Flood, Finbarr B. 2005. Refiguring iconoclasm in the early Indian mosque. In Negating the Image.
Konchok, Pema. 2002. Buddhism as a focus of iconoclash in Asia. In Iconoclash.
Wilson, Penelope. 2005. Naming names and shifting identities in ancient Egyptian iconoclasm. In Negating the Image.
Comments to be posted by evening of Monday, Nov. 24.
22 comments:
I found Wilson's article on the shifting identities in ancient Egyptian iconoclasm to be extremely interesting and very helpful in my research on Akhenaten. In Egypt there are three particular areas of iconoclasm that archaeologists tend to focus on: the obliteration of names and usurpation of cartouches from inscriptions on tombs, the dismantling of buildings and the reuse of structures/building materials, and the complete damnatio memoriae of previous kings (erasing the memory). After the death of Akhenaten, and even Tutankhamen, the Egyptians wanted to completely erase the existence of the Amarna family. While Akhenaten was in power he forbade any sort of worship to the many gods that have been known for many centuries, and instead only wanted to focus on a one, monotheistic god, The Aten. To make sure this would happen, Akhenaten built a new city on virgin soil and further created images of the royal family worshiping the sun disk god. It was only through the royal family, could the Aten be reached. Furthermore, to make the Aten seem more powerful, The Aten's name was put into cartouches, which is usually only meant for the pharaoh. Seeing this as offensive, after the royal family died, everyone wanted them completely erased. Amarna, the city he created, was destroyed, any images depicting him and his wife Nefertiti were either defaced or destroyed; the materials that were used to build Armana, were reused in the creation of other temples later on. It was also believed that to destroy any of these images could have negative effects on them in the afterlife. The fact that these images could attract so much passion to be eventually destroyed is extremely fascinating.
After reading these articles, I thought that there is a difference in iconoclasms between the ancient and modern society. In Bahrani and Wilson’s article, I could find the examples of destruction of king’s images in a given society. As Bahrani argued, such destructions could be interpreted as homeopathic magic because the destroyers meant the actual threat, not the symbolic threat, to the ruler by harming the represented image. They also intended to cease the immortality of the represented person, so the threat would be toward the represented person of the image, not toward the destroyer. However, the destruction of religious subjects in modern society such as Buddha statues seems to be different. When the iconoclasts destroy the idols, there seem to be a double-consciousness which represents their belief and fear toward the idols. Therefore, the fear of the threat does not belong to the image, but belongs to the destroyers themselves. In addition, regardless of how much destruction would be employed to the idols, the iconoclasts are aware that they cannot cease the immortality of the idols. They just destroy other people’s belief in the idols, not the idols themselves. In this sense, the destruction of the image in ancient Near East and Egypt seems to be a mere sympathetic magic, but the destruction of religious idols in modern era seems to be a real iconoclasm. Is it because of the advent of systematic religious ideas on the images? Do we have to apply the evolutionary theory again to this chronological change in iconoclasm?
I find the reuse of objects and icons that is discussed in both Wilson and Flood to be fascinating. It's interesting that the Islamic tradition as discussed in Flood does not require that images be destroyed, only that they be "recontextualized" or decapitated. Decapitation seems a familiar action for removing the power of an idol, since we have seen over and over again that the power of an image is often felt to be in its eyes or face. But the prospect of it being action enough to reuse idolatrous textiles as cushions seems bizarre to me. It seems that there is not really any power being ascribed to them, if all that is needed to make them acceptable is to show that they are not being worshipped. Other acts of iconoclasm usually seem to forcefully acknowledge the power of the image by requiring that it be completely destroyed, but this recontextualization seems like simply a token effort, saying "We don't really believe in this, but just in case you thought we might..."
So basically what I am wondering is, does this qualify as "iconoclasm" if the actions are not acknowledging the power of the image by requiring its obliteration but merely looking to avoid the appearance of worshipping the image?
