Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Artists and theologians: What the Byzantines knew
The Eastern church famously enjoyed a couple of centuries of furious split as they tried to work out the place of images in worship. The argument was won in favour of the icons. The result of all the debate was that 'Greek theologians... raised the status of the work of art to that of theology and the status of the artist to that of the theologian.'
(C Barber Figure and Likeness, on the limits of representation in Byzantine iconoclasm, quoted in Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity, p453)
Old ideas come back in new cultures, in new forms. Wonder if this will?
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1 comment:
I am not sure of your point here. I think in Western society at large, artists are probably better regarded than theologians, and generally more famous (at least, the elite of these two professions: Gilbert & George or Damien Hirst are probably more famous than Tom Wright or Rowan Williams, were the latter not Archbishop). There is of course an interesting parallel in the world of Islam, where the Sunni prohibition on representation of living beings is not shared by the Shi'a.
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