RELIGIONS AND FIGURATVE REPRESENTATION

With the exception of a few wholly isolated cases, the mediaeval Christian West never experienced anything like the iconoclastic crisis that tore apart the Byzantine East in the 8th and 9th centuries of the Christian era. Whilst images were called into question at the time and again in the 12th century, on the whole, mediaeval imagery, in the religious context of Latin Christendom, developed unchecked, notably with the construction of religious building, which proliferated as from the 13th century, along with the growth of the mendicant orders^[1] (Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians, etc...). Every town, even if it numbered only a few thousand people, had its cathedral along with several parish churches, chapels, convents and oratories^[2], all of which were more or less richly decorated with representational works: Statues of Christ, the Virgin, saints, always in stone if outside the churches, in stone or wood when inside, altarpieces^[3] behind the altars^[4], stained glass, painted panels etc.. Pilgrimage shrines, as well as the churches along the pilgrims' path, were often decorated in direct proportion with the inflow they enjoyed – and their decorative wealth yielded in turn an increased attendance from the faithful.

The theologians drew a very precise distinction between the material image made of wood, stone and coloured pigments, which had, as such, no claim to any sort of veneration and the reality represented by this image, which may indeed be worshiped, in adoration (when representing Christ), or in veneration (when representing saints). In the 13th century, Thomas Aquinas^[5] accordingly differentiated between two elements in the soul's movement as it turned to an image: firstly what draws us to the image as a thing and which we would today call perception (I look at the statue, note the folds in its clothing, admire its facial expression...) or perhaps interest in its material making (I wonder on what wood it was painted); secondly what draws us to the image “in that it is the image of something else”: we might speak then of the image as a support for the reality manifested by it (I look at the statue of the Virgin and turn to Mary with a prayer asking her to intercede for me with her Son) In the last part of the Summa Theologica (drafted between 1266 and 1273), Thomas addresses the question of whether the image of Christ is owed “the adoration of latria” (to be understood as the pure adoration owed to God alone) rather than “the adoration of dulia” (closer to the veneration suitable for the cult of saints). Here, Thomas Aquinas has no trucks with the image as an object, which may not command any cult (be it of veneration) and considers the image in that it denotes a reality it purports to represent and which commands the same sentiment – of veneration or adoration – as this reality.

When it came to religious practice on the ground, things often went otherwise: regardless of all the erudite distinctions of the theologians, devotional images were sometimes deemed to be endowed with supernatural forces. It was then the image that attracted the worship of the believers, who went to it (pilgrimages), knelt before it, invoked it (prayer). Within a worship centred on “acting” towards one's salvation (good works, fasting during lent^[6], confession to a priest, saying prayers, giving alms to the poor, bequeathing property to the Church), devotional images thus had a considerable part to play. To cap it all, the image ensured the social status of whoever owned it, be it an individual or, more often, a religious community. The wealthy worshiper funding for his church the carving of a sculpture or the realisation of an altarpiece (on which they might at best figure alongside biblical figures) thus killed two birds with one stone: they had worked a good deed towards their salvation and raised their social status in the process.