The religious ban on figurative art starts with the Aten cult in Ancient Egypt. The old gods were swept away by the Pharaoh Akhenaten's radical decree. A monotheistic cult was introduced, the deity of which could only be symbolized by the sun disk- sometimes with radiating rays terminating with human hands. Images of other gods were destroyed during this period, one of the earliest known examples of iconoclasm. The cult of Aten was soon repudiated, and for a long time was totally forgotten. The pagan gods of Egypt would ultimately have their images effaced by iconoclastic followers of another monotheistic deity, the God of Abraham. This same God was supposed to have blighted Egypt with plagues in order to secure the release of his Chosen People, at the time of Moses. In the course of the Exodus from Egypt to the promise land, God delivered instructions to Moses, face to face, we are told, making it clear, among other things, that he did not wish to be given a face.
The Old Testament records two quite different versions of the Ten Commandments or Decalogue, the first found at Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21, and the second at Exodus 34, 11-27. Both versions, however, prioritize a ban on idols and graven images. The Deuteronomy version insists that the chosen people are forbidden to make 'any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters beneath the earth.' This was intended primarily as a stricture against idolatry (it goes on to forbid bowing down to these images) but it could be taken as forbidding any kind of figurative art in any context. Other parts of the Torah require the chosen people to impose their laws on their servants and travellers in their midst, and threaten death by stoning to those who break the commandments.
The Old Testament refers to there being cherubim figures on the Ark (wherein the ten commandments were kept). It also refers to Moses elevating a bronze serpent as a precaution against snake bites (Numbers 21:7-9) and later mentions bull figures in the Temple of Solomon. These incongruities aside, however, ancient Judaism seems to have retained a horror of idolatry and to have identified figurative art closely with this perceived sin. The Jewish King Hezekiah, indeed, inaugurated Iconoclasm within his domain and is credited with destroying the brazen serpent.
The New Testament does not repeat the ban on images. (According to Jesus, the only commandments were to love God and to love one's neighbour). The old attitude against images seems to have been passed to early Christianity, however. Dogmatic opposition to idolatry and refusal to partake in state-sponsored cults is a recurring theme in the early Christian story, and for centuries there is an absence of representative Christian art. (Jesus was originally represented by the Chi-Rho monogram- XP- or by the abstracted fish symbol). St Paul's attack on the cult of Artemis at Ephesus is recorded in the New Testament. There, makers of figures of the goddess, whose trade depended on pilgrims to the goddess's shrine, stood to lose out if Paul's condemnation of the practice gained headway, and rioted against the new preaching. A desire for images of the divine eventually overcame strict observance of scripture. In time it would become quite usual for Christian pilgrims to buy souvenir figures of the Christian saints and martyrs they came to revere at various shrines. Churches would be filled with images and carvings of Jesus, the Virgin Mary and other saints, even of God the Father, represented as an old man with a white beard, either as part of the Holy Trinity or in the context of the creation. Saints were sometime portrayed in the act of destroying pagan idols (and with not a hint of irony).
There were two major internal reactions against religious art in Christian history leading to widespread destruction. The first occurred in the Eastern Christian empire of Byzantium. The use of painted icons had become an important part or religious devotion in Eastern Orthodoxy (only three-dimensional forms were shunned). The practice of icon veneration came to be condemned in the aftermath of Islamic military victories over the Christian empire. The loss of Egypt, Syria and the Holy Land prompted much soul-searching in the Byzantine Empire, which was reduced to the Balkans and parts of what-is-now Turkey. It was observed that God seemed to favour the Muslims, whose faith made religious images taboo. Emperor Leo III forbade religious pictures in AD726, ushering in the age of Byzantine iconoclasm. There were various other theological arguments relating to to the merits or otherwise of representing Jesus. Feelings ran high on either sides of the divide. Violence was done both to those who destroyed icons and who persisted in creating them. The use and honouring of icons was justified and the practice was reaffirmed in AD 787 at the second council of Nicaea. Since then figurative art has retained a prominent place in Eastern Orthodoxy. Much of it, however, was destroyed or obliterated after the Muslim Turks captured Constantinople in 1453, when many Byzantine churches were converted into mosques.
