Davor Džalto

Icons - Between Images and Words

Modes of Representation or Modes of Being?

UDK: 7.04 Davor Džalto

The American University of Rome, Italy
Institute for Philosophy and Social Theory, University of Belgrade
The Institute for the Study of Culture and Christianity, Belgrade, Serbia
davordzalto@gmail.com

This paper focuses on the concept of “image” (icon) in the context of Orthodox Christianity and how images/icons relate to
“reality.” The author also addresses the complex and ambivalent relations between words and images in “Western” tradition
in order to explore the underlying properties of both images and words (in a theological discourse) in relation to reality. The
analysis of this tension between words and images enables the author to explore the reasons that led to their sharp contrast-
ing in particular historical periods and theoretical discourses, as well as to explore the ways this tension between images and
words can be resolved in Orthodox Christian iconology.

Keywords: icons, iconology, words, logos, reality, representation, iconoclasm

Contemporary media culture and Orthodox Christian theology have rarely been uttered in the same
breath. However, there is one thing that connects these two spheres in a very profound way - it is the prominence
of images. One can argue that “images,” in the variety of ways this concept can be understood, occupy a central
position both in our contemporary culture and in Orthodox Christianity.
The central issue I want to explore in this paper is the concept of Orthodox Christian icons and how icons
relate to “reality.” While being focused on the relationship between icons and “reality,” I also want to address the
gap between “images” and “words” that characterizes much of the “Western” culture. I will briefly reflect upon
some of the reasons that led to this split, and the ways this tension between images and words can be resolved
in Orthodox Christian iconology.
Let me begin with a short introduction about the ways images and words have been perceived in the his-
tory of our culture. Many approaches to images and words look at them as (comparable, if not equivalent) modes
of describing/representing reality. If one understands both images and words as signs that signify (i.e. stand for,
imply) something (else), one can easily see how these two types of signs can be similar - they are both modes of
representation. Their meaning is determined by their connection with reality. Based on this understanding there
have also been many attempts to establish parallels between spoken language(s) and the so-called “visual/artis-
tic language” or the “language of images.”1
However, one finds opposite approaches as well; the approaches that perceive images and words as some-
thing mutually hostile, even exclusive. For some, it is in our contemporary times when whole contrast between
the word- and the image-centered culture becomes apparent. Some claim that the word- or the logos-centered
culture has been defeated by the image-based one, which implies some sort of defeat of the mind (to paraphrase
Alain Finkielkraut), together with the defeat of education and critical thinking that have characterized the “West-
ern” culture and civilization over the entire period of modernity, if not much longer. Thus, in his book The Rise of

9
IKON, 9-2016
the Image and the Fall of the Word, Mitchel Stephens writes that “[I]n the second half of the twentieth century - for
perhaps the first time in human history - it began to seem as if images would gain the upper hand over words.”2
The author finds evidence of this in:
“[M]ost of our bedrooms and living rooms, where the machine most responsible for the image’s rise
has long dominated the decor. Evidence has been available in the shift in home design from book-
shelves to “entertainment centers,” from libraries to “family rooms” or, more accurately, “TV rooms.”
Evidence has been available in our children’s facility with remote controls and joysticks, and their lack
of facility with language.”3
Already in his legendary book Amusing Ourselves to Death, from 1985, Neil Postman pointed to the main
challenges of the rising modern multi-media culture, in its symbiosis with the consumerist logic.4 Starting from
Marshall McLuhan’s main thesis, Postman develops his analysis of modern multimedia images (primarily televi-
sion) in a much more pessimistic way. Postman was concerned for the future of critical thinking, which he insepa-
rably linked with the reading culture, which was declining to make room for entertaining images that turn the
viewer into a passive consumer.
The contrast between the image- and the word-based culture was highlighted in many religious approach-
es to the contemporary culture as well. Thus Arthur W. Hunt, writing from the perspective of contemporary Amer-
ican Protestantism, articulates what many perceive as a “new paganism,” which is mirrored in the new worship of
images, instead of the monotheistic focus on the Scriptures. Hunt claims that
“[T]echnology is not neutral, that it has the potential to change our beliefs and behaviors; and no-
where is this more evident than in America’s shift from a print-oriented culture to an image-oriented
one. Out of absolute theological necessity Judaism and Christianity are word-dependent, in contrast
to paganism, which is image-dependent.”5
These examples show that there is a perception of a certain dichotomy, or even hostility between words
(and concepts) and images. This tension is often translated into another series of binary oppositions: intellect vs.
senses, reason vs. emotions/pleasure, spiritual vs. material. Of course, connecting the word-dependent culture and
monotheism and, consequently, the image-dependent culture and polytheism and idolatry, is all-too-simplistic
in Hunt’s case. However, what is interesting here is that Hunt attacks the whole contemporary (image-oriented)
culture, and not just religious imagery, as idolatrous and polytheistic, and applies this connection in an ahistorical
manner to the entire history (at least to the history which is directly relevant to the Western world).
