Representation, presentation, presence

tracing the homo pictor

Gottfried Boehm

pp. 15-23

in: Jeffrey C. Alexander, Dominik Bartmański, Bernhard Giesen (eds), Iconic power, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2012

Abstract

Cultural practices related to images have always been both about craftsmanship and about the domestication of powers assigned to images. We were concerned with the mysterious effects of images way before we started to celebrate the genius and glory of artists. This is supported by ethnological and archaeological findings as well the history of religion. Myths, fairy tales, and stories of living and punitive images also give way to the reconstruction of old assessments. If we take these sources literally, they seem to conceive of images in analogy to living beings: they attribute something like a "power spirit," emanation, and charisma to the physical body of the artifact. And, not least, they seem to endow images with the ability of a benevolent or vicious look. These kinds of images were respected, revered, or even feared.