The Trial of Images

      "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images." So states the second of the ten famous commandments given to Moses. Further stipulations state that this includes likenesses of things in heaven, earth, and under the earth. "Under no circumstances can [poetry] be admitted to the city." So states Plato in The Republic. These two bans share some similarities. Both are administered for the sake of the Truth. God commands that the children of Israel should not pursue certain kinds of artwork for it will turn them away from Himself. Plato believes that artwork is thrice removed from Truth, an imitation of an imitation and will consequently turn those who love it from the pursuit of wisdom. However, upon further investigation we shall see that they diverge fundamentally on the issue of the material.

     In Exodus, God commands that images should not be made. However, over the next few chapters God explicitly commands the creation of images. Of things in heaven (cherubim) and things on earth (almond blossoms). He even explains that he has ordained Bezalel and Oholiab as chief craftsmen. These items were not mere decoration, they were holy and to be kept with reverence. One could not even touch the Ark of the Covenant without forfeiting their life. So perhaps the second commandment was not to be taken seriously and only had some kind of metaphorical meaning? Not in the least. For while God is giving Moses these instructions, Aaron and the children of Israel are making an image for themselves. The infamous Golden Calf. What followed was an extreme act of iconoclasm in which the calf was utterly destroyed and even eaten - a profound reduction for a god to be submitted to. So what is the reconciliation of the seemingly contradictory ban and command? I will turn to a rather simplified interpretation of Jean Luc Marion's distinction of idol and icon to lead us through.

    For Marion, the idol as that which "fills the gaze." The gaze is what makes the idol, and not the other way around. Therefore, the only invisible element to the idol is the gaze turned towards it. The idol has captured the gaze and reflects back the gaze. The gaze can go no further than the visible object that is the idol. Consequently, an idol is that which contains within itself a claim to truth and a final end. For Marion, the icon is the inverse. The icon refers to the invisible, and any attempt to make the invisible visible is unfulfilled. The icon, then, only points the gaze onward beyond itself. This is the difference between the ban and command of images in Exodus and Deuteronomy. The images in the tabernacle did not claim to contain and end in themselves, in fact, the very function of these images prove this. The altar is not something to be worshiped, but something on which to offer worship. The Golden Calf, on the other hand, was worshiped for its own sake. It claimed the gaze of the Israelite people. Therefore, we might go as far as to say that god condemns images that claim an end in themselves, but not those which point to himself. This is where Plato disagrees.

    In The Republic, Plato almost laments the fact that he must ban the poets. admitting to his "love and reverence" for Homer. However, he goes on to claim that the painters and the dramatists are both three steps from reality in their work. There is the true bed, which the carpenter copies to make a particular bed, which is what the painter copies in his picture. This is brought into sharper contrast by the fact that the painter must paint with only one perspective. A bed is the same bed no matter what angle you look at it, but the painter must settle for only one angle. This makes it an illusion of that which is "surely far from the truth." He goes in to say that "the entire tribe of poets - beginning with Homer - are mere imitators of illusions of virtue...They don't lay a hand on the truth." For Plato, in a certain sense, all of art is like Marion's idol. It can only attract the gaze unto itself to delight the eye or ear, but it cannot point the mind towards truth, in fact, it does the exact opposite. However, there is no possibility of an icon for Plato. The more one is educated in the pursuit of truth, the more apparent the corruption of art truly is. I think we can follow this line of thought even further back than Moses and Plato to Abraham and Homer himself with the help of Auerbach.

     Auerbach uses the stories of Odysseus' scar and the sacrifice of Isaac to compare two utterly different perspectives of reality. Homer fits in the story of Odysseus' scar during the build up to the final conflict of the Odyssey. However, it is not intended to build suspense, instead it is intended to "relax the tensions." But more importantly, this digression back to Odysseus' childhood comes from Homer's impulse to "represent phenomena in a fully externalized form, visible and palpable in all their parts." Nothing can happen in the epic without the reader knowing all there is to know about it, indeed there is "never a glimpse of an unplumbed depth." Everything happens in the foreground. The reader of Homer is an objective viewer, an omniscient being that knows everything that occurs in full detail, every thought, word, speech is told and explained. The Old Testament account could not be more different.