What is apparent in different critical positions toward images is that their aesthetic dimension that been per-
ceived as potentially dangerous. This is a reflection of a long history of theoretical discourses that perceived the
imminent danger of images in their potential to seduce the viewer, to deceive him/her and to appear as real or even
hyper-real (more real than the “real” reality). The power of images is strengthened through the sensuous/emotional
effects that the visual elements can provide, which makes them, potentially, a powerful instrument of manipulation.
The history of such a critical stance toward images is very long and it has resulted in various iconoclasms,
from the Old Testament and Byzantine disputes over images, to Islamic and Protestant iconoclasms (both classi-
cal and modern). However, if one enquires into the source of modern and contemporary tensions between words
and images one should turn to modern aesthetics as the intellectual construction which affirmed the autonomy
of images and their aesthetic properties, sealing that way the tension between images and words that had ex-
isted long before modernity. This was possible because of the unparalleled reductionism that modern aesthet-
ics performed; on the one hand aesthetics reduced (the dominant type of ) images to their aesthetic dimension
and to the sensations and feelings they can produce in the eyes, minds and souls of the viewer (although it was
necessary to wait until the modern advertising industry to make the best use of this approach). Images ceased
10
Džalto, Icons - Between Images and Words
to be something that, apart from their aesthetic dimension, had relevancy for epistemological and ontological
concerns. They have become entities whose primary purpose is various kinds of pleasure and entertainment. In
this sense images became autonomous aesthetic objects, and therefore could also be non-representational (ab-
stract). As such, images became divorced from reason and cognition, analysis, critical thinking, and truth-claims
(apart from the “truth claims” within their own autonomous field of competence).6
However, the troubling role and meaning of images vis-à-vis words and concepts becomes even more trou-
bling vis-à-vis reality. In fact, at the very heart of various, both pre-modern, modern and contemporary iconoclasms,
is the troubling relationship between images and reality and the possibility of images as (some kind of) reality.
Image?
In order to proceed we must ask ourselves what it is that we have in mind when we say “image”? Some of
the meanings of the concept of “image,” that are still relevant today, were formulated much earlier. Without trac-
ing this tradition back to Antiquity, for the purposes of this paper I will dwell upon the meaning of the concept of
“image” that was clarified in the context of the Byzantine iconoclastic dispute. John of Damascus was well aware
of the complexity of this issue. He offers a couple of possible definitions of “image” in his Defense Against Those
Who Attack the Holy Images (Treatise I):
“An image is a likeness depicting an archetype, but having some difference from it; the image is not
like the archetype in every way. The Son is a living, natural and undeviating image of the Father, bear-
ing in himself the whole Father, equal to him in every respect, differing only in being caused.”7
This definition establishes the relationship between the archetype (reality outside the image) and the like-
ness, which is a depiction of an archetype, as the fundamental property of an image. Damascus rightly notices the
paradox that an image is in some respects similar to the archetype and different in other respects. This is some-
thing that compares to William John Mitchell’s “paradoxical trick of consciousness,” which for Mitchell exists in our
ability “to see something as ‘there’ and ‘not there’ at the same time.”8 To see the Son means to see the Father,9 but
it also means not to see the Father (who is “not there”), since the Son is different to the Father, and yet the Father
becomes manifested (“there”) through the Son as His image. Here, the icon discloses one of its most important
properties: it shows and it hides, it makes something visible by, at the same time, making that something invisible.
