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Vedere l'invisibile
Nicea e lo statuto dell'immagine
[Seeing the Invisible. Nicaea and the Status of the Image]
Edited by Luigi Russo
Notes by Claudio Gerbino and Mario Re
Palermo, Aesthetica, 1997
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| Mosaic Icon of the Virgin Glykophilousa, Late 13th c. Source: Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens |
[1] At the beginning of the Presentation Luigi Russo imagines that the reader would be surprised by the release of this volume and almost apologizes: "It may seem strange to publish here the acts of a famous Council of the Church, the Second Council of Nicea, held more than twelve hundred years ago, in 787. And it may even be more strange that to do so, for the first time in Italian, is a scholar of aesthetics." However, the explanation comes early in the text, perhaps with a bit of emphasis or, at least, with understandable professional satisfaction. "Simplifying to the limits of what is permissible, we will just observe - L. Russo writes on p. 10 - that the ancient transgression to the biblical prohibition of making images ... has founded - thanks to Nicaea - our "realm of the senses", precisely that opened by modern aesthetics."
[2] Note on p. 11: "This edition translates only the parts of the Second Council of Nicea of most interest to the question of the image. The translation was carried out on the text established by J.-D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio [New and amplified collection of the holy councils] titles XII and XIII, Florence in 1766 and 1767 ... ".
[3] In the appendix are placed three writings. The first one, due to Mario Re, is entitled Il secondo Concilio di Nicea e la controversia iconoclastica (The Second Council of Nicaea and the iconoclastic controversy) (pp. 171-183); the next one, by Maria Andaloro, is entitled Il secondo Concilio di Nicea e l’età dell’immagine (The Second Council of Nicaea and the age of the image) (pp. 185-194); and the third one, by Crispino Valenziano, has the title Il secondo Concilio di Nicea e l’Iconologia (The Second Council of Nicaea and Iconology) and encompasses pp. 195-206.
[4] We are displaying below the text of the review, signed by Gianfranco Ravasi and published on the Sunday Edition of the Italian daily Il Sole 24 Ore on 10th December 1997 (the article is reproduced from Biblioteca Multimediale del Sole 24 ORE – Cd Rom Domenica 1983-2003 Vent’anni di idee - Multimedia Library of Il Sole 24 ORE - Cd Rom Sunday 1983-2003 - Twenty years of ideas )
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| Doule-sided icon with the Crucifixion and the Virgin Hodegitria, 9th-13th c. Source: Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens |
SACRED IMAGES – Extensive publication of the Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (787)
And the Icon became legal again
Those resolutions allowed artists to represent the Invisible
by Gianfranco Ravasi
I visited two or three times the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow, home to one of the most impressive collections of Russian icons and spontaneously, on those occasions, I was reminded of what Pavel Florensky, the famous theologian and mathematician, wrote in Porte regali (Adelphi Publishers 1977) [Note of the translator: In Russian: Иконостас. Published in English as Iconostatis by Crestwood 1996]. If icons are assigned to the flatness of a museum - he claimed – they seem to be serial works, the iconography is stereotyped, gold looks like barbarian, stylizations are excessive. If, instead, they are shown in their natural habitat, that is in the twilight of a church, wrapped in spirals of opulent songs of the Byzantine liturgy and swirls of incense, if their surfaces are crossed by the flame of the candles, those faces are animated, those eyes chase us, that gold reminds us of otherworldly horizons. Since, as we were taught by Andrei Tarkovsky in the masterpiece film Andrej Rublëv, 1971 [Note of the translator: The Russian original version Андрей Рублёв is in fact dated 1966], in order to paint an icon the personal genius is not enough, faith is necessary, the artistic preparation is not necessary but asceticism is also required, not only intuition is relevant but mystique is also essential. In this sense, the warnings of two great contemporary painters are true: on the one hand, Gauguin who called "not to trust pictures" and, secondly, Paul Klee, according to which "the purpose of art is not to represent the visible but make visible the invisible."
And Vedere l’invisibile [Seeing the invisible] is indeed the title of a work that Luigi Russo, president of the International Centre for Studies of Aesthetics in Palermo, has cured. It is an innovative work, because it offers - for the first time in full - the acts of that council, the seventh ecumenical and the second of Nicaea, held in seven sessions from September 4 to October 13 787 in the homonymous Turkish city, which was decisive for icons in a broad sense, that is, for the holy image. Indeed, as we can note "that old debate and its conclusions, accepted even amid dramatic contrasts by all Christendom, have shaped Western culture. They have made possible art history as we know it (which for centuries has been essentially religious art), but also legitimated images in a broad sense, whether sacred or not, artistic or not."
