svAbhinava Dialogue: The Politics of Iconophilia: Idolatry, Iconoclasm, and the problem of representing God

What Is Iconoclash? Or Is There a World Beyond the Image Wars? (Essay by Bruno Latour)

Idol worship versus Deity worship (W.L. Glick = Isa Das, chapter 29, The Rabbi and I)

Bhairava in Banaras: Negotiating Sacred Space and Religious Identity (1991, published 2006: Sunthar and Elizabeth Visuvalingam)

Towards an Integral Appreciation of Abhinavagupta’s Aesthetics of Rasa (2006; sections on “Religious Art as Propaganda” and “Becoming the Image of God”)

[The Prohibition against Representation has been visited 1074 times since 22 March 2007]

The Prohibition of Representation

Catherine Chalier

[Editing and proofing of interpolated Google machine-translation still pending....]

(Cliquer ici pour l'original en français)

The astonishment before the inexhaustible but fragile multiplicity of the living forms which make this world an always disconcerting, prolific, and enigmatic reality has evoked, since the most distant past, as the art of Lascaux teaches us, the desire to paint and sculpt them.[1] However, the hand that paints or carves these natural, animal or human forms also confers upon them an insistent presence that transcends the transitory duration of their life. The painting and the sculpture arrest time, they make us believe in the eternity of a smile or of a distress, they conserve amidst the living an existence at the very moment when it has been already withdrawn. Nevertheless, whether awkward or sublime, this millennial and universal gesture of representation not self-evident, it seems indeed to transgress the divine word that, in the Torah, forbids the making an idol (pesel) or an image (temouna) of “what is above in the sky, or below on earth” (Ex 20, 4; Dt 5, 7). The iconoclasts fought at the time of the council of Nicea II (in 787) understood it thus, they claimed to prohibit the veneration of the images in the context of worship as idolatrous practices by basing themselves on this biblical passage.

Banished from Jewish, Moslem and, later on, Protestant places of worship, figurative representation encourages, according to the iconoclasts, old and new, the confusion between human works and divine works, it should therefore disappear. This strict interpretation of the second commandment does not however claim unanimity; the history of Jewish art, since the construction of the Temple of Jerusalem down to the creations of contemporary masters, shows that the biblical prohibition was not interpreted to the letter, except at certain periods, in particular in Byzantium precisely at the time of iconoclastic violence, in Islam lands or again in the ascetic Jewish currents of southern Germany in the Middle Ages.[2] As the Judaism does not separate the biblical text from the oral tradition of its interpretation, artists could moreover draw also upon the authority of Talmud to justify themselves. The sages indeed do not subscribe to an excessive rigor in this domain, for they allow the representation of the living forms even while assigning to it nevertheless a limit: that of the human face specifically. “All the faces are allowed except the face of the man” (Roch haChana 24b). This, obviously, resonates in a very particular with the remarks of Levinas on the face.

The Bible thus denounces sculpture and the image as instigators of idolatrous practices, the psalmist thus disparages “the idols of gold and silver, works of human hands. They have a mouth and do not speak, eyes but do not see; they have ears but they do not hear, nostrils but no sense of smell at all…” (PS 115, 4-6). Ezekiel (7, 22) holds that in front of them, it is necessary to divert the face (panim) with repulsion, as if the features of the human face, modeled and animated through face-to-face discussion, risked the worst by contemplating the dumb, blind and deaf face of the idol. The violence of some prophets is even astonishing: “All his carved images (in Samaria) will be crushed to pieces (…), all his statues, I will reduce them to ruins” (Mid 1, 7); “From the house of your God, I will extirpate carved images and statues cast in iron and I will make a tomb of them” (Na 1, 14). Because God who spoke to the Hebrews in the Sinai cannot be confused with an image or a sculpture of human measure without the people losing at once the sense of vocation that requires them to keep facing the invisible one, to listen to and answer him.