To give a rationale to the obvious difficulties that would arise with such a definition of an image, when it
is applied to images in a more ordinary context (two dimensional representations of something or someone),
John of Damascus makes a differentiation between “natural” or “undeviating” images and, consequently, images
that do not share the same nature, and are “not like the archetype in every way.” Thus the Son is a “natural” image,
which is a justification of the way the word “image” is used in Colossians 1:15: “The Son is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn over all creation.” If we use the language of Triadology to explain the meaning of the concept
of a “natural image” in this case, we can say that the “natural image” (in this case the Son) is a representation of
something or someone (in the sense of a manifestation, making something visible), which is of the same nature
or essence with the archetype (in this case the Father). Thus a “natural image” could also be called an “essential
image.” In this case, the image (the Son) is different to the archetype (the Father) not in terms of the nature but
in terms of His particular, specific and personal identity. The Son is thus the image of the Father, since the Son is
(just like the Father) - God. However, this “natural” or “essential image” is different to the Father in being precisely
the Son and not the Father, a distinct personal identity.
On the contrary, “unessential” images, images that are not like the archetype “in every way,” are the images
that resemble, mirror or imitate reality (archetype), but are of a different nature/essence. An example being a two
11
IKON, 9-2016
the Image and the Fall of the Word, Mitchel Stephens writes that “[I]n the second half of the twentieth century - for
perhaps the first time in human history - it began to seem as if images would gain the upper hand over words.”2
The author finds evidence of this in:
“[M]ost of our bedrooms and living rooms, where the machine most responsible for the image’s rise
has long dominated the decor. Evidence has been available in the shift in home design from book-
shelves to “entertainment centers,” from libraries to “family rooms” or, more accurately, “TV rooms.”
Evidence has been available in our children’s facility with remote controls and joysticks, and their lack
of facility with language.”3
Already in his legendary book Amusing Ourselves to Death, from 1985, Neil Postman pointed to the main
challenges of the rising modern multi-media culture, in its symbiosis with the consumerist logic.4 Starting from
Marshall McLuhan’s main thesis, Postman develops his analysis of modern multimedia images (primarily televi-
sion) in a much more pessimistic way. Postman was concerned for the future of critical thinking, which he insepa-
rably linked with the reading culture, which was declining to make room for entertaining images that turn the
viewer into a passive consumer.
The contrast between the image- and the word-based culture was highlighted in many religious approach-
es to the contemporary culture as well. Thus Arthur W. Hunt, writing from the perspective of contemporary Amer-
ican Protestantism, articulates what many perceive as a “new paganism,” which is mirrored in the new worship of
images, instead of the monotheistic focus on the Scriptures. Hunt claims that
“[T]echnology is not neutral, that it has the potential to change our beliefs and behaviors; and no-
where is this more evident than in America’s shift from a print-oriented culture to an image-oriented
one. Out of absolute theological necessity Judaism and Christianity are word-dependent, in contrast
to paganism, which is image-dependent.”5
These examples show that there is a perception of a certain dichotomy, or even hostility between words
(and concepts) and images. This tension is often translated into another series of binary oppositions: intellect vs.
senses, reason vs. emotions/pleasure, spiritual vs. material. Of course, connecting the word-dependent culture and
monotheism and, consequently, the image-dependent culture and polytheism and idolatry, is all-too-simplistic
in Hunt’s case. However, what is interesting here is that Hunt attacks the whole contemporary (image-oriented)
culture, and not just religious imagery, as idolatrous and polytheistic, and applies this connection in an ahistorical
manner to the entire history (at least to the history which is directly relevant to the Western world).
What is apparent in different critical positions toward images is that their aesthetic dimension that been per-
ceived as potentially dangerous. This is a reflection of a long history of theoretical discourses that perceived the
imminent danger of images in their potential to seduce the viewer, to deceive him/her and to appear as real or even
hyper-real (more real than the “real” reality). The power of images is strengthened through the sensuous/emotional
effects that the visual elements can provide, which makes them, potentially, a powerful instrument of manipulation.