Many of the texts we have read, especially in the first half of the semester, have tried to move away from a ‘modern/premodern’ distinction in the way we perceive images and to create a ‘universal’ theory of images. Bahrani’s piece, however, seems to be a word of caution – “…while certain aspects of perception may be universal constants in the psychic apparatus and are part of the human cognitive system, aesthetics and attitudes toward images are culturally constructed and can be understood only through contemporary textual evidence that relates specific acts, attitudes, and rituals involving images” (150). We can deconstruct the ‘modern/premodern’ divide, but we must be careful making the jump to a ‘universal’ model. This is not to say that universal models cannot be useful, especially models like Gell’s or Latour’s that emphasize the social environment of the image, but specific contextual evidence is also necessary to understand how a particular image was perceived in the past. Bahrani gives numerous examples in which outside evidence is necessary to understand images and their destruction, but I found the most intriguing to be her discussion of the attack on text as iconoclasm. What is text besides a mediator of a social relationship between people? The curses that Bahrani describes as “part of the integral logic of that image” (166) serve less as independent entities than as mediators between the object and the viewer, suggesting how the interaction should proceed (or not proceed). It can be argued, as Mitchell does to some extent, that images are independent entities, but as Gell says, text is purely symbolic and thus can only be understood by an anthropomorph – it is meaningless except as an intermediary in human interactions. Thus an attack on text is less an attack not on Latour’s ‘nodes’ and thus the freeze-frame (although it could be argued that the physical embodiment of the text is a node or a freeze frame in itself), but an attack on the very social fabric that holds matters of concern together.
I found the Wilson article to be a fun read as a detective work on figuring out the history behind the destruction of objects. The Flood piece seemed similar in that respect; both authors reinforcing the trouble of tracing iconoclasm. The Bahrani article was a bit more thought-provoking for me, however. I liked how Bahrani pointed out the idea of immortality in images, that humans consider literature and arts to be a way of immortalizing oneself. It is not just deities or those in power who would be hurt by the destruction of an image in their likeness. The concept of naming was different than we have seen previously. In our earlier work, the opening of the eyes was a way of symbolizing a spirit embodying an idol, but for the Assyrians, an utterance of the deity's name was the integral part to bringing the idol to life.
All of the articles dealt with the issue of resuing materials. This surprised me at first that people could destroy one idol to use the materials in the construction of the next. I wonder if the materials themselves, once having represented such power, will retain that power in another form (and now being all the more powerful), or were the materials reused really just because of convenience? The practice seems similar to eating one's enemy after battle as a way of conquering him totally.
As I was reading Konchok's article, I found myself very impressed by the methods of Mao Zedong. If he didn't understand the human treatment of idols, he at least understood something about human psychology (if only from his own experiences). It is first of all impressive to me that he was able to insert himself as an idol in place of an entire religion. Konchok writes of enormous posters and images of his face displayed not only in public places but also in people's private homes. They obviously did not admire him as a leader but rather worshiped him as a god. Another of Mao's ideas that I find genius in terms of idols is the "little red book". It was tremendously more accessible to the masses in China because it was not only a gathering of thoughts, but also a symbol. Even those who might not necessarily understand what was written in this book could see the physical object and understand what it stood for.
Bahrani and Flood really got me thinking about their attitude towards Latour's "iconoclash". First, a parallel between their discussions of (1) the "uncanny double", defined by Freud as "the familiar and... the concealed... moments of instability of ambivalence when boundaries are crossed", and (2) the early Indian portable images. The alterations exacted on both, particularly towards facial features such as eyes and noses, show that they both. Flood calls this iconoclasm that is "an attempt to re-code meaning according to new iconographic and aesthetic conventions" (28). What confuses me is that if she believes in re-contextualizing the image (looking at it diachronically), then how different is it from thinking about Latour's cascade of images (iconoclash)?
I also found the discussion of Mao's Little Red Book to be a fascinating one, since it outlines the power of the image in its accessibility. Literature is a way to control who gets access to what is being presented, but images are unique, too in the discussion of the power of the creator or commissioner (in the case of Mao) to be able to create something that is readable to everyone. In addition, once you've seen an image, there is virtually no way to erase that, so it almost has a state of permanence. This also made me think of the Bamiyan case, because although the actual Buddhas are gone, there are still existing images of them. This seems to stress the act of iconoclasm as more of a symbol today than it was in ancient times since we have no records of the innumerable objects that fell victim to iconoclasm throughout history that we have no record of.
This from Sara R:
Flood writes, "the dichotomy between creation and destruction that underlies much writing on Islamic iconoclasm offers too reductive a reading of iconoclastic practice" (17). In his article, and in parts of the other articles for today, the authors examine the alteration of images as opposed to their complete destruction. Both Bahrani and Flood discuss the essentialist way in which Islamic iconoclasm is usually viewed, Bahrani stressing the importance of understanding iconoclasm within a specific cultural framework, and Flood focusing on the complexity of the use of spolia as a form of iconoclasm. A common point between the two papers is the idea that Islamic iconoclasm is often viewed as an act of "barbarian destruction" done "in the frenzy of battle" (Bahrani, 152). Flood observes that this notion (fiction?) of Islam's "aggressively negative attitude toward all figural imagery" was developed during the colonial era and I think it is further developed and maintained within the current Islamophobic discourses of American media, with parallels drawn between 9/11, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, and more ancient Islamic iconoclasm.