Such a face-to-face encounter, certainly paradoxical, would alone be capable of engendering the light that irradiates the face. Thus, when Moses re-descends from the Sinai after having received the Tablets of witness (louhot haEdout), the Torah says that “the skin of his face had become radiant when God had spoken to him” (Ex 34, 29). This radiation would be subordinated to the capacity to receive this Word within oneself and thus to give it a singular flesh and face. On the other hand, still according to this account, the people, who had just tasted with the forbidden fruit of idolatry, did not dare to approach Moses. The opprobrium of impatient temptation to capture the divine within the form of a sculpture (the golden calf) made by human hands, and to adore it rather than to support the invisible, continued to weigh upon them and forced them to lower their eyes before the light of the face of Moses. This text thus suggests that, without even knowing it, the face, in its nudity and its exposure to the claims of the world, expects of the Word—and from it only—to be rendered sensible to a light different from that which scans the days and the nights. But, just as the irrigation of fibers of the skin by the Word, and consequently its radiation, do not constitute a rampart against the wrinkles that betray the irreversibility of becoming and especially against the aggressiveness of those which seek to damage or degrade the face, to subject it to anguish and to extinguish its light, some believe they can find in the idol a higher protection, they flee towards it and become deaf to the word.

It is from this perspective that the prohibition against representation and the violence of the prophets against the makers of idols must be understood. When, standing in front of images and sculptures, man forgets the face-to-face encounter with the invisible, he can indeed only lose his own face. He believes to have produced a sensible equivalence of the invisible thanks to the work of his art or, as history never ceases to attest it, of his ideology and of his submission to the incantation of the powerful, consequently the features of his face show his total confusion in spite of his possible exaltation. Because a face becomes animated only with respect to an irreducible otherness—that of others and that of God—who calls him and makes him live, open to the risk and subjected to the disquietude of his humanity, without being able to make for himself of this otherness an image or an idea that would supposedly control it. However, since the risk and disquietude do not cease deferring happiness and the certainty, man frequently yields to the idolatrous temptation that which bruises his face.

However, the image or the sculpture is not condemnable in itself, what is so are only a certain way of looking at them, a certain type of relations that man maintains with them. The treatise Avoda Zara (idolatry) of the Talmud thus reports that “rabbis of reputation freely made use of works of art, explicitly distinguishing their aesthetic function from the religious significance which was attached to them in other milieus.”[3] The Bible also reports that two cherubim figured within the Temple, “their faces (pénéhem)” looked at each other (Ex 25, 18-20) and the voice of God passed between them to make itself heard. Besides, rabbis later on authorized painted decoration in the synagogues by prohibiting only the projecting stereoscopic images. The superb frescos of Doura-Europos (256 of the common era) attest to the licit character of the figurative representations of the biblical scenes—Abraham receiving the divine promise, the vocation of Moses towards the burning bush etc. — even though, sometimes, “the representation of the human face is avoided”, as in the fresco relating to the binding of Isaac where the face remains “without expression, the eyes fixed in the vacuum”, the characters then appear “detached from the act that they are accomplishing.” Later, in the illuminations of the manuscripts “every figurative representation is not banished, but, to avoid reproducing the human face, one provides it with a beak of a bird or one sometimes replaces it by an animal feature. This motif became so familiar with the painters that they continued to make use of it even when they no longer understand their meaning; thus, in certain late manuscripts, the women alone are represented with heads of animals.”[4] The medieval iconography of rituals attests finally to the licit character of illustrated representation, with a predilection for certain biblical scenes, David playing the harp or again the cherubim of the Temple.

