first, let's just provide a brief overview of the importance of an iconism in Islam as outlined and and the Hadith a collection of traditions containing sayings of

the prophet Muhammad. So my main source on this is a really excellent paper Between Cult and Culture bombyan Islamic Iconoclasm and the Museum by finnbar Berry Flood of n y U, an expert in Islamic art, and it was published in The Art Bolton in two thousand and two.

So Flood points out that the two main arguments against figuration in the prescriptive texts are that we should not usurp divine creative power and that we should avoid polytheism and idolatry, and in both of these flood rights there's a strong concern with the materialistic worship found in non

Islamic traditions at the time. He also points out that this was this was also a common move among both Christians and Jews as well in considering the religion of others, like look to what other faiths are doing and interpret it as polytheism. Yes, this reminds me of things I remember encountering in in my childhood in Tennessee, where conservative Protestants would accuse Catholics of being polytheists. Right, yeah, I think that that's very much an example of this sort

of thing. Now, the general consensus in the Hadith flood rights is that one should not depict anything that has a shadow. Thus we see this rich artistic history that depends instead on abstraction geometry and script coinage for example, that depends on script not figures. But here's the really important take home them from flood. While Western commentators often fall into this trap, you can't look two moments of iconoclasm by particular sects or actors, such as the destruction

of the Buddhas at Bombayan by the Taliban. Uh In Afghanistan as evidence of a fixed, sweeping and essential example of broad Islamic culture. Instead, we're looking at a great deal of variation, complexity, and sophistication in the Muslim response to images, which entail varying attitudes over time and space.

Any points out that, you know, there's a lot to gain from looking at iconoclastic moments in Islamic history, but you can't classify them all under a single rubric for iconoclasm, no more than you can do it for Christian iconoclasm by looking at these moments, because you do see, uh, you know, the issues shift around a bit in Islamic history.

So Flood points out that um the the the Umiad Caliphate established an enduring precedent for an iconic coins in six but quote even after this date, however, variations and attitudes to figuration existed. For some later Islamic rulers issued coins bearing figural imagery. He also points out that you find Islamic palaces that were lavishly decorated with sculpture and paintings that had anthropomorphic elements that were in stark craft

contrast to religious architecture of the same period. So, especially during the seventh century, you would find this divide between the way secular and religious buildings were designed and decorated. Okay, so there could also be a distinction there between religious art and UH and secular art within Islamic cultures, right,

and of for instance, just in the secular arts. He mentions that anthropomorphic and zoom morphic images proliferated in that realm again, the secular world outside of the religious sphere, and that ultimately attitudes quote carried from individual to individual and could change over time or with the advent of

political regimes with different cultural values. And that's one of those statements that I think it may seem like an overstatement of the obvious, but oftentimes outside of the Islamic world, it's it's it's easy to just like look at it as a monolith and not not you know, acknowledge that that reality. Now this, uh, this gets interesting as well.

There were sometimes workarounds, such as the re contextualization of the particular text or work or decapitation UH an item or work, be it two D or three D, no distinction was apparently made, it might remain on, you know, untarnished, unaltered, undestroyed.

If context showed that it wasn't being venerated, or if you removed the head or the face from the work, thus making it inanimate and devoid of a soul, Flood rights and uh and this is interesting because you know, I think outside observers, they might tend to just you immediately think of like, okay, the decapitation or the defacement

as like a severe example of iconic class them. But it's Flood points out there actually quote a type of instrumental iconoclasm, as it permitted the rest of the work to survive in an altered form. It's ultimately a creative strategy. So if you have a say you have an illuminated text, uh, you know, with the illustrations and the text is is value, it's valuable knowledge. Do you destroy the whole text or do you you know, you rip out the pages that

have illustrations, or do you just deface the images? And therefore the the majority of the text remains, but it has been brought, uh, you know, into um into the room where it's going to be accepted by those that would be critical of its use of imagery. So you you get into you know, these various scenarios when you get outside, you know, increasingly outside of the religious world

and you get more into the secular world. But avoidance of divine images in Islam, flood Rights was pretty much universal. And I've got I've got one more quote I want to read from Flood here. Quote. There is no evidence to suggest that the divine image was represented in the Islamic world, despite occasional tendencies towards anthropomorphism. But in the Eastern Islamic world, depictions of the prophet Muhammad survived from