What I find particularly interesting in Flood's article is the metaphor of translation as a form of iconoclasm similar to that of the reuse of reexisting images in Indian mosques. Rather than a complete destruction of images, their reuse is compared to the translation of text/language, its form and meaning being inevitably transformed in the process of translation/destruction so as to be properly read within the context of a new/different people. While there are clear examples of the use of spolia as a direct acknowledgement of the power of images and the need to destroy them (such as the Danzantes that were walked upon) I think Flood is pointing to a different kind of reuse which still acknowledges the danger of "Image" but does not attempt to completely destroy pre-conquest practices or representation.
Flood's piece on refiguring iconoclasm was the most compelling for me this week.
Flood asks us to move away from the assumption that Islamic iconoclasts were acting out of religious compulsion- that they acted out of passionate religious motives. This analysis essentializes religion in dangerous ways- reducing religious motives to irrational passion. It also obscures the agency of Islamic iconoclasts, limiting their role as complex subjects in history to mad, violent fanatics.
In another class, religion and society, we talk quite a bit about the ways that religion is essentialized to a doctrine, to an ideology that is systematic and often viewed as subversive and flat-out irrational.
I think that this is incredibly important in the way we think about any agent in history- as more than someone who is essentialized to ideology- to economic limits- to anything really. It is a difficult thing to do, but we must. there is much at stake when we reduce in this way.
I am really interested in the way Flood thinks about iconoclasm as not necessarily destructive- but constructive- creative. Mitchell thinks about this in some ways- as any destruction of an image is also a construction of another image- but Flood is thinking about this as a positive construction. In what ways can we view iconoclasm as a happy construction- an act of creativity- to erase the negative feeling that seem to be so necessarily associated with it. In what ways can we negotiate the image- to make lemonade out of the lemons instead of squeazing them to a pulp? hahaha that metaphor was just a little embarrassing...
I found the Flood essay most fascinating due to my interest in Roman studies and the usage of hybridization. I'm actually surprised that the Roman use of hybridization and social memory in religion was not extended scholarly to Islamic and Hindu studies until quite recently. It's quite apparent that the 'Western gaze' has obscured our vision of Islamic cultures. The Ghurid invasions created a systematic destruction, alteration, and creation of images, both of Hindu and Ghurid make ('destruction' would thus create a new image, not unlike the alteration of indigenous deities in Gaul). This syncretism not only legitimized Ghurid rule, by dominating the Indians through religious dominance, but used social memory through images to echo the Hindu religion (a form of religious pacification and acceptance not unlike Roman syncretism in Gaul and Britain). It is interesting to note that Medieval European churches used images to aid in visualizing a story for the illiterate. We see a similar practice here, albeit in a different part of the world, and as a use for social memory (of conquest and of the past).
I find the destruction and reuse of images in state relations very
interesting, particularly in Wilson’s piece about ancient Egypt. She discusses the fact that as a new dynasty came into power, the god Seth came to be associated with foreigners and the previous dynasty (which was Nubian in origin) and thus many images of Seth were destroyed or altered
to fit in with the new dynasty. As Wilson explains, Seth came to be one of the most hated gods / demons with rituals created “to deal with him including the number of magic spells…that…persisted into the Hellenistic, Roman and Christian periods” (125). Clearly, the destruction of the images of Seth is a form of iconoclasm as well as the creation of a new
image – an image of victory over foreign forces, but what about the slight alterations made to some of the images of Seth? Wilson gives one example in which a statue of Seth was converted into another warrior god – how was this changing of the images dealt with? Was the new image seen as
entirely separate from the old one? Was it as if the old statue of Seth had been destroyed and a new one put in its place? Did it not matter that the statue had previously been an image of Seth or was it merely another example of the conquering of Seth?
Also, Wilson refers to Seth as the ultimate “anti-icon and truly demonic presence at every level of society” (125) – however, I would argue that his image became another form of icon (an evil rather than good one), perhaps even a more significant icon than it had previously been.