The interpretation of the prohibition against representation given by the Jewish law (halakha) thus accords in fact great possibilities to painters and, to a lesser extent, to sculptors. Portraits indeed exist, as shown, for example, by those of the great Hassidic masters painted by Elazar Tiefenbrun, who says he is trying to transmit to the canvas what he felt when looking at them.[5] Moreover, in a letter intended to encourage the members of the Betzalel Academy of art, which had been just created in Jerusalem, Rav Kook, certain that the aesthetic feeling, if it its is not confused for an end in itself, prepares for the reception of still higher lights than those of sensuous beauty, wrote that the interdiction relates only to “the sculpture of a complete human face, and that in certain conditions, even this may be seen to be authorized.” [6]

Discussions among the sages on the exact scope of this interdiction—and their interpretations are often not very severe—show that, though they knew that man should not make for himself (lo taasé lekha) a graven image of the face because he would be likely to forget the invisible one that vivifies him and to believe that he is controlling it through his art, they understood also the desire to approach this invisible through the sense of sight. The representation of the face, from this point of view, would then not constitute idolatry, but an attempt to direct the gaze towards the invisibility and to celebrate it. The portrait would not signify succumbing to the trap of the idolatry but, like any religious art, the elevation of matter towards a spiritual end. The painter should direct his vision towards the invisible one that emanates from the visible but avoid representing the splendor of a visible reality—especially that of the face—seeking only to celebrate its immanence and to thus give the impression that it suffices unto itself. The excellence of his task would not consign him to reproducing sensible forms, simple or complex, but to perceive and display the invisible life from whence these forms receive their being. However, for him to be able to perceive this life beyond himself, in the forms that he contemplates, in the faces that he encounters, it would be necessary for the painter to start by feeling it in himself, like a living source of his being and like secret gift that it is a question of receiving without seeking to acquire it.

Man can imitate, celebrate the world, letting it be seen in all its unsuspected richness by the self-interested, habitual, or wearied gaze that many bring to bear upon it; however, he cannot really create it. “The human being can draw a form on a wall, but he could introduce neither breath, nor organs, nor entrails into it,” says as Talmud (Berakhot 10a). Like a prayer, art offers to God the beauty of the world and helps men to have a presentiment that it does not derive its being from itself, but it also sometimes happens to foster the belief that the images it fashions invokes no unseen presence and it then incites to idolatry. This danger specific to the image, whether plane or graven, as with all human productions besides, is particularly put to the test, according to the sages, when it is a question of the human face. Any full visibility is likely to seduce the vision and to satisfy, even if temporarily, the curiosity of those who, in forgetting otherness, dream of the transparency of self to itself, or of oneself to the other. Modernity is devoted particularly to this desire; it never ceases to incite to be seen and to see, as if, beyond that, man would have lost his reality. The self-image dismisses the face, definitively sometimes, “the original disappears, unless it is made into an image—to be, is to be perceived.” [7] Since resistance to this visual tyranny proves difficult in a world constantly in the throes of nihilism, those whose vocation is however to reflect also want to enter the limelight, to impose themselves in the eyes of the world, and find it hard to resist the illusion of a more successful life as soon as a multiplicity of looks perceive and celebrate it. As if the recognition of others could confer a face upon him who has forgotten its meaning because he does not cease from scorning the invisible that sustains his life.

Is the wisdom that prohibits the representation of a complete face or, again, its confusion with an image—that of art just like the representation that a man tries to give of himself by attracting looks and by identifying himself with the person that they recognize in him, in order to lose himself therein—decidedly obsolete? Should we emancipate ourselves once and for all from the old texts of humanity that warn man against the self-worship to which he succumbs when he transgresses this interdiction? Finally, does an image of the face exist that allows a gaze without idolatry?