In Western Christendom, meanwhile, religious art was consistently upheld and promoted by the Roman Church. Paintings, statues, stained glass windows and decorative reliquaries proliferated. Pope Gregory the Great justified religious images as 'books for the illiterate', but it wasn't long before these images became more than instructive material, turning into objects of devotion in their own right. The practice was criticised throughout the middle ages, for example by heretical groups such as the Cathars and Lollards, but there wasn't widespread destruction of religious artworks until the Protestant Reformation.
Religious art also became a source of contention during the Crusades. The crusaders (sometimes with Byzantine co-operation) produced much sacred imagery. Jewish visitors to the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron considered these pictures profane intrusions. Saladin, on re-conquest of Jerusalem, took a similar view, and made a point of purging the Christian imagery that had been introduced to the mosques on Temple Mount, when he restored them to Islam. Crosses were torn down and statues smashed. The Christian cause made headway in the Iberian Peninsula as it waned in the East. As former Churches were stripped bare and turned into Mosques in Palestine, Greece and Cyprus, former Mosques in southern Spain were filled with sanguinary crucifixes and richly becrowned Madonnas.
The iconoclastic process began in England with the break from Rome under Henry VIII and the dissolution of the monasteries. Here Catholicism became a persecuted and hunted faith. Monuments such as the shrine of St Thomas Becket were smashed. Protestantism was more vigorously enforced during the reign of Edward VI, when many churches were stripped of images by Royal decree. There was a brief reversal of the situation under Mary I, which came to a halt with the accession of Elizabeth I. The royal arms was to take pride of place in churches where once carved crucifixes on rood screens and medieval doom murals had presided. Religious art made another brief come-back with the reforms under Charles I and Archbishop Laud, but was stamped out again under Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans. Zealous Parliamentarian commissions toured the counties obliterating any remaining Catholic images in the parish churches.
The Church of England took a softer line on the matter from the Restoration period, and statues of saints made a prominent comeback on the Wren's St Paul's Cathedral, rebuilt after the Great Fire of London in 1666. 'Low Church' Anglicans and dissenting protestants continued to take a dim view of religious imagery. The 'High Church' Oxford Movement, the Catholic emancipation and the Gothic revival of the 19th century, however, saw the production of much new figurative religious art.
In Europe, there was widespread iconoclasm in the Protestant North, where monasteries, saintly cults and pilgrimages were likewise suppressed. The Catholic counter-reformation, however, affirmed the place of sacred art and the veneration of the saints. The Council of Trent affirmed the validity of images. Being mere representations of holy individuals, the devotion being paid to the image was actually being paid to the saint in question. The Council, however, ruled that no fripperies or impious details should be included in paintings, nor should there be 'beauty exciting to lust'. A little later the Italian artist Paolo Veronese had a run in with the Inquisition when his painting of the Last Supper failed to conform to the sober requirements. Spanish conquests in the New World, meanwhile, brought those lands into the Catholic fold. The bloodthirsty gods of the Aztecs, Maya and Incas were done away with, their statues destroyed and Catholic churches raised over their pyramid temples, sharing the fate of the pagan Gods of Egypt, Greece and Rome.
There is also a secular tradition of attacking religious art, especially in places where the religion in question came to be politically associated with a reactionary regime overthrown in a violent revolution. Examples of this are found in the history of France, Russia, Spain and China, although in most case the roots of religion held firm. In Western Europe a primarily secular mindset prevails, coupled with an appreciation of religious art, still culturally relevant and cherished although very often divorced from its original devotional context.
In all three Abrahamic traditions there has been a tension concerning the legitimacy of the use of figurative religious art. In some cases an avoidance of the representational has led to the development of beautiful and abstract forms of decoration, such as the intricate designs and ornate calligraphy adorning many Islamic manuscripts. The intolerance of idolatry encouraged by scripture, however, has often led the religious to acts of vandalism, presuming the right not only to destroy their own heritage but that of other cultures. Islam began with iconoclasm, the purging of the Ka'ba in Mecca of all but the black stone. Religious iconoclasm has most recently been associated with Taliban hard-liners in Afghanistan, who destroyed the giant rock carvings of Buddha that had stood for 1800 years in Bamiyan. This was part of a general purge of pre-Islamic artefacts. It is hard to grasp the mentality of people who would take torches or sledgehammers or explosives to unique and beautiful works of art. Over the centuries Jews, Christians and Muslims have done this very thing believing it to be the will of God. The same God, that is to say, as the art was often created to honour in the first place.