To me, one of the most interesting parts of this reading was Wilson's description that "the child hieroglyph showing an infant with his finger to his mouth was indeed often not mutilated but rather gouged out, so that powder from the building would be useful in potions of amulets" (Wilson 116). What a fascinating twist on iconoclasm-- the idol being destroyed not to contest its power but in order to revel in it. This, really, is the other side of the irony that the destruction of images necessarily involves creating new images; here, the love of the image results in its destruction. With this in mind, what are the implications of Konchok's mention of certain images being "restored to perfection"? (Konchok 58) Is the essence of the image that which we can most clearly see, or its resultant state after being mutilated by its adorers and slashed by its enemies? How much more damage is done to the image by 'restoring' it to its original state, than by letting it show the history and controversy is weathered!
In one of my earlier posts I discussed the possible importance of context and motive from in the Latour article. The Konchok article made me think of the same questions since he discusses how art was destroyed with the communist revolutions in Russia and China. I wondered if it mattered that this destruction was (at least initially) not in the name of oppressing people but with Marxist hopes of equality. Rather than the example of the Taliban destroying Buddhist statues, the other two examples don't show one culture oppressing another.
Konchok also seemed to be talking about economic and class issues more than religious. He mentions more than once that the most expensive objects were melted down while the others were left alone. Russia and China were also destroying art objects in the name of economic revolution, not religious. I wondered if the giant sized Mao portraits could really be compared to the objects destroyed. Of course the portraits were probably somewhat treated as icons but they represented the face of a man who was living (at least initially). However there was no question of a spirit inhabiting the portrait. I wonder just how much the portraits replaced other icons.
I thought these articles were an interesting return from the world of Latour and the more esoteric examination of iconoclasm. It's a good exercise to get down to brass tacks in the real application of these concepts.
Having recently spent some time in Egypt, Wilson's article was especially vivid for me. One thing I thought worthwhile to add to the removal of Akhenaten is that in the tomb we went to the actual Aten sun disk was conspicuously spared from the erasure directed at the rest of the reliefs on many panels. I wonder if the years of worship during Akhenaten's reign had given enough authority to his idea of the Aten to give a taboo to the idea of destroying its image. I would think this would work on the same level of people who express atheism but still find the destruction of a religious object distasteful.
It was also interesting how the Cultural Revolution so cynically used double-speak in setting up Mao as a new god. There seems to be a real disconnection between the humanist rhetoric and the Chinese creation of a kind of secular state religion. The description of the constantly changing party line in the 60s reminded me of Latour's type B iconoclasm and the cascade of images. I doubt Latour would find the cascade of images presented by the Communist party acceptable, and in all fairness there was a kind of constancy of message in that it was always to the political benefit of the party leaders.
Bahrani’s discussion of “considering the power of writing” (169) adds a new dimension to the complicated discussion about the power of images/idols. All our examples of idols so far have not included text, but with the invention of writing by the Mesopotamians around 3300 BC, text becomes a new form of representation. The manner in which the Mesopotamians revered text, and elevated it on par with the image, “merits our serious consideration, not as a parallel source of information beside the image but as part of the internal logic of the image” (166). Bahrani gives examples of how traditional Western art historical theory has made scholars overlook the importance of text in Mesopotamian art, and I think that her discussion points to the importance of the cultural and theoretical values from which scholars approach artifacts. The theoretical texts we have read this semester seem, for the most part, to encourage open-minded and innovative ways to look at artifacts, but it does seem important to analyze not only the objects at hand, but one’s own technique for looking at an object and interpreting it. I understand that it is impossible to separate cultural biases from the way we understand the world, but it is an interesting challenge to root out bias in one’s own world-vision.
Returning back to the problem of image and text, it seems strange to me that for so many years scholars misinterpreted Mesopotamian artifacts because they refused to accept the texts on artifacts as part of the image itself. Is writing not just another form of visual representation? Sure, it is true that writing is an abstracted form of visual representation, but we perceive it with our eyes, and especially on many of the Mesopotamian art objects discussed in Bahrani’s article the text is written in a beautiful, calligraphic manner. Mesopotamians clearly not only ascribed an inner spirit to their images, but to their writing as well. In the chapter of The Gravel Image that we read, Bahrani mentions curses inscribed on monumental statues, and the addition and subtraction of curses to statues. This indicates a belief that the curses were “an essential and necessary prophylactic device against a real threat and therefore construed as an equally real counter threat” (170). The way wars were played out through texts inscribed on statues and images demonstrate that the ancient Mesopotamians probably ascribed real magical power to texts, as a way in which unrealized ideas could be concretized. Just as earlier cultures may have used their idols in order to tie their abstract ideas to some material object on earth, perhaps the texts gave the Mesopotamians a greater sense of security, since by voicing the curse or commemoration through text they were able to exercise greater control over the actual realization of the text.