    In contrast to the unified and single layer of Homer, the story of Abraham and Isaac has many layers and many unplumbed depths. At the beginning of the story God, seemingly from nowhere, calls to Abraham. We are not where he speaks from or his reasons for doing so. "He has not, like Zeus, discussed them in set speeches with the other gods in council." We do not know much about Abraham's whereabouts either, only his "moral" position to God in his response of "Here am I." The only thing we are told of Isaac is that he is Abraham's only son and the one whom he loves. No description of Isaac's features, personality, or indeed if had been scarred on his ankle at an earlier point - much less the account of how this might have happened. The reader is left with many questions and concerns about the story, much is left in the dark. "Since so much in the story is dark and incomplete, and since the reader knows that God is a hidden God, his effort to interpret constantly finds something new to feed upon. Doctrine and the search for enlightenment are inextricably connected with the physical side of the narrative." This "physicality" is the key, I think, in understanding the core difference in the way one of the methods is iconic and one is idolic.

    Homer's highest end is to delight his audience. Auerbach says "The oft repeated reproach that Homer is a liar takes nothing from his effectiveness, he does not need to base his story on historical reality, his reality is powerful enough in itself." "And this 'real' world into which we are lured, exists for itself, [and] contains nothing but itself." Auerbach, in a sense, agrees with Plato's conclusion about Homer. Homer is not concerned with reality, but with aesthetic pleasure. It is an end to itself. However, the Old Testament is extremely concerned with reality. Auerbach says that the Biblical narrator's story "was not primarily oriented towards realism; it was oriented toward truth." And furthermore they "are made concrete in the sensible matter of life." This distinction aligns nicely with Marion's differentiation of icon and idol. It also explains why the Old Testament law is capable of being more nuanced with regards to the arts, it affirms materialty. Material things are capable of showing the way to truth, whether it be a golden ark, or poetry, or ultimately the Incarnation. The material can point in a reliable way to the invisible. For Plato, the visible is already at a remove from the truth, and artwork based on the material is at an even further remove.

   Both the Old Testament and Plato are concerned with the validity of image-making and artwork at large. They both recognize that images have the ability to lead people astray, and both demand banishment. However, the Old Testament recognizes that artwork is not inherently corrupt, but only when it functions as an idol. In fact, when images are banned it is only because they have caused the people to stray from God. Whether they be literal stone and metal (Deut 7:25) or metaphorical (Ezekiel 14:23). It is not the material, or the act of image-making that was banned, it was idolatry. There are times when image-making is commanded with the intention to function as icons - whether it be an altar or a brazen serpent. Plato cannot give material this privilege for it is all an illusion and must forever part ways from his beloved Homer.


Exodus ch. 20-40
The Republic bk. X
God Without Being ch. 1
Mimesis ch. 1

Tolstoy on Art

     That great thinker and artist, Count Tolstoy, in the course of his life turned his formidable mind to many varied topics. Among these is the question of the onology of art and its proper role in society. He addresses these issues and investigates many examples of art from different periods and media to determine whether or not they are real and if they are good. His ideas about art are most comprehensively formed in his essay "What is Art?"

     He begins by defining art as a form of communication. However, in contrast to words and speech which convey ideas, artworks convey feelings. In particular, by the use of devices that will invoke whatever feeling the artist wants to share in the viewer/listener. In contrast to his views on the ontology of artwork, he proceeds upon an impressively erudite diatribe against aesthetic theory from Baumgarten to his contemporaries. He has two main problems with these thinkers. The primary flaw that he sees in aesthetics is that it transfers the question of what art is to the "realm of metaphysics." In other words, for Tolstoy, all these thinkers simply claim that art is about beauty or pleasure and proceed to build their theories on how one judges these properties. This leads to other problem that he sees, and that is that these theories are shifty and are malleable enough to simply absorb any kind of artwork thereby defeating the purpose of claiming to have truth about what art is and more specifically what good art is. I can see the truth in this by the way anti-art like Duchamp's The Founatin is absorbed into the canon of art.

After he makes the distinction between art and Beauty, he explains the way he sees art coming into existence and how its value is determined. Quite simply, the value of an artwork is dependent on the respective culture's ideas about the meaning of life. The meaning if life is determined by what is morally good and evil. And morality is determined by the religion of the culture. An important break in this narrative is the Renaissance. He says that the upper class lost faith in the church and therefore continued to make art in the vein of the church but whilst actually worshiping not God but Beauty itself. Perhaps this is the first real divide in upper and lower art.