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| Icon of the Archangel Michael, 14th c. Source: Byzantine and Christian Museum, 14th c. |
The oscillation between the two extremes is constant. You may be attracted to the morbid fascination of the golden calf, as Israel in the desert: it is what we are experiencing now, with the metastasis of the image (the story of Princess Diana is now an icon) and its idolatry (divine omniscience is replaced by television "pan-visibility"). This is why the Bible reminds us that on the summit of Sinai "You heard the sound of words but saw no form; there was only a voice." (Deuteronomy 4:12). The commandment of the Decalogue ("Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image ..."), received in a fundamentalist way by the ancient Jewish and Muslim tradition, really intends to fight each iconolatry, i.e. the blind worship of the image that is one of the greatest temptations. But there is also the other extreme, that of icon-phobia, leading to ascetic rage, conceptual shortage: just think of the "arabesque" of Islamic geometric or the bare nakedness of Protestant churches, offset only by the sound epiphany of music.
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| Icon of St. John the Baptist, 15th c. Source: Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athens |
This spiritual "blindness" had its spiritual triumph just before the Second Council of Nicaea, when the Byzantine emperor Leo III imposed iconoclasm, that was theorized by his son Constantine V - branded by the iconophiles with the ignominious title of Copronymus ("from the name of excrement" - as for insults, at that time they did really not make any joke) - in a special council he convened in the palace of Hieria (now Blacherne) at Constantinople in 754, with the presence of 338 bishops. The theological thesis dwelled with the impossibility of depicting Christ, to avoid infringing the dogma of the Council of Chalcedon which had proclaimed the unity in one person of the two natures, human and divine. Now, according to the Eastern concept, the image is not merely a metaphorical representation but "symbolic" of reality, i.e. it unites the subject and its representation: well, consubstantial with its model for Christ can be only the Eucharist, the only permissible icon. The Fathers of Nicaea had, therefore, to deal with a purely theological matter with however very real implications, (the emperor was also moved by political motives) and their pronouncement, developed after a lengthy debate, which can be followed in these pages almost in real time, was codified in a Horos ("judgment, decree") that had, in fact, results crossing the frontiers of theology and, as I said, due to have a profound effect for the destiny of art. It is curious to note that, as critical speaker of the council and editor of the final document was called Gregory, bishop of Neocaesarea, who was one of 17 Nicene bishops who had also participated in the Council of Hieria; indeed, he had almost been the leader of the iconoclasts. As can be seen in one of the many (641!) notes that the present edition of the conciliar documents attached to the text, the appointment of Gregory had "the dual purpose of ensuring formally the authenticity of the council resolution before the Nicene assembly and to obtain a unequivocal sign by Gregory himself of his recovered belonging to the iconophile camp". The acts of the Council, which among other things also reveal an inlay of citations of Fathers and biblical texts, therefore lead to a "definition" that deserves to be quoted in full for its not only theological sharpness and finesse: it is what is explained in the third commenting essay of the Nicene text by Crispino Valenziano (the other two essays illustrate the historical and cultural coordinates of the event). He reminds us how the Nicene lesson is decisive for the liturgy of all time and how it should be put back in our days of grungy and ungrammatical (civilian and, unfortunately, even ecclesial) iconography. Moreover, the Fathers of Nicaea, declaring that "the pictorial iconography is consistent with the story of the proclamation of the Gospel, confirming the Incarnation of the Word of God, true and not imaginary embodiment, and is the bearer of a benefit similar to the Gospel" (striking parallel between image and word!), claim to "move forward on a royal path". Stumbles on that path were not lacking: a few decades later, between the 813 and the 843, there was a resurgence of iconoclasm and, as mentioned, a revival of this visual Puritanism occurred later on with the Reformation and with some of his popular excesses, also evoked in the novel Brother Jacob of the Danish writer Henrik Stangerup, translated in Italian by Iperborea Publishers in 1993 [latest available English edition published by Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd in 2000]. But Nicea remained nevertheless a peremptory and capital landmark to which not only faith but also art are indebted.
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