The history of such a critical stance toward images is very long and it has resulted in various iconoclasms,
from the Old Testament and Byzantine disputes over images, to Islamic and Protestant iconoclasms (both classi-
cal and modern). However, if one enquires into the source of modern and contemporary tensions between words
and images one should turn to modern aesthetics as the intellectual construction which affirmed the autonomy
of images and their aesthetic properties, sealing that way the tension between images and words that had ex-
isted long before modernity. This was possible because of the unparalleled reductionism that modern aesthet-
ics performed; on the one hand aesthetics reduced (the dominant type of ) images to their aesthetic dimension
and to the sensations and feelings they can produce in the eyes, minds and souls of the viewer (although it was
necessary to wait until the modern advertising industry to make the best use of this approach). Images ceased
10
Džalto, Icons - Between Images and Words
to be something that, apart from their aesthetic dimension, had relevancy for epistemological and ontological
concerns. They have become entities whose primary purpose is various kinds of pleasure and entertainment. In
this sense images became autonomous aesthetic objects, and therefore could also be non-representational (ab-
stract). As such, images became divorced from reason and cognition, analysis, critical thinking, and truth-claims
(apart from the “truth claims” within their own autonomous field of competence).6
However, the troubling role and meaning of images vis-à-vis words and concepts becomes even more trou-
bling vis-à-vis reality. In fact, at the very heart of various, both pre-modern, modern and contemporary iconoclasms,
is the troubling relationship between images and reality and the possibility of images as (some kind of) reality.
Image?
In order to proceed we must ask ourselves what it is that we have in mind when we say “image”? Some of
the meanings of the concept of “image,” that are still relevant today, were formulated much earlier. Without trac-
ing this tradition back to Antiquity, for the purposes of this paper I will dwell upon the meaning of the concept of
“image” that was clarified in the context of the Byzantine iconoclastic dispute. John of Damascus was well aware
of the complexity of this issue. He offers a couple of possible definitions of “image” in his Defense Against Those
Who Attack the Holy Images (Treatise I):
“An image is a likeness depicting an archetype, but having some difference from it; the image is not
like the archetype in every way. The Son is a living, natural and undeviating image of the Father, bear-
ing in himself the whole Father, equal to him in every respect, differing only in being caused.”7
This definition establishes the relationship between the archetype (reality outside the image) and the like-
ness, which is a depiction of an archetype, as the fundamental property of an image. Damascus rightly notices the
paradox that an image is in some respects similar to the archetype and different in other respects. This is some-
thing that compares to William John Mitchell’s “paradoxical trick of consciousness,” which for Mitchell exists in our
ability “to see something as ‘there’ and ‘not there’ at the same time.”8 To see the Son means to see the Father,9 but
it also means not to see the Father (who is “not there”), since the Son is different to the Father, and yet the Father
becomes manifested (“there”) through the Son as His image. Here, the icon discloses one of its most important
properties: it shows and it hides, it makes something visible by, at the same time, making that something invisible.
To give a rationale to the obvious difficulties that would arise with such a definition of an image, when it
is applied to images in a more ordinary context (two dimensional representations of something or someone),
John of Damascus makes a differentiation between “natural” or “undeviating” images and, consequently, images
that do not share the same nature, and are “not like the archetype in every way.” Thus the Son is a “natural” image,
which is a justification of the way the word “image” is used in Colossians 1:15: “The Son is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn over all creation.” If we use the language of Triadology to explain the meaning of the concept
of a “natural image” in this case, we can say that the “natural image” (in this case the Son) is a representation of
something or someone (in the sense of a manifestation, making something visible), which is of the same nature
or essence with the archetype (in this case the Father). Thus a “natural image” could also be called an “essential
image.” In this case, the image (the Son) is different to the archetype (the Father) not in terms of the nature but
in terms of His particular, specific and personal identity. The Son is thus the image of the Father, since the Son is
(just like the Father) - God. However, this “natural” or “essential image” is different to the Father in being precisely
the Son and not the Father, a distinct personal identity.
On the contrary, “unessential” images, images that are not like the archetype “in every way,” are the images
that resemble, mirror or imitate reality (archetype), but are of a different nature/essence. An example being a two
11
IKON, 9-2016 Džalto, Icons - Between Images and Words

dimensional image of Christ (an icon), which is similar to Christ in its appearance but different in its nature (i.e.
wood and paint as the material nature/essence of the image).
It is clear that in John of Damascus we deal with two very different, actually exactly opposite understand-
ings of the concept of “image.” At different places, in the same Treatise, Damascus is quite clear about the char-
acter of the images he defends, pointing to the distinction between material images (icons) and the archetype
(Christ). The Incarnation of God the Son becomes the key for defending images. Damascus even introduces an
aesthetic argument, defending the matter, senses and beauty of the material reality as something that should
not be despised but something that becomes affirmed in the making of the image.10 Since God assumed matter
and the human body (as a vital aspect of the human nature) in his Incarnation, He became visible and tangible.
