| This dissertation explores the underacknowledged problem of aniconism at the heart of religious imagery of Archaic and Classical Greek art. The modern viewer of Greco-Roman works of art is accustomed to encounter gods rendered in human form; in Classical antiquity gods were perceived mostly as anthropomorphic and the images of the divine were made accordingly. However, as discussed in the introduction of this work, Classical art deployed a variety of forms including the fully figural, the semi-figural (e.g. herms), and the non-figural. Aniconic monuments, such as pillars and stones, were revered and addressed as gods. Modern scholarship views this phenomenon as an anomaly, either as a remnant from the remote past or an import from other cultures. This thesis examines the role of the aniconic in Greek religious art and challenges the current views of the nature of Greek aniconism.; In this study I adopt a contextual approach to literary sources and material evidence, and treat each set of data separately. The first part, on literary testimonia, opens with a chapter on modern perceptions of Greek aniconism, historiography and methodology. The next two chapters, on Pausanias and one on the Presocratic to early Christian writers, include an examination of the ancient attitudes towards the aniconic. The second part of the thesis, dedicated to material evidence, opens with a chapter on approaches to material evidence, both from a theoretical perspective and in practice. The chapter on empty space aniconism and the chapter on material aniconism include an examination of a variety of aniconic monuments of cult, their cultic functions and the ways in which such objects served to characterize and define a specific god and cult. The chapter on pictorial images on vases explores the visual role of the stele inscribed with a name of a god in a scene. The main conclusion of this study is that aniconism in its variety of forms may have been much more prevalent than is usually assumed. Furthermore, the iconic and aniconic were not in binary opposition to one another, but are found side by side at the heart of Classical Greek art. |
