The Reformation of the Image.

494 p.: Ill. Schutzumschlag leicht berieben und mit leichten Randläsuren, Einband leicht bestoßen, Bleistiftanmerkung auf Vorsatz, sonst sehr guter Zustand / dust jacket slightly rubbed and with light edge wear, binding slightly bumped, pencil annotation on endpaper, otherwise very good condition. - The story begins in Wittenberg, Saxony, in the throes of religious change. In 1522, while Martin Luther was in hiding from Catholic forces, parishioners destroyed the images in the church of his ministry. On his return, the Reformer, instead of lauding their evangelical zeal, repudiated the image-breakers. Arresting the first iconoclasm of the modern era, Luther paved the way for a new type of church art, one modelled on the communicative reliability of words. The Reformation of the Image studies visual representation after its wilful destruction. Focused on an altarpiece of 1547 by Lucas Cranach the Elder that was set up on the spot of Wittenberg’s iconoclasm, it explores how images redescribe the arguments that eradicated them. In a bold historical revision, Joseph Leo Koerner concludes that idolatry is the image-breakers’ core belief, that the putative idols had iconoclasm built into them, and that iconoclasm’s aftermath is our perennial condition. Koerner illuminates one century of Protestant art and architecture. Instead of promising a means of salvation or imaginative transport, Lutheran images show only what a word-based religion looks like: such images are redundant, exhibiting what a church ordinarily performs. Koerner argues that such portrayals invent an image of society. They are not merely amenable to, but form part of, the pre-history of modern social analysis. By way of this little-known material, Koerner re-evaluates the analytic routines of his own discipline of art history. / Contents Timeline Preface introduction 1 Ideas About the Thing 2 A Tragedy for Art? 3 Territorial Battles 4 Appropriations 5 A Reformation Altarpiece PART I CLEANSING 6 Actions 7 Beliefs 8 Fictions 9 Communications 10 The Arrested Gesture part II the word 11 The Cross 12 The Outstretched Finger 13 A Hidden God? 14 Crude Painting 15 Preaching 16 Teaching 17 Ubiquity part III sacrament 18 From Custom to Rule 19 Behind the Mass 20 The Tables Turned 21 Ministry 22 Church Building Epilogue References Photo Acknowledgements Index. ISBN 9780226450063