Therefore, it is proper and just to make His images. It is clear here that in this case, the image and the prototype
are different by nature or essence. However, the “likeness depicting an archetype,” in other words the similarity in
appearances, is what connects the image and the prototype.
In spite of the two different and, in fact, opposite ways in which these two types of images are used, one
could justify the use of the term “image” in both of the cases based on the role of similarity in both of them. Simi-
larity becomes, thus, the fundamental property of images. An image is an image precisely because it is similar
in a certain sense with something it depicts/represents (which automatically means that it is different in other
respects). This also means that there can be more than one type of similarity.
However, to make the situation even more complex, Damascus introduces other types of images. Most notably,
he speaks of “images of invisible and formless things.”11 Damascus refers to the Scriptures where the Biblical authors
apply “forms to God and the angels” because “our analogies are not capable of raising us immediately to intellectual
contemplation but need familiar and natural points of reference.”12 In other words, in this case we are talking about
images that lack resemblance (similarity) both when it comes to their visible/perceptible qualities and their nature. It
seems that here Damascus introduces the third type, images without similarity, namely a simulacrum.
Nevertheless, in all three cases it seems that images are somehow dependent on the archetype or on the
reality they depict. In other words, the archetype, the reality, is ontologically superior to the image.
Let us focus now on the broader milieu of the Orthodox Christian Church, its liturgy and theology, where
icons, as described by Damascus, function in their proper context. Already Damascus points to other meanings
of the concept of the icon, such as the famous idea that the human being is created in the “image and likeness”
of God, presented at the beginning of the Old Testament narrative.13 So the human being is already an image,
although one can also be, as an image, an archetype for other (e.g. painted) images at the same time.
What we learn from looking at the even broader picture of Orthodox theology is that the entire liturgi-
cal context, and indeed the whole understanding of the world structure, is mediated through images. Thus,
the Church and the liturgy are the icons of the Kingdom of God. By participating in a liturgical performance the
faithful iconize the Kingdom of God; they make it present “here” and “now” although it is “not yet.” Moreover, St
Maximus the Confessor calls the New Testament, and the reality we live in after the Resurrection of Christ, an
“icon,” not the (full) reality.14 The reality is yet to come; it is precisely the reality of the coming Kingdom of God as
an eschatological event, something that comes at the end of time and history as we know them. The only way to
make this reality already present in history, and thus participate (now) in the eschatological reality (which is to
come), is through icons, through iconizing this coming Kingdom of God.
The fundamental thing here is the character of the relation between the image and the prototype. This
relation is dynamic in the sense that the origin and justification of images is in the prototype they depict, but the
viewer moves from the image toward the prototype. The image is the condition of the appearance of the proto-
type (of the eschatological reality). In this sense, the image is the visual manifestation of faith, it gives “assurance
of the things hoped for” and “conviction” of invisible things, following the famous definition of faith given by St
Davor Džalto, The King of Glory, tempera on canvas, 2015
Paul.15 Now, most of the modern English editions translate the Greek word ὑπόστασις used in this phrase as “as-

12 13
IKON, 9-2016 Džalto, Icons - Between Images and Words

dimensional image of Christ (an icon), which is similar to Christ in its appearance but different in its nature (i.e.
wood and paint as the material nature/essence of the image).
It is clear that in John of Damascus we deal with two very different, actually exactly opposite understand-
ings of the concept of “image.” At different places, in the same Treatise, Damascus is quite clear about the char-
acter of the images he defends, pointing to the distinction between material images (icons) and the archetype
(Christ). The Incarnation of God the Son becomes the key for defending images. Damascus even introduces an
aesthetic argument, defending the matter, senses and beauty of the material reality as something that should
not be despised but something that becomes affirmed in the making of the image.10 Since God assumed matter
and the human body (as a vital aspect of the human nature) in his Incarnation, He became visible and tangible.
Therefore, it is proper and just to make His images. It is clear here that in this case, the image and the prototype
are different by nature or essence. However, the “likeness depicting an archetype,” in other words the similarity in
appearances, is what connects the image and the prototype.
In spite of the two different and, in fact, opposite ways in which these two types of images are used, one
could justify the use of the term “image” in both of the cases based on the role of similarity in both of them. Simi-
larity becomes, thus, the fundamental property of images. An image is an image precisely because it is similar
in a certain sense with something it depicts/represents (which automatically means that it is different in other
respects). This also means that there can be more than one type of similarity.