The face speaks

Parce qu’il arrête le temps et substitue l’immuable au fugitif, l’art constitue, pour ses contempteurs, « une caricature de la vie », il provoque une tombée dans la nuit sans permettre l’espérance d’une aurore, car il soustrait à toute promesse comme à tout avenir. C’est pourquoi, selon Levinas, l’art n’appartient ni à l’ordre de la révélation ni à celui de la création « dont le mouvement se poursuit dans un sens exactement inverse ». L’image et la sculpture proscrivent en effet l’élan créateur de la vie, elles le figent en un instant soudain métamorphosé en destin indépassable. « Eternellement le sourire de la Joconde, qui va s’épanouir, ne s’épanouira pas », éternellement l’avenir restera en suspens. Les visages peints ou sculptés s’enferment ainsi dans leur destin, ou dans leur impuissance à forcer l’avenir ; réfractaires au moindre frémissement de la vie, ils restent soumis à l’ordre d’une nécessité impersonnelle et aveugle. La nuit de l’art ne laisse pressentir aucun lendemain, elle méconnaît le mouvement créateur de la vie puisqu’elle ne promet aucune clarté capable d’orienter les pas de l’homme sur la terre où, incompréhensiblement souvent, il grandit et périt. Il est ainsi impossible de s’adresser au visage peint ou sculpté car il ne regarde personne et il ne s’adresse à personne ; même et surtout s’il semble chercher chacun du regard, il ne renvoie en fait à rien d’autre que lui-même. Pourtant, « dans sa stupidité d’idole », il met fréquemment son emprise sur ceux qui le contemplent, il les tient en arrêt et les fascine, c’est-à-dire les possède hors tout contexte significatif et personnel. La jouissance esthétique séduit pour cette raison précisément puisqu’elle allège de la responsabilité envers la fragilité des hommes et des choses : « On se venge de la méchanceté en produisant sa caricature, qui lui enlève la réalité sans l’anéantir ; on conjure les mauvaises puissances en remplissant le monde d’idoles qui ont des bouches, mais qui ne parlent pas ». Or, lorsque le visage vivant de l’homme partout crie souffrance, chercher l’évasion et l’apaisement dans les plaisirs de l’art ne signifie pas « le désintéressement de la contemplation, mais de l’irresponsabilité », voire de la méchanceté, de l’égoïsme et de la lâcheté. Il y a des époques, dit Levinas, « où l’on peut en avoir honte, comme de festoyer en pleine peste ». Le philosophe dénonce ainsi l’hypertrophie de l’art et de ses ombres séductrices qui servent de nourriture spirituelle à beaucoup pour les dispenser de se tenir en proximité de leur frère quand l’heure le demande, c’est-à-dire maintenant. L’art fait désirer la mort au lieu de la combattre, en soi et en autrui, il demande de céder au destin et d’oublier les vivants que ne transfigure encore aucune sérénité. C’est pourquoi, conclut Levinas, « la proscription des images est véritablement le suprême commandement du monothéisme, d’une doctrine qui surmonte le destin—cette création et cette révélation à rebours » ([8]).

Because it arrests time and substitutes the immutable for the fugitive, art constitutes, for its despisers, “a caricature of life”, it causes a fall into the night without allowing the hope of a dawn, because it withdraws from any promise as from any future. This is why, according to Levinas, art belongs neither to the order of revelation nor to that of creation “whose movement continues in an exactly opposite direction.” The image and the sculpture indeed proscribe the creative surge of life; they immobilize it within a moment suddenly metamorphosed into an unsurpassable destiny. “Eternally the smile of the Mona Lisa that is about to blossom, will not blossom,” eternally the future will remain suspended. The painted or sculpted faces are thus locked up in their destiny, or in their powerlessness to force the future; impervious to the least quivering of life, they remain subjected to the order of an impersonal and blind necessity. The night of art does not let have a presentiment of any morrow, it ignores the creative movement of life since it does not promise any clearness able to direct the steps of the man towards the ground where, incomprehensibly often, he grows and perishes. It is thus impossible to be addressed to the face painted or carved because it does not look at anybody and he does not address himself to anybody; even and especially if it seems to seek each one of the glance, it returns in fact to anything else only itself. However, “in its stupidity of idol”, it frequently puts its influence on those which contemplate it, it holds them in stop and the fascine, i.e. overall significant and personal context has them. Aesthetic pleasure allured for this reason precisely since it reduces of the responsibility towards brittleness for the men and the things: “One is avenged for spite by producing his caricature, which removes reality without destroying it to him; one entreats the bad powers by filling the world with idols which have mouths, but which do not speak”. However, when the face living of the man everywhere shouts suffering, to seek the escape and the appeasing in the pleasures of art “the satisfying of contemplation, but of irresponsibility does not mean”, even of spite, selfishness and cowardice. Times ago, said Levinas, “where one can have shame of it, like feasting in full plague”. The philosopher thus denounces the hypertrophy of art and his tempting shades which are used as spiritual food with to exempt them much to be held in proximity of their brother when the hour requires it, i.e. now. Art makes wish death instead of fighting it, in oneself and in others, it asks to yield to the destiny and to forget the alive ones that no serenity transfigure yet. This is why, concludes Levinas, “the proscription of the images is truly the supreme command of the monotheism, of doctrines which overcome to it destiny-this creation and this revelation with wrong way” ().