the thirteenth century on. In later paintings, the prophet is sometimes but not always, portrayed with his face veiled or otherwise obscured. This reticence about the face finds a counterpart in the activities of medieval iconoclass in the Islamic world. Okay, so that would go along with the the depictions of secular artwork that we were talking about to say, if you, um, the artist might think that if you obscure the face of the prophet, you're not inviting anyone to view him

as divine. Yes. But but I again, I think it's important to drive home that in this example, really all the examples we've been discussing here is that it's more a story of different um movements of an iconism, uh, you know, outbursts of an iconism and uh in the ebb and flow across. You know, the centuries are longer than you know. I've been having a thought as we've been looking at a lot of these examples about a

general trend of a common back and forth. I wonder to what extent this is true that I also want to be careful not to just like gut feel my way into problem, you know, over generalizations. But I kind of wonder if there is often in religion a general trend toward more iconic artistic representations of religious uh subjects, as there is increased emphasis on familiarity and relationship in in the religious practice, you know, the familiarity between the

God and the worshiper. And then there's a backlash that goes against iconism when there's sort of a return to purity movement that emphasizes something less individual, less relational, and more more abstract. Yeah, yeah, I can see where that could certainly be a part of it. I mean there's also a frequent trend is like what you make these these images out of? You know, you're making them in

their fine works of art, their their material possessions. So I feel like there's the material uh, and the and the rebellion against the material world that it takes place in all of this as well, again across various cultures. Now, almost everything we've talked about so far has been in the context of religion, but of course some of these same ideas about iconic representation versus an iconism could be applied outside the context of religion. Yeah, I was thinking,

for instance, about the Muppet Babies. Um, you remember you ever watched the Muppet Babies? Joe? Oh, yeah, I did? I remember? Yeah, Well you remember we never saw the nanny's face. Right, Oh, that's interesting. I mean we did see legs. Does that count? I guess that's part of the spectrum. Right, we talked about the spectrum in the last episode that just seeing the legs and the sneakers and the and the striped socks does seem less figural

than showing the whole body. Yeah. She she's kind of the goddess of the Muppet Babies and we we never see her face. What does it mean is is she is she like a god? Can we not imagine what her face is? Can they not see her face because they have uh, you know, their their vision is not

good enough because she's pretty tall. But but this also made me think of various franchises where there are particular types of franchises, like the Star Wars sort of franchise where it's it's been created, it's been you know, embellished and built upon, and then you end up with a certain set of guidelines, usually internal guidelines, for what can

and cannot be done within this fictional universe. Like the main example that comes to mind is they like the longstanding mandate that you're not supposed to give a name to the species of Yoda. You know that Yoda Yoda's Yoda, and you just can't talk about like what he is or where it comes from. And a large part of that is like you want some sort of mystery in your expansive world. If you don't have mysterious gaps in it,

it will all feel too small. I am. I just feel or that somebody has broken that rule at some point. There's got to be like an expanded universe novel that said what species Yoda was? They went to the Yota planet? Am I wrong? I mean it's possible, I would I would like to hear more about it, if that's the case. But I feel like it was. It was pretty strongly enforced or at least honored by people who were playing

in the Lucas sandbox. But but it but it made me wonder, Okay, well what about you know, what else is there, say, within the Star Wars world. Well, I guess there's obviously there's the Clone Wars. Uh. When you know, after the first trilogy came out, Lucas knew that he wanted to do something with the Clone Wars eventually, so there was a prohibition against prequel matters because he knew

he wanted to do his own prequel. Um. But but I made me think about um visual depictions like it, And again this would largely be a matter of like internal um uh, you know mandates and you know, internal statements about what can and cannot be depicted. But I wonder if there are any you know, largish fictional universes where there is some sort of prohibition against visualizing certain characters or entities. The only example, possible example that came

to mind. I was thinking about this, and again I have no access to internal documents. So is it all just meet guessing. But I know, in the The Warhammer forty thousand universe, I don't think you ever see depictions of the chaos gods that are you know, the you know that are trying to bring about the ruination of

the galaxy. And I wonder how much of that is there being a mandate that says, hey, you shouldn't actually illustrate what these things look like, or is it just simply a matter of like professional artists working within that realm and being inspired by by you know, you know, a legacy of artists working in the weird and the