However, to make the situation even more complex, Damascus introduces other types of images. Most notably,
he speaks of “images of invisible and formless things.”11 Damascus refers to the Scriptures where the Biblical authors
apply “forms to God and the angels” because “our analogies are not capable of raising us immediately to intellectual
contemplation but need familiar and natural points of reference.”12 In other words, in this case we are talking about
images that lack resemblance (similarity) both when it comes to their visible/perceptible qualities and their nature. It
seems that here Damascus introduces the third type, images without similarity, namely a simulacrum.
Nevertheless, in all three cases it seems that images are somehow dependent on the archetype or on the
reality they depict. In other words, the archetype, the reality, is ontologically superior to the image.
Let us focus now on the broader milieu of the Orthodox Christian Church, its liturgy and theology, where
icons, as described by Damascus, function in their proper context. Already Damascus points to other meanings
of the concept of the icon, such as the famous idea that the human being is created in the “image and likeness”
of God, presented at the beginning of the Old Testament narrative.13 So the human being is already an image,
although one can also be, as an image, an archetype for other (e.g. painted) images at the same time.
What we learn from looking at the even broader picture of Orthodox theology is that the entire liturgi-
cal context, and indeed the whole understanding of the world structure, is mediated through images. Thus,
the Church and the liturgy are the icons of the Kingdom of God. By participating in a liturgical performance the
faithful iconize the Kingdom of God; they make it present “here” and “now” although it is “not yet.” Moreover, St
Maximus the Confessor calls the New Testament, and the reality we live in after the Resurrection of Christ, an
“icon,” not the (full) reality.14 The reality is yet to come; it is precisely the reality of the coming Kingdom of God as
an eschatological event, something that comes at the end of time and history as we know them. The only way to
make this reality already present in history, and thus participate (now) in the eschatological reality (which is to
come), is through icons, through iconizing this coming Kingdom of God.
The fundamental thing here is the character of the relation between the image and the prototype. This
relation is dynamic in the sense that the origin and justification of images is in the prototype they depict, but the
viewer moves from the image toward the prototype. The image is the condition of the appearance of the proto-
type (of the eschatological reality). In this sense, the image is the visual manifestation of faith, it gives “assurance
of the things hoped for” and “conviction” of invisible things, following the famous definition of faith given by St
Davor Džalto, The King of Glory, tempera on canvas, 2015
Paul.15 Now, most of the modern English editions translate the Greek word ὑπόστασις used in this phrase as “as-

12 13
IKON, 9-2016
surance” while the King James Version (having many disadvantages) is more accurate in this respect, translating
the phrase as “the substance of things hoped for.” Faith is thus the substance, the reality of the things hoped for.
In the same sense, icons give evidence (meaning substance, not some intellectual or logical argument) to things
that are eschatological, and, as such, they are (looking from a historical perspective) “not yet” real.
Understood this way, icons and iconization imply a specific relation with reality. It is not merely a repre-
sentation but a re-presentation, allowing reality to appear, or re-appear (in history, as opposed to its “original”
appearance in eschatology). Paradoxically enough, the re-appearance precedes, in time categories, the “original”
appearance. This is precisely the point of the Orthodox Christian liturgy. It is not just a theatrical staging of some
reality that is out there, or a representation of things that happened. It is primarily a re-presentation of things that
will take place, by participating in that reality. This is how one can “remember” the second coming of Christ, that
will take place at the end of time, which is precisely the formulation taken from the liturgy of St John Chrysostom.
In this sense, the iconic becomes symbolic (in the original meaning of the word, syn (together) + bole (a throwing,
a casting), that is “bringing (things) together,” in this case two different realities.
Since the Kingdom of God is the ultimate point of reference in the case of all icons, icons “iconize” the real-
ity which is still not “here” and “now,” but becomes present “here” and “now” through icons. Icons thus, as a visible
manifestation of faith, give substance to this reality hoped for. In this, icons become ontologically prior to the
historical reality.
However, one could ask: How do we know that certain images are icons that iconize (and thus give sub-
stance to reality), and not just simulacra, images without resemblance, and therefore without a relation with the
(eschatological) reality? To answer this question it seems necessary to go back to the division between words and
images which was mentioned at the beginning.
