Reply To: Iconoclasm

[tmbergan]

In last week’s discussion we saw that the Christian artwork avoided trying to depict a god or anything that could be considered a “false idol,’ but this week, we almost see the opposite. The Byzantine art seemed a lot more interested in showing Jesus and other religious figures that could very easily be seen as idols of worship if you didn’t have an understanding of their stories or meanings. I feel like the Byzantine artwork starts to break the second commandment in that sense. On the Virgin of Vladimir, it says that a lot of the images weren’t considered graven images because they brought people “closer’ to their faith, but it still seems odd that there would be such a big increase in depictions of more religious figures than we saw in the Christian and Jewish artwork.