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ABSTRACT
When considered in the field of aesthetics, the Bilderverbot (biblical ban on pictures) is received with a variety of attitudes ranging between the extremes of Kant’s praise and Hegel’s criticism. Despite being at odds with each other, Kant’s and Hegel’s interpretations suffer from the same theoretical flaw: both assume that the pictures the Bible talks about are representations related to their objects by way of reference. This assumption is proven wrong in the pars destruens of this essay, in which it will be argued that using the notion of ‘representation’ as a key to the reading of the Bilderverbot is a misconception that leads to an anachronistic and partial view of the matter. The concept of ‘gaze,’ elaborated by Régis Debray and other scholars of visual studies, is introduced in the pars construens of this essay to show that the biblical prohibition is actually aimed at a different kind of pictures, to wit at presentifications, which, instead of referring to their objects in a representational way, are rather thought to embody and dominate them. In conclusion, through Nietzsche’s insights into the reasons behind religious cults, the point is finally made that the notion of ‘power’ surpasses that of ‘representation’ in capturing and accounting for the authentic meaning of the Bilderverbot.
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Notes
1. The German word ‘Bilderverbot’ is composed of the term ‘Bilder,’ which is the plural form of ‘image’ or ‘picture,’ and the term ‘Verbot,’ that is, ‘prohibition’ or ‘ban.’ To a first approximation, then, the biblical ‘Bilderverbot’ can be taken to mean ‘prohibition of pictures.’ Investigating its authentic meaning, beyond the first approximation, is the goal of this essay. Throughout the text, the German term ‘Bild’ will be translated as ‘picture’ rather than as ‘image.’ This choice is based on T. W. J. Mitchell’s reflections in his Iconology (1986, 10), in which ‘image’ is meant as a sort of umbrella concept encompassing perceptual appearances, mental fantasmata, verbal metaphors, and, among other things, also ‘pictures’ – that is, the products of painting and sculpture. Following Mitchell’s terminology, then, the term ‘picture’ appears more suitable than the generic ‘image’ to render what the Bilderverbot deals with.
2. The passage from the Bible reads: ‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth’ (Ex. 20:4). The text is then repeated, with minor differences, in Dt. 5:8.
3. The birth of aesthetics is conventionally linked to the name of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, who founded the new discipline with his work Aesthetica (1750).
4. It must be noted that the adjective ‘abstract’ has in Hegel’s terminology a different meaning than it has in common usage. For Hegel, ‘abstract’ means ‘isolated.’ In his view, saying that something is characterized by ‘abstractness’ is tantamount to saying that it is not connected to the whole and is therefore separated from truth. The abstract is then always bearer of an incomplete, immature, and faulty perspective.
5. It will be shown that the notions of ‘picture’ and ‘representation’ – even in the case of ‘pictorial representation’ – are not synonyms. Not every picture is a representation, at least to the extent that not every representation is pictorial in nature.
6. It is widely accepted in the secondary literature that the Bilderverbot is not to be interpreted in an aniconic sense. See, for example, without any claim of completeness: Freedberg (Citation1989, 54–81); Bland (Citation2000, 13–36); Heimann-Jelinek (2003, 53–64); Müller (2006, 33–45); Raphael (Citation2009, 38); Benz (Citation2018, 399–427); Fortis (2022).
7. More precisely, insights from the phenomenology of religion and Gerardus van der Leeuw’s thought.
8. Understanding is described as ‘the faculty for thinking of objects of sensible intuition’ (KrV, 95), whereas reason is ‘distinguished quite properly and principally from all empirically conditioned powers’ (533).
9. Kant talks explicitly about an ‘unbridgeable gulf between the realm of the natural concept, as the sensible, and the realm of the concept of freedom, as the supersensible’ (KU, XIX).
10. ‘Representation (exhibitio) [consists] in placing a corresponding intuition (Anschauung) beside the concept (Begriff)’ (KU, XLIX).
11. ‘[…] the content which is to come into artistic representation should be in itself qualified for such representation’ (Ä, 100).
12. ‘The second demand, derived from the first, requires of the content of art that it be not anything abstract in itself, but concrete’ (Ä, 100).
