Image and presence: a Christological reflection on iconoclasm and iconophilia

253 Pages·2018·1.885 MB·English

by  Carnes, Natalie;Jesus Christ;Jesus Christus

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
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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
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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.