The severity of this judgment, however, brooks discussion. The idea that art produces only shadows without a future or caricatures of life, the certainty that the painted or sculpted face is mired in the night of an irrevocable destiny, in a silence close to that of death masks, are they indeed without appeal? Is artistic representation necessarily opposed to creation, to this movement that makes light emerge from the very heart of dumb and inert darkness, and to the revelation, to this word that orients man to enable him to distinguish, in any time and any place, between life and death?

Bien des peintres et des sculpteurs en effet désirent donner à voir l’ailleurs dont vivent les formes, ils sont davantage en quête de la possibilité d’une transposition sensible du mouvement créateur que d’une reproduction des formes déjà existantes. Paul Klee évoque ainsi l’art comme une image de la création, il dit vouloir « imiter dans le jeu de l’art les forces qui ont crée et créent la vie », il parle de rendre visible ce qui ne l’est pas et de chercher à « atteindre au-delà de la forme le mystère même de l’être » ([9]). Or cette démarche ne signifie pas nécessairement impiété, volonté de rivaliser avec le Créateur ou de se substituer à Lui, comme certains iconoclastes ont pu l’affirmer. Le Midrach oppose certes la création de l’artiste à celle de Dieu—l’artiste ne peut rien faire sans un rude labeur, le Saint, béni-soit-Il, crée les choses grâce au souffle de Sa parole : ‘Que la lumière soit’ (Gn 1, 3) ; l’artiste meurt et ses créations lui survivent, « le Saint, béni-soit-Il, vit éternellement tandis que Ses créatures meurent » ([10]), mais il n’en déduit pas pour autant la vanité des œuvres humaines. Ce qui importe, dans sa perspective, c’est l’effort pour percevoir comment le verbe créateur anime tout ce qui existe, comment le visage de l’homme vit de cette présence en lui, même s’il l’ignore, et comment il ressemble à Celui qui ne ressemble pourtant à aucune forme particulière, afin de le faire percevoir à d’autres, grâce à une toile par exemple. Le portrait devient alors appel au recueillement, il éveille une émotion qui touche l’esprit, le cœur et les sens. Le Rav Kook reconnaissait ainsi avoir passé des heures à la National Gallery de Londres afin de regarder les portraits de Rembrandt et il se disait persuadé que la lumière cachée du premier jour—lumière réservée pour les justes dans le monde à venir—éclairait les tableaux du peintre ([11]).

Many painters and sculptors indeed wish to give to see elsewhere whose the forms live, they are more in search of the possibility of a significant transposition of the creative movement that of a reproduction of the already existing forms. Paul Klee thus evokes art like an image of creation, he says to want “to imitate in the play of art the forces which have creates and create the life”, he speaks to return visible what is not it and to seek “to reach beyond the form the mystery to even be it” (). However this step necessarily does not mean impiété, will to compete with the Creator or to replace Him, as certain iconoclasts could affirm it. Midrach opposes certainly to the creation of the artist to that of God-L' artist cannot nothing make without a hard labour, the Saint, bless-is it, creates the things thanks to the breath of Its word: `That the light is' (Gn 1, 3); the artist dies and its creations survive to him, “the Saint, bless-are it, saw eternally while Its creatures die” (), but it does not deduce any therefore vanity from human works. What imports, in its prospect, it is effort to perceive how verb creative animates all that exists, how the face of the man saw EC presence in him, even if it is unaware of it, and how he resembles That which however does not resemble any particular form, in order to make it perceive with others, thanks to a fabric for example. The portrait becomes call to meditation then, it wakes up an emotion which touches the spirit, the heart and the directions. Rav Kook thus admitted having spent the hours to the Gallery National of London in order to look at the portraits of Rembrandt and he thought persuaded that the hidden light of the first day-light reserved for the right ones in the world with come-lit the tables of the painter ().