dark if they just instinctively know that. Okay, if you have some sort of dark elder god, if you actually draw it, you will diminish it in some fashion, and it needs to be this sort of big, scary concept as opposed to something that fits on a single page. I've got one. What's that? Never see Dr Claw? Do you? You never see his face? Just the glove. Not in the the the actual series. I mean, I'm sure they broke this rule into the the live action films, but yeah,

in the old cartoon he was he was. Yeah, you never saw his face, just that clawed high hand, and you saw his cat right right. Though apparently at some point there was an action figure, because ultimately the purpose of every cartoon is to sell toys, and so you've got to have action figures. And what would have been great is if the action figure had just been an optical illusion. It's like a chair with an arm from no matter what angle you look at it. I would

have given them credit on that. But no, there is an action figure. That's just he's plastic. He's just got gray hair, and he looks angry and he's wearing on my black jacket. Can you look this up and find it? I will look it up. But while I'm looking it up, I think you've really touched upon You've basically answered the question.

Like all these things I've mentioned, Star Wars, Warhammer, even Muppet Babies, I guess you know, these are all about creating icons, mass producing icons and selling them, uh to children, you know. So if there's an iconism within Star Wars, that's to its detriment, because that's one less thing that you can make into a figure and then start somebody. But I gotta have you look at up, Rob, put

this put this stuff in your head. Oh now, the first thing that comes up is is the toy, but its face is obscured, So I mean as part of the packaging, like the original packaging, you would have to buy him to see what his face looked like. Oh that's a good gimmick. But I still don't find another image. Okay, here it is now I see it. Uh yeah, that's not Dr Claw. That doesn't that's not him. Why does he have such big teeth he has like he's gritting his teeth and his mouth is opened, like his lips

are open very wide, but his teeth are clenched together. Yeah, that's that's Dr Claw. What does his hair look like? What? Who else has that three spiked hair? Is that like go coup hair? I'm looking at kind of a thumbnail of it, But I get strong, I get strong David Lynch and David Cronenberg vibes, you know that like kind of kind of white, impressive hair that kind of sticks up. But still he looks angrier than either of those two individuals. So I don't really don't know what to make of this.

This Doctor Claw here. Also huge belt, a gigantic belt buckle that's as big as his face. Oh, not quite as big, but it's it's a that's a big buckle. Did we ever see what Cobra Commander looked like on the old G I. Joe cartoons? Seems like that might have been been another area where you were not permitted to see, like what was under the mask. You just

had to imagine it. Oh, well, this actually does kind of this connects to an area that I know, you know, well, I wonder if masked characters in the desire to keep the mask on. Obviously they're still anthropomorphic because they're in their bodies. I mean, they're pretty much fully embodied. But the hiding of the face does in a way seem maybe lightly analogous to a type of light and I can is um you know, it's obscuring one of the

most important parts of the human figure. Yeah. So if you can never see cover Commander's face, like you can never um like see him as a full human, you know, like he's always going to retain a certain mystique and in humanity. Yeah. So anyway, that that's all I have, not not really much in the way of answers on that on all of that, but just sort of questions, um and and I guess that kind of that's kind

of the truth unnel on. Pretty much every example of an echonism that we've discussed here is like it ultimately raises more questions than we have real answers too, and just kind of makes you think and ponder, Like our relationship with images. Yeah, this is one where Uh, I've really enjoyed this pair of episodes. You got into a lot of interesting history and religious art and stuff. But I do feel like I've kind of failed. I failed to find like a good a good way to frame

this in a psychological or neuroscientific theory. Um. So I don't know, maybe maybe listeners could help us out with that. What does this bring to mind for you in in those worlds? Yeah, we're a bit like Brother William at the end of the Name of the Rose, where we feel like that, you know that these ladders that we've built and used and inherited have failed us in arriving at the truth. We haven't when the library is burned, um, and we just have to walk away from it. Well,

let's not die wedged in that secret passageway. No, no, all right? Uh yeah, So once again we'd love to hear from everybody out there your thoughts on you know, especially any kind of um an chonism that you have grown up in or you know, have a cultural connection to. I'd love to hear from you on that. Certainly, anything in the art world is fair a game, right in

let us know. In the meantime, if you want to listen to other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts and wherever that happens to be. We just asked the you rate, review and subscribe huge things. As always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, just to say hello, you can email us at contact

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