13. ‘[…] thirdly, if a sensuous form and shape is to correspond with a genuine and therefore concrete content, it must likewise be something […] in itself completely concrete’ (Ä, 101).
14. Once again (see footnote 4), Hegel’s terminology differs from ordinary language. By the adjective ‘concrete,’ Hegel does not mean anything ‘material’ or ‘tangible,’ but rather something that has reached its full development, achieved its full potential, and has thus realized its true nature.
15. See also (Schaper, Citation2019), 15 ff.
16. ‘We are here in a world, to quote Hans Belting, “before the age of art;” images are not made for aesthetic pleasure, for decoration and embellishment, but for worship. Worship is the only raison d’être for the production of images’ (Assmann, Citation2011, 20). Assmann’s reference is to Belting (Citation1990). See also (Assmann, Citation2000), 16.
17. ‘The category of figural representation is not immediately given to the human spirit, it is not a fact of nature, constant and universal. Rather, it is a mental framework which, in its construction, presupposes that such notions as appearance, imitation, similarity, and pretense have been already developed and clearly outlined’ (Vernant, Citation1990, Citation2019).
18. For instance, Ernst Cassirer and, more recently, the Protestant theologian Joachim Schaper. The former speaks of a transformation brought about by the Old Testament: ‘It is as though a chasm, unknown to the unthinking, naïve mythical consciousness, had suddenly been opened – says Cassirer – [For the polytheistic] view there was no difference between archetype (Urbild) and image (Abbild) as such’ (Cassirer, Citation1925, 281). In other words, the rejection of idols (and therefore of presentifications) leads to conceiving a previously unknown difference (even a chasm) between archetype and image – meaning and existence, signified and signifier – whose acknowledgment is a precondition for the new notion of ‘representation’ to take shape. Almost a century later, though criticizing Cassirer about other aspects, Schaper seems to agree with him on this particular point. For example, Schaper writes that the biblical view (he mainly concentrates on Deuteronomy 4) ‘presupposes the concept of a signifier and a signified, and of a gulf between them’ (Schaper, Citation2019, 147) and adds that ‘[w]here that gulf opened up, there was a shift from immanence to transcendence, from presence to representation’ (161).
19. To this second group of scholars belong, for example, the anthropologist Jean-Pierre Vernant and the philosopher Klaus Sachs-Hombach. Consider the following passages: ‘Between the V and the VI century, the theory of mimesis […] elaborated by Plato marks the moment in which the transition takes place that leads from the presentification of the invisible to the representation of appearance’ (Vernant, Citation1983, 547) and ‘Plato’s picture theory marks the transition from a cultic-magical to a representational conception of pictures’ (Sachs-Hombach, 2013, 33).
20. A parallel between the two lines of thought – i.e. the biblical and the Platonic – has been explicitly drawn by Joachim Schaper, who, while not disregarding their differences, does write: ‘[…] the biblical authors […] abandoned the concept of multi-faceted divine presences […] and moved towards a concept of representation not unlike the one propagated by Plato’ (Schaper, Citation2019, 159).
21. Although the authors thus far considered maintain that presentifications and representations mark different historical stages, some passages in their texts also seem to allow of a less radical conception. On this basis, arguments in favor of an at least partial continuity between presentification and representation can be advanced without undermining the main thesis that different pictorial functions correspond to different historical ages. For example, representation does not need to be seen as the opposite of presentification but can also indicate a wider notion that includes presentification as one of its essential components. In this view, representation incorporates a moment of presence, but also goes beyond it by putting it in relation to a moment of absence and evoking a continuous oscillation between them (on this oscillation, see e.g. Ginzburg, Citation2019, 89). Presentification can thus be defined as a static one-pole structure consisting of a moment of presence only, whereas representation relies on a dynamic two-pole structure, which exists by means of an interplay between its two poles of presence and absence. Thus conceived, presentification lives on in representation as one of its dimensions, and the idolatrous meaning it goes along with can be accordingly redefined as a ‘risk of relapse’ into a former way of looking at pictures. More precisely, idolatry can still occur, even in the context of representation, if this is erroneously taken for presentification, that is, if its constitutive swinging between presence and absence is mistakenly reduced to the fixity of pure presence.
22. See, for example, Debray (Citation1992); Olin (Citation1996); Morgan (Citation2005); Belting (Citation2005, Citation2008), to name but a few.