There is a sense that text makes ideas permanent. If words are only spoken, they are present only in the moment, where as the written word preserves the ideas of mortal humans for eternity. The Mesopotamians seem to have been obsessed with leaving their mark on the earth, so that when they died, something that indexed their memory would remain for many years on earth, in a sense immortalizing them. Images certainly fulfilled this task, especially those carved in stone, as many of the Mesopotamian images are, but text also works to immortalize mere humans. This quality alone makes text magical, it gives immense power to those able to create text. Perhaps this is why scribes in ancient societies had positions of influence and power. The scribes’ ability to wield such magical tools as writing gives them a similar position to the Paleolithic shamans, who may have had special diving abilities over their fellow men, and so were elevated in their societies. Scribes could control time through their writing; making permanent the present so that it would last into the future, preserving past events through commemorations, and predicting and controlling future events through omen texts.
I really enjoyed Wilson’s work, mostly for the intriguing element of text as an idol. The idea that she separates textual and image-related iconoclasm adds a new depth to the idol-smasher. Those who smash text idols must be literate, where image idol smasher need not be literate. This discussion can be interesting. Is textual idol-smashing a higher, more complex form of smashing? Is it more or less detrimental to the idol-worshippers? Text idols, especially in ancient times, reached an incredibly limited audience. In this case, image idols were significantly more important in that they were understood by such a larger portion of the public. Though today, this is a more complex issue. Are visual images more important idols than text idols? What type of power can text hold that images cannot? Is text or image more specific? The article brought on this whole set of new questions that began churning in my mind. I hope we discuss some of these in class tomorrow.
Both Bahrani and Wilson touch on the significance of text acting as an image and iconoclasm targeted at text. It seems difficult to determine exactly how written text fits into the realm of the image. I would say that it is able to conjure a (mental) image and Wilson discusses in great detail the tremendous effort pharaohs went through to erase their predecessors names and Akhenaten's destruction of all references to Amen and plural gods. Wilson says "In broad terms it seems that in an Egyptian monumental context, 'image' and 'text' are essentially the same thing" (114). Bahrani also discusses the significance of titularies and their importance as an image. She says, "all royal inscriptions are seen as propogandistic declarations of power meant for a human audience, literate or illiterate" (166). I am also reminded of the ancient Maya glyphs that would proclaim names, titles and acts of the elite from sculpture, ceramics and architecture. These texts are specific to naming of people and things and am wondering whether text can only serve as a representation or image when it is a name. Is the destruction of a signed name just as significant as the destruction of a portrait? Along these lines, I am reminded of the Schacter reading from a couple weeks ago and the blurring that occurs between names, images and tags in graffiti. A tag, although just text, becomes a representation of a person and the author's distributed self. The destruction of text in this case is significant and iconoclastic. I think text as image and target of iconoclasm is an interesting topic that I would be interesting in exploring more in class.
Becky
Just like a few of tonight’s other bloggers, I also responded most powerfully to the analysis of the incorporation and exploitation of the imagery of “text.” The “relationship between ‘image’ and ‘text’,” that Penelope Wilson presents within her essay on “Naming names and shifting identities in ancient Egyptian iconoclasm” “is a close one” (Wilson 6) and rightly so when one can so visibly see the equal amount of iconoclastic defacement and entire obliteration of Egyptian hieroglyphs compared to the images of the faces, hands, and eyes these cartouches were naming. My first response was going to point out the distinction one must make when handling text from Egypt versus text from any other archaeological context, especially considering the purely image-like substance hieroglyphs take. Granted, the letter “A” is materially present by the fact that it’s an image, but one cannot argue against the increasing amount of “imageness” when text is comprised of miniatures of women sitting on benches, juxtaposed beside miniature vertically-aligned snakes, indicating the direction the text should be read—or the end of a hieroglyphic line; I’m totally forgetting my overdosed egyptological education of Egypt in Egypt—and whom the subject of the “text,” woman sitting on bench, is.