Certains artistes disent voir dans l’attention à la lumière et au verbe dont ils vivent intérieurement ce qui leur permet de percevoir la sainteté de la réalité qui les entoure, d’autres évoquent l’émotion qui les saisit devant la beauté de la création comme incitatrice à cette attention. Mais les deux attitudes s’appellent sans doute l’une l’autre pour disposer l’esprit, le cœur et les sens à voir ce dont l’empressement à être prohibe ordinairement la perception. En effet, comme l’écrivait Matisse, « à force de voir les choses, nous ne les regardons plus. Nous ne leur apportons que des sens émoussés. Nous ne les sentons plus. Nous sommes blasés. Je me dis que, pour bien jouir, il serait sage de se priver. Il est bon de commencer par le renoncement, de s’imposer de temps en temps une cure d’abstention » ([12]). Or, si le retrait s’avère un préalable indispensable à la perception—et non à la mise à nu—de l’inépuisable secret qui anime les formes vivantes, de leur fragile beauté et de l’imminence de la fin de tout ce qui ne tient pas son être de soi, c’est bien sûr le cas du visage. L’artiste qui le contemple, voire se recueille devant lui, puis le dessine, le peint ou le sculpte, cherche-t-il vraiment à l’immobiliser en un instant qui, comme le soutient Levinas, devient alors un destin ? Cherche-t-il, comme il le dit encore, à oublier la responsabilité qui saisit face à sa vulnérabilité ? Propose-t-il une idole à l’adoration des hommes au lieu de leur commander le service de Celui qui transcende toute représentation ?

Certain artists say to see in the attention with the light and with the verb of which they live internally what enables them to perceive the holiness of the reality which surrounds them, others evoke the emotion which seizes them in front of the beauty of creation like instigator to this attention. But the two attitudes are undoubtedly called one the other to lay out the spirit, the heart and the directions to see that whose eagerness to be usually prohibits perception. Indeed, as Matisse wrote it, “by see the things, we do not look at them any more. We bring only blunted smell to them. We do not smell them any more. We are blasés. I think that, for enjoying well, it would be wise to be deprived. It is wise to start with the renouncement, to impose a cure of abstention from time to time” (). However, if the withdrawal proves to be a precondition essential to perception-and not to the setting to naked-of the inexhaustible secrecy which animates the alive forms, of their fragile beauty and of the imminence of the end of all that does not hold its being of oneself, it is of course the case of the face. The artist who contemplates it, even collects himself in front of him, then draws it, paints it or, really seek does carves it to immobilize it in one moment which, as Levinas supports it, becomes a destiny then? Does it seek, like it still says it, to forget the responsibility who seizes vis-a-vis his vulnerability? Does it propose an idol with the worship of the men instead of their ordering the service of That which transcends any representation?

Le peintre ou le sculpteur, animés d’un sentiment religieux, visent à faire ressentir comment tout visage, celui de la force comme celui de la faiblesse, renvoie à une autre réalité que lui-même. Dans cette mesure donc, leur geste contrarie l’idolâtrie, en son principe même. Seul l’artiste qui donnerait le sentiment que le visage a une réalité absolument autonome inciterait à vénérer ce qui a une bouche et ne parle pas, des oreilles et n’entend pas. Mais, quand la beauté silencieuse d’un visage peint ou sculpté touche celui qui regarde, brise sa suffisance et lui fait pressentir l’invisible dont il vit, l’œuvre ne convie pas le regard au contentement de la jouissance, elle lui demande de répondre à l’appel sensible de l’invisible. Il devient alors possible de soutenir, comme le fait Levinas à propos du visage humain, que ce visage là parle , ou encore qu’il adresse une prière à celui qui, soucieux ou distrait l’instant précédent, s’