Damascus insists that images and words are similar in their capacity to “convey understanding.” In other
words: “What the book does for those who understand letters, the image does for the illiterate; the word appeals
to hearing, the image appeals to sight; it conveys understanding.”16
However, Damascus is clear, not all images, and consequently not all words, convey the proper meaning.
It is only through the Image, which is at the same time also the Word, that the proper meaning can be conveyed.
The Image is, of course, the Image of God who became a human being, and thus became visible. Thus, God who
is the Image (of the Father) is also the Word (Logos), precisely that Word which was “in the beginning,” “with God”
and the Word which “was God.”17 God who became man is therefore both the Image and the Word (Logos) of God
(the Father). In other words, He who became man is the reason (logos) and meaning (logos) of God and God’s
entire creation. The Son is thus the Word, and as the Word He is also the (essential) Image of the Father.
Both images and words, following this logic, are capable of iconizing (making present) the (eschatological)
reality, and the historical reality acquires its “realness” only insofar as it is capable of embracing the iconic mode
of existence, of becoming an icon itself. However, since, not all appearances are proper icons or “real” reality, but
only the Image (true appearance) which is also the Word (true meaning, true reason), only through embracing
this Image-Word (or Word-Image) can one avoid the idolatrous fixation on images, uncritical admiration of words
(meanings) and deceitful (and convincing) appearances of the historical reality. The profound theological mes-
sage (that has a potential to be terribly misunderstood and misused in the context of the popular culture) would,
thus be, that the Image will save the world.
14
Džalto, Icons - Between Images and Words
1 “The commonplace of modern studies of images, in fact, is that they must be understood as a kind of language; in-
stead of providing a transparent window on the world, images are now regarded as the sort of sign that presents a de-
ceptive appearance of naturalness and transparence concealing an opaque, distorting, arbitrary mechanism of repre-
sentation, a process of ideological mystification.” W.J.T. MITCHELL, Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology, Chicago, University
of Chicago Press, 1987, p. 8. In spite of apparent similarities that can be established between images and words as
signs, the use of “visual language” to describe the ways that images function can be justified only as a metaphor, not as
an exact parallel. What we learn from the universal grammar is that the spoken language, that we use to describe real-
ity and to communicate, is only a secondary manifestation of the essentially biological property that we, as human
beings, have, and that is called “language.” The source of the confusion here is that the concept of “language” is all-
too-easily identified with “communication,” while the universal grammar theory has it as the instrument of thought,
for which communication is only a secondary function. This leaves open the question if some kind of “visual universal
grammar” could be discovered, as a biological/genetic property that defines the basic principles of perception and
visual communication (not “visual language”).
2 M. STEPHENS, The Rise of the Image the Fall of the Word, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 5.
3 Ibid.
4 N. POSTMAN, Amusing Ourselves to Death, New York, Viking Penguin, 1985.
5 A.W. HUNT, The Vanishing Word. The Veneration of Visual Imagery in the Postmodern World, Wheaton, IL, Crossway Books,
2003, p. 156.
6 Cf. D. DŽALTO, “Art: A Brief History of Absence (From the Conception and Birth, Life and Death, to the Living Deadness
of Art)”, in: Philosophy and Society XXVI (3), 2015, pp. 653-676.
7 Quoted after ST JOHN OF DAMASCUS, Three Treatises on the Divine Images (translated by A. LOUTH), Crestwood, NY, St
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003, p. 25.
8 W.J.T. MITCHELL, op. cit., 1987, p. 17.
9 “Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has
seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” John 14:9.
10 It is interesting to note here the distinction between the “aesthetic argument” that we find in Damascus and the
aesthetic argument that we find in the Libri Carolini. Damascus’s aesthetics is placed in the broader context of the cre-
ation and salvation of the world, so the foundation of this aesthetics is still the Incarnation and the future glory of the
transfigured matter. On the contrary, as Umberto Eco rightly pointed out, the Libri Carolini introduces the aesthetic
argument which laid the foundation for the concept of “autonomous” images and autonomous aesthetics. Cf. U. ECO,
Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1986.
11 DAMASCUS, op. cit. (Treatise I), 2003, p. 26.
12 Ibid.
13 “So God created mankind in his own image [and likeness], in the image of God he created them; male and female he
created them.” Gen 1:27. In Hebrew: tselem and demût, in Greek: eikon and homoiosis, in Latin imago and similitudo.
14 Cf. ST MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR, Comments on the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy by Dionysius Areopagite, PG 4, p. 137.