23. It must be said that Morgan uses the term ‘subject’ for what so far has been called ‘object,’ i.e. the element of reality a picture embodies or represents. The same terminological divergence did not go unnoticed by a philosopher like Nelson Goodman, whose remark can be repeated here. He writes in a footnote: I use object indifferently for anything a picture represents […]. A quirk of language makes a represented object a subject (Goodman, Citation1968, 5).
24. The original subtitle of Debray’s book is: une histoire du regard en Occident.
25. Debray summarizes his reflections in an elucidative scheme in the middle of chapter 8 (1992, 226–227). Here, the main boundary runs between magical and aesthetic gaze, but a third dimension, though not giving rise to an autonomous gaze, seems to constitute an intermediate stage between the other two. This is the ‘religious’ dimension, whose mid position can be read between the lines of Debray’s schematization. On the row labeled ‘historical context,’ for example, he regards the magical gaze as belonging to the time span ‘from the magical to the religious,’ while treating the aesthetic gaze in relation to the period ‘from the religious to the historical.’ It is thus safe to say that, for Debray, the religious is both the final part of the first epoch and the initial part of the second epoch. Even more meaningful are the rows ‘principle of efficacy’ and ‘purpose and expectations,’ from which it can be seen that pictures, in the magical gaze, rely on the principle of ‘presence’ and are expected to give ‘protection.’ On the other hand, the aesthetic gaze produces pictures based on the principle of ‘representation,’ whose aim is to provide the beholders with (aesthetic) ‘delectation.’ Going beyond the letter of Debray’s text, it is then arguable that, if the religious were associated to an independent gaze, such hypothetical ‘religious gaze’ would probably occupy an intermediate position, characterized by pictures that are observed with devotion and convey a sense of protection – like in the magical gaze – but at the same time are also based on the principle of ‘representation’ – like in the aesthetic gaze. On this latter aspect – i.e. on religion’s capacity to overcome the principle of ‘presence’ to embrace that of ‘representation’ – see also Cassirer (Citation1925, 280).
26. [J]ust as the aesthetic power of judgment in judging the beautiful relates the imagination (Einbildungskraft) in its free play to the understanding (Verstand), […], so in judging a thing to be sublime the same faculty is related to reason (Vernunft) (KU, 94).
27. See Ä, 389–392. ‘Symbolic art seeks that perfect unity of inner meaning and external form which classical art finds in the presentation of substantial individuality to sensuous contemplation, and which romantic art transcends in its superior spirituality’ (392). More precisely, Hegel describes a process in which each moment of art is characterized by a particular relation between content and form: classical art shows a perfect balance between them; symbolic art has not reached that equilibrium yet; and romantic art has already surpassed it. While Hegel certainly considers whether the unity of content and form is a balanced one, at the same time he fails to acknowledge the different ways – presentification or representation – they can relate to each other.
28. The idea of a threatening reality emerges clearly from phrases and assertions Debray repeats throughout his entire book. For example, he mentions ‘the anguish over the precarious’ (Debray, Citation1992, 24) and affirms that ‘only the one who is in transit (read: mortal) and knows it, wants to stay’ (25).
29. Debray distinguishes three ages of the gaze: the regime of the idol, the regime of art, and the regime of the visual. Only the first two – the relationships, differences, and ambiguities between them – are relevant to this essay.
30. The image of the god is a means of holding him fast, of guaranteeing his presence (van der Leeuw, Citation1933, 512).
31. Since a gaze can be defined as a ‘paradigm of the visible, the phrase ‘gaze shift’ is construed in analogy to Thomas S. Kuhn’s famous notion of ‘paradigm shift. See (Kuhn, Citation1962).
Additional information
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Beniamino Fortis
Beniamino Fortis holds a PhD in Philosophy. He studied in Venice, Florence, and Berlin. His research interests are in picture theory, aesthetics, and contemporary Jewish thought. Recently, he has published his second monograph Tertium Datur. A Reading of Rosenzweig’s ‚New Thinking‘ (2019) and edited the collective volume Bild und Idol. Perspektiven aus Philosophie und jüdischem Denken (2022). His current research is focused on the topic of idolatry between Jewish studies and philosophy.