Disregarding the fact that the language of Egypt, along with the stone-cut walls of their massive monuments, are pregnant with images and very image-like “words,” the utility of the “written word,” as a socializing and culturally-indicative mediator for the contemporary relationships between image and observer, is still applicable. The one example that has surfaced to my mind—hopefully I haven’t bastardized Egyptian history and completely fabricated what I’m just about to say—is Ramses II’s (or maybe it was the III’s) politically artistic ploy, not to deface his predecessors’ cartouches and their images’ anthropomorphic features, but in fact to simply transform previous-carved images’ cartouches into the royal title of Ramses II (or the III)—as I would see it, a neutralizing and transformative act that essentially wipes the context of the image clean for a “new image” to be created. Perhaps this event can be comparable to what Finbarr B. Flood was referring to when he spoke of “translating original texts” in order to give rise to, not “secondary versions,” but brand new works and brand new images “that [only] contain traces of the earlier meanings that they transcend.” (Flood 28)
Words, or hieroglyphs for this example, are very powerful in this sense. The image, the face of the statue, is not changed, but solely the name to imply what “personhood” is being represented for the time being. For me, “the ‘magical’ [cascade of Gellian indexes] power latent in pictures when used as writing” (Wilson 115) appears much more profoundly discernible within this case contrasted with the incorporation of alternative text—the curses of Bahrani’s Mesopotamian kings—to image. The face of the statue is nothing compared to who stands behind that statue—the pharaoh with enough economic, social, and religious power to control the material world of Egypt and all of its manifesting forms.
Due to the infamous megalomaniac character traits of Ramses II/III, I can’t help but imagine a profound change that would occur for the observer—whether they be of the lower classes or the high priests supporting, or not supporting Ramses II/III’s tyrannical reign—of this newly “Ramsesied” image. This is not a graffiti scribble of “Ramses was here”; although even those words transform the landscape so that my relationship between the once whitewashed private building, to the now publically reincorporated space of “personhoods,” leaving their agency “here,” is deeply altered. This is something reaching as far down into the infinite, and inaccessible, core of Gell’s onion and leaving handprints of one’s agency on all successive layers until the finally visible surface of the image screams “I am Ramses!”
This is already way too long for a blog, but just as a side note, the idea of text as a mediator between image and audience certainly should, and has been, explored within the context of a literate and illiterate audience. From the incorporation of text, context is included that translates into a coherent index for some and an incoherent stream of images for others.
First off I'd like to say that Ancient Egypt is a really good place to look at the issues of iconoclasm. This is alluded to in the beginning of the article when Wilson says that "we" image Egypt through its its images. The massive amounts of opportunities for iconoclasm as well as pronounced examples, such as those by Akhenaten, make great case studies. Furthermore, I'd like to say that Wilson's exploration of iconoclasm in Egypt is particularly successful. If I may say so it seems that Wilson is actually attacking the problem of iconoclasm in a method similar to that promoted by Latour as looking at all the layers of meaning together instead of stripping things down to their "simple" meanings. Wilson looks at the economic, legal, and religious implications of iconoclastic actions as well as acknowledging the possibility of personal motives. She also acknowledges the very different side affects and implications of many different methods of iconoclasm. She does all this by looking at a number of particular examples that show different methods, reasons, and implications throughout Egypt and throughout the history of a number of the sites.
The study of iconoclasm can be seen as police work: trying to decipher the leftover pieces, piecing together the evidence to form a complete (or hopefully as complete as possible) story.... At least that's the idea I got from the Wilson piece.
However, I really appreciated how Flood started with her musings on 'Islamic iconoclasm' and then placed the specifics of her investigation (northern India in the late twelfth century) within this supposed history. She does not blindly accept the framework within which her work supposedly falls, but questions it simultaneously.
I find it ironic that while Bahrani chides art historians for viewing inscriptions and curses written on Mesopotamian tombs as propaganda, her analysis of the function of the inscriptions is similarly reductive (169). The inscriptions work in the subconscious of the subjects, who see the recreation of a king in statue form as the preservation of personhood (175). It still seems the propaganda is present, but only subconsciously. Still the essay raised important questions for me about the claim of immortality that an image presents and the ways in which that claim, whether in curse form or other, may invite the death of the image (173). Once an image is consecrated and endowed with life, must it not die? Although the objects come to represent deities, they are easily relatable to human beings. That is to say if all material on earth that is given life must also die on earth, then it is necessary and natural to destroy the consecrated image. This idea diminishes the importance of the politics of the image, or the explicit propaganda at work, or at least makes it secondary to the universal psychological forces that propel us to create images and deface them. Still Wilson’s article and Bahrani’s prove the immense flaw of failing to examine the political climate associated with image creation and destruction. Still the most resonant piece of the entire article was discussion of the moment of consecration as the “announcement of death’s approach”. The moment of the birth of an image is also the proclamation of its mortality and death.
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