The Destructive Power of Iconoclasm: A Journey Through History at the Glyptotek Museum
The Glyptotek Museum in Copenhagen hosts a compelling exhibition, "Iconoclasm – Art as a Battlefield," exploring the historical destruction of images and sculptures. This journey through time commences in ancient Egypt, circa 1300 BCE, with a defaced statue of the god Anubis, a casualty of Pharaoh Akhenaten’s religious reforms. This act of iconoclasm, the deliberate destruction of religious or cultural symbols, set a precedent for centuries of image-based conflict, fueled by religious zeal, political power plays, and moral indignation. The exhibition showcases the marred visage of Akhenaten himself, his features chiseled away following his death and the rejection of his religious innovations, a stark testament to the ephemeral nature of power and the enduring power of images.
The exhibition continues with the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II, notorious for his brutal treatment of war captives, including the mutilation of their bodies. This act of physical violence found its symbolic counterpart in the subsequent defacement of Ashurnasirpal’s own palace reliefs by the Babylonians, who targeted the sensory organs of the depicted figures – eyes, noses, ears – in a retaliatory act of iconoclastic fury. These fragments, now residing in the Glyptotek’s collection after a circuitous journey through the murky world of art acquisition in the 19th century, serve as chilling reminders of the intertwined nature of physical and symbolic violence.
The narrative progresses to the Roman Empire, where the practice of damnatio memoriae, the condemnation of memory, led to not only the execution of political enemies but also the systematic eradication of their images and names. Emperors like Domitianus, Nero, and Commodus suffered this posthumous fate, their visages chiseled from statues and their names erased from inscriptions. The exhibition features Roman coins and sculptures bearing the scars of this iconoclastic purge, showcasing the lengths to which those in power would go to rewrite history and obliterate the memory of their rivals. Ironically, the very act of attempting to erase Domitianus’ image led to its preservation, as a bronze bust of the disgraced emperor was unearthed during the cleaning of the Tiber River in the 19th century.
The rise of Christianity brought a new wave of iconoclasm, as early theologians like Tertullianus condemned the creation of images as the work of the devil. Christians targeted pagan sculptures, attacking the sensory features believed to harbor demonic spirits. A black basalt bust of Germanicus, bearing a cross carved into its forehead, exemplifies the practice of “baptizing” pagan statues for continued display. However, this tolerance for altered images waned as the aversion to the human body and sexuality intensified, resulting in the more drastic mutilation of figures like the decapitated and castrated satyr from Turkey. The shattered remains of an Aphrodite statue, a victim of zealous stone-throwing, further illustrate the destructive power of iconoclastic fervor.
The exhibition cleverly juxtaposes the historical acts of iconoclasm with later attempts at restoration and censorship. A collection of plaster noses, crafted in the 19th century to replace those lost to iconoclastic attacks, highlights the subjective nature of restoration and the ongoing dialogue between past destruction and present interpretations. Similarly, the display of fig leaves, employed between the 16th and 19th centuries to conceal the genitalia of classical sculptures, underscores the evolving moral sensibilities and the ongoing tension between artistic expression and societal norms. A particularly striking example is a large bronze fig leaf, created in 1896 to cover a replica of Michelangelo’s David in Denmark.
While the exhibition effectively illuminates the historical dimensions of iconoclasm, it leaves a desire for a more expansive exploration of the topic, extending into contemporary examples. The absence of the bust of Frederick V, destroyed in Copenhagen in 2020, feels like a missed opportunity. However, the exhibition catalog delves into the evolving scholarly understanding of iconoclasm, shifting from a primarily religious studies perspective to one increasingly embraced by art historians. It explores how European powers have appropriated artifacts from the Middle East, incorporating them into the concept of “world heritage” and framing them as precursors to European civilization. This act of cultural appropriation, stripping images of their original context and re-interpreting them through a Western lens, can be viewed as a form of modern iconoclasm. This, in turn, provides a framework for understanding the motivations behind the iconoclastic acts of groups like the Taliban and ISIS, demonstrating that iconoclasm is not merely the physical destruction of images, but a dynamic process of shifting symbolic meanings, a process that continues to shape our understanding of cultural heritage.
