Image and presence: a Christological reflection on iconoclasm and iconophilia PDF
Preview Image and presence: a Christological reflection on iconoclasm and iconophilia
I M AGE A N D PR E SENCE encountering traditions Stanley Hauerwas, Peter Ochs, Randi Rashkover, and Maria Dakake editors Nicholas Adams, Rumee Ahmed, and Jonathan Tran series board I M A G E A N D P R E S E N C E A Christological Reflection on Iconoclasm and Iconophilia NATALIE CARNES STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS STANFORD, CALIFORNIA Stanford University Press Stanford, California © 2018 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of Stanford University Press. Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Carnes, Natalie, author. Title: Image and presence : a Christological reflection on iconoclasm and iconophilia / Natalie Carnes. Other titles: Encountering traditions. Description: Stanford, California : Stanford University Press, 2017. | Series: Encountering traditions | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017028670| ISBN 9781503600348 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781503604223 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781503604230 (electronic) Subjects: LCSH: Jesus Christ—Iconography. | Jesus Christ—Presence. | Image (Theology) | Iconoclasm. | Idols and images—Worship. | Christian art and symbolism. Classification: LCC BT590.I3 C37 2017 | DDC 246/.53—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017028670 Typeset by Bruce Lundquist in 10/14 Minion For Matthew This page intentionally left blank CON T EN TS Preface ix Acknowledgments xiii Introduction: Our Life with Images 1 1 Born of the Virgin Mary: Arriving Presence 19 2 Came Down from Heaven and Was Made Human: Abiding Presence 57 3 Crucified, Died, and Was Buried: Riven and Riving Presence 87 4 Rose Again on the Third Day: Abiding Presence 121 5 Will Come Again in Glory: Arriving Presence 153 Conclusion: The Image of the Invisible God 181 Notes 189 Works Cited 217 Index 229 This page intentionally left blank PR EFACE In spring 2010, Marina Abramović sat across from an empty chair in New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Viewers waited in line, sometimes for hours, for the chance to sit with the woman called the grandmother of performance art. To many who did sit with her, the experience was gripping. A series of pho- tographs by Marco Anelli testifies to the range of emotions evoked in the sitters: serenity, searchingness, defiance, fragility, surprise, hopefulness. But the reac- tion most striking—and strikingly common—was weeping.1 While the exhibition was open, a group of New York artists handed out badges that read, “I cried with Marina Abramović.” After it closed, photographs of the sitters were collected on a blog titled “Marina made me cry.” Her performance seemed to have hit a cultural nerve, reverberating emotionally and intellectually well beyond the museum’s walls. From those who sat with Marina, those who watched the sitting, and those who followed the event from afar, responses poured forth as essays, books, blogs, and even a documentary, titled, like the performance piece itself, The Artist is Present.2 Why did Marina’s being-present inspire such extraordinary response? Why did the weepers weep? At the time of the performance, I lived in North Carolina, hundreds of miles from MoMA, and waves of excitement billowed even there. I observed the swells of enthusiasm in the writings of the now-late Arthur Danto, first in his New York Times piece on Marina’s performance. It was not his first essay on the subject. Before Marina had performed The Artist is Present, before it was even quite clear what the piece would be, Danto had written a catalogue essay an- ticipating the exhibition by meditating on the title’s invocation of presence. “Pres- ence,” he writes, connotes the mystical presence of icons, and he discerns what he calls a “resonance in the metaphysics of art” between the presence of a saint to an icon and the presence of an artist to her performance.3 There is an echo, or harmony, between Marina’s presence and a tradition of claimed mystical presence that may, Danto seems to aver, account for the power of her performance.
The list of books you might like
