The Byzantine Iconoclasm In The Context Of The Visual Culture

The Byzantine Iconoclasm shows the human fear of the religious images.The essence of the movement is the fighting,resisting and controlling between words and images,which is the power hegemony between words and images.Icons By the Bible,it means that images come from and are subject to words.The Icon service to the regime of absolute monarchy.However, Under the joint action of the scopic of visual regime and Icon Mythology, icons gradually form a powerful force. When the power of the icon break out of the control of words and overwhelm its status, words begin to destroy icons.This thesis is about the Byzantine Iconoclasm in the context of the Visual Culture. The author tries to study the essential meaning from the perspective of fine arts, aesthetics, psychology and semiology.There are six sections of the body of the thesis.The first chapter is "keywords analysis".It is about the general meaning of "icon","icon types" and "iconoclasm", which would give us a macroscopic understanding on the Byzantine Iconoclasm. The second chapter is"the artistic analysis about the icon of Byzantine empire period". This part studies the aesthetic characteristics and the theological significance of icons in the fine arts point of views. The icon have both attribute of the theology and art, and they have unworldly sanctity also, so it makes the possibility of icon gazing.The third chapter is "the study of the scopic of visual regime of the icon in Byzantine empire period".It will explore the foundation of the mechanism of the scopic of visual regime from the perspective of aesthetics and psychology.Christian seeing icons form Jacques Lacan called "mutual gazes":When Christian watching the icon, their seeing is the subject’s seeing, and needs them to open their mind’eyes which would let them from their outward senses to inward senses. On the contrary, the object’s gazing, which also called icon gazing, is refer to the invisible God who tries to confer his own desire to the subject’s desire by the way of icon gazing. In this way, God would move and even incite the congregations.The fourth chapter is"the fear and anxiety which are triggered by the icon". This part discusses the fear and anxiety which are triggered by the icon and how to deal with them, this part will discuss them from the psychological perspective.Facing the icon, the Christians feel anxious to the original sin, in the hope of washing clean of sin, they express their reverence to the god in variety of ways. But it will arouse the realistic anxiety of the authorities.Because the collective unconsciousness which aroused by the icon gazing can’t be disciplined by the authorities, so it will damage the realistic benefit of the authorities directly, that lead to icon damage.Chapter5is"the Construction of Icon Mythology".it will explain the founding of Icon Mythology from the perspective of semiology.According to Roland Barthes’image structure theory, there are three kinds of informations in the icon, and the political ideology hide in the denotative message as connotative message. They intend to pour the political ideology into the soul of the subject. But the political ideology is sheltered by the icon which become not the propulsion but the block of the political authority.Chapter6is "the essence of the Byzantine iconoclasm:the power hegemony between words and images".The relationship between words and image is very delicate. Words would utilize images when it could control the image. If not, it will damage the image.They may be coexistence peacefully or contradictorily. But no one can take place with the other.The conclusion indicates the enlightenment that the relationship between words and the image in the Byzantine Iconoclasm gives to the modern society. The word and image have already been inextricably intertwined, which is so called the era of image, we should neither anxiety nor emphasize the important of word Unilaterally. Only combine the words with images could we prompt the development of society more profitably. This thesis has used Jacques Lacan’s term "gaze" and Roland Barthes’s semiotic theory, it has uncovered the political ideology which is hidden under the icon of the system of the scopic of visual regime from the perspective of psychoanalysis and semiology. Thus, this thesis want to discover the essence of the Byzantine Iconoclasm, and provides a new theoretical perspective to study it.