medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
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>Luther was a great defender of religious art as a didactic tool. In fact, it
was iconoclasm that brought Luther out of the safety of the Wartburg Castle
where his prince had hidden Luther for his own
protection.
yes, my (dim) understanding is that many of the earliest "reformers" were
really rather modest and "conservative" in their aims, viz-a-viz the nature,
purpose and use of Art among them.
compared with what came later in many areas/sects, their iconoclasm was
relatively mild.
>I only wish I knew more about what he risked his life to defend.
the literature on Iconoclasm (generally, and in this period in particular)
must be immense.
but, as with heresy, reading what the Opposition has to say is very helpful
when trying to get an idea of what was the essence of that which was being
Opposed.
a [non-Reformation] case in point might be Bernie of Claivaux's little
treatise on the use of images in a monastic context (his "Apologia" written to
William of St. Thierry) --though this should be read in the context for which
it was written (i.e., a particularly --if not radically-- "pure" conception of
what monastic life should be all about).
by Luther's time religious [i.e., "catholic"] "art", like so many other
aspects of the Church, had pretty much gone Over the Top --a Good Idea run
into the Ground with endless Scholastic Elaboration.
the churches of Christendom were simply *full* of "art" to an extent that we
can hardly imagine these daze --even the best preserved of those we see today
(like Chartres cathedral) are, in reality, just ruins.
even the churches of the most conservative countries, like Italy and Spain
(which were themselves, significantly "purged" in the wake of the Counter
Reformation), only give us a hint of what it is we have lost in terms of
*centuries upon centuries* of layers of works of all sorts which must have, by
the early 15th c., larded down and more than somewhat "obscured" the Reality
of the Faith.
the basic problem seems to have been the Old Chestnut about the Image
becomming --rather than a "tool" which gave access to the [immaterial] Thing
which it Represents-- an Object of Worship in and of itself, thus further
entrapping the hapless Devotee in the Snare of the Phenomenal World.
i suspect, at least, that this is what is primarily behind the Iconoclasm of
the more radical Reformers of Luther's day and beyond --rather in the same way
that the perfectly valid and "useful" exercise of Pilgrimage had become, by
the End, something much more harmful, spiritually.
but, my happy opinion is here --as in so many other areas-- totally
unencumbered by any actual knowledge of the subject.
>Just another of my areas of utter inexpertise!
yes, my exhaustive experience is that "inexpertise" is distressingly easy to
come by.
and, worse, it is really, really hard to make a buck with.
c
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