     After explicating what art is and how it comes to be valued and judged and where the story took a new turn with the seeking of Beauty for its own sake, he explains more specifically what good art is. There are three things that he specifically does not have patience for in art. First, imitation. If art is the pure feeling that is communicated to the viewer than imitation art is that artwork that instead of trying to capture that feeling from the experience itself but instead from another work of art. He gives the example of Faust by Goethe as false art because of this. Secondly, if the artwork has the wrong moral message. This occurs when the artist has an incorrect view of morality. Therefore, this has two parts. Obvious examples for him are artworks that try to glorify art itself or worse, sexual lust. He gives examples of paintings that contain the nude human form and also lots (lots!) of French verse describing scenes and acts of debauchery. Third, art that does not connect with its viewer. If the viewer cannot receive a feeling or invocation from the art than the art has failed. He uses the example of how a peasant cannot understand the Ninth Symphony and therefore is not good art in contrast with the joyful song of a peasant.

     To his first problem with art that imitation of other art is false art or bad art. How can it be any other way? Should Goethe's Faust really be dismissed as good art because it is based on an older tale?  Tolstoy explicitly mentions this as an example of imitation art. In his biography about Dickens, Chesterton mentions that when Dickens wrote Pickwick Papers there was some controversy about whether or not the story was original to Dickens or if in fact someone else had suggested the concept to him. Chesterton says that it doesn't matter either way. What matters is the genius of Dickens. Dickens was such a powerful talent at writing comedy that the actual idea for the character meant next to nothing compared to what he did with them. The same thing can perhaps be said about Faust, in that the great value of Faust is not the originality of the story but the handling of it by that powerful genius Goethe. It also seems that there is nothing truly original in a pure sense of the word. Instead, there is a tradition that is drawn on and reacted against. Why would this mean that the artist could not convey that feeling that Tolstoy wants using well-known motifs and traditions?

     Secondly, the fact that the artist may have had an incorrect view of morality means that artwork is poor or non-art. The problem with this is that one cannot withhold a reaction from an artwork until she has understood the intent of the artist. For example, a deeply pious artist may paint a version of St Anthony's Temptation that shows him being tempted by beautiful  lady. Two people could look at the painting and have completely opposite moral reactions. One fights harder against temptation and the other falls further into it. We know that Fra Filippo Lippi was a man whose moral views would not necessarily be considered "correct" and yet he paints some of the most beautiful and moving Christian pictures. Sometimes the morality of a painting is intentionally ambiguous, like those domestic scenes by the Dutch painters that feature a man and his wife counting their money while ignoring the scripture. Is this a move to secularism or a warning against moral bankruptcy? I think Tolstoy is right to call for artwork that has a positive and correct view of morality, I do not think that this is as completely dependent upon the artist herself as he claims.

     Thirdly, Tolstoy gives up on almost everyone that I might mention if asked to name a great artist from the past: Dante, Boccaccio, Bach, Raphael, etc. Instead, he praises the simple authenticity of the peasant's song and the peasant's dance. For him the greatest art is one that promotes the true simple Christian faith and the universal brotherhood of all humankind. It is a bold thing to say that these artists were thought of as inaccessible elitists when they were creating as they perhaps are now. I think he slips into a some sentimentalism for his peasant folk. I think there certainly can be authenticity and beauty in the folk culture, but I'm pretty sure that peasants were just as capable of debauchery as the French poets. Bawdy songs and the like are not a rarity amongst folk culture. I think that Tolstoy becomes too interested in simplicity as the ideal of artwork.

    Though I disagree with some of the implications of Tolstoy's views on what art is and what it is for and how it can be good, I think his critiques of the art world are not altogether unfounded. I think that morality is related to artwork and that artworks can make moral claims and that there can certainly be poor, immoral, or non-art. I am not prepared to go to the lengths that Tolstoy is to decry nearly every artist and their art from the Renaissance to his own day. This is not out of elitism but instead it is because I think that that communication of human emotion and morality is not always a simple thing but can be exceedingly complex. I want to have the humility to hear the beauty in the peasant's song and the discipline to hear it in the symphony.