15 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” Hebrews 11:1
16 DAMASCUS, op. cit., 2003, p. 31
17 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the begin-
ning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” John 1:1-3.
Selected bibliography
• BERGER J., Ways of Seeing, London, BBC, Penguin, 1972.
• DŽALTO D., “Beauty Will Destroy the World”, in: Beauty and the Beautiful in Eastern Christian Culture. Sophia Studies in Or-
thodox Theology, Vol. 6., N. ERMOLAEV (ed.), New York: Theotokos Press, 2012, pp. 279-291.
• DŽALTO D., “Screens and Screams. Icons Re: Framed”, in: IKON, Journal of Iconographic Studies, Vol. 8, 2015, pp. 35-41.
15
IKON, 9-2016
surance” while the King James Version (having many disadvantages) is more accurate in this respect, translating
the phrase as “the substance of things hoped for.” Faith is thus the substance, the reality of the things hoped for.
In the same sense, icons give evidence (meaning substance, not some intellectual or logical argument) to things
that are eschatological, and, as such, they are (looking from a historical perspective) “not yet” real.
Understood this way, icons and iconization imply a specific relation with reality. It is not merely a repre-
sentation but a re-presentation, allowing reality to appear, or re-appear (in history, as opposed to its “original”
appearance in eschatology). Paradoxically enough, the re-appearance precedes, in time categories, the “original”
appearance. This is precisely the point of the Orthodox Christian liturgy. It is not just a theatrical staging of some
reality that is out there, or a representation of things that happened. It is primarily a re-presentation of things that
will take place, by participating in that reality. This is how one can “remember” the second coming of Christ, that
will take place at the end of time, which is precisely the formulation taken from the liturgy of St John Chrysostom.
In this sense, the iconic becomes symbolic (in the original meaning of the word, syn (together) + bole (a throwing,
a casting), that is “bringing (things) together,” in this case two different realities.
Since the Kingdom of God is the ultimate point of reference in the case of all icons, icons “iconize” the real-
ity which is still not “here” and “now,” but becomes present “here” and “now” through icons. Icons thus, as a visible
manifestation of faith, give substance to this reality hoped for. In this, icons become ontologically prior to the
historical reality.
However, one could ask: How do we know that certain images are icons that iconize (and thus give sub-
stance to reality), and not just simulacra, images without resemblance, and therefore without a relation with the
(eschatological) reality? To answer this question it seems necessary to go back to the division between words and
images which was mentioned at the beginning.
Damascus insists that images and words are similar in their capacity to “convey understanding.” In other
words: “What the book does for those who understand letters, the image does for the illiterate; the word appeals
to hearing, the image appeals to sight; it conveys understanding.”16
However, Damascus is clear, not all images, and consequently not all words, convey the proper meaning.
It is only through the Image, which is at the same time also the Word, that the proper meaning can be conveyed.
The Image is, of course, the Image of God who became a human being, and thus became visible. Thus, God who
is the Image (of the Father) is also the Word (Logos), precisely that Word which was “in the beginning,” “with God”
and the Word which “was God.”17 God who became man is therefore both the Image and the Word (Logos) of God
(the Father). In other words, He who became man is the reason (logos) and meaning (logos) of God and God’s
entire creation. The Son is thus the Word, and as the Word He is also the (essential) Image of the Father.
Both images and words, following this logic, are capable of iconizing (making present) the (eschatological)
reality, and the historical reality acquires its “realness” only insofar as it is capable of embracing the iconic mode
of existence, of becoming an icon itself. However, since, not all appearances are proper icons or “real” reality, but
only the Image (true appearance) which is also the Word (true meaning, true reason), only through embracing
this Image-Word (or Word-Image) can one avoid the idolatrous fixation on images, uncritical admiration of words
(meanings) and deceitful (and convincing) appearances of the historical reality. The profound theological mes-
sage (that has a potential to be terribly misunderstood and misused in the context of the popular culture) would,
thus be, that the Image will save the world.
14
Džalto, Icons - Between Images and Words
1 “The commonplace of modern studies of images, in fact, is that they must be understood as a kind of language; in-
stead of providing a transparent window on the world, images are now regarded as the sort of sign that presents a de-
ceptive appearance of naturalness and transparence concealing an opaque, distorting, arbitrary mechanism of repre-
sentation, a process of ideological mystification.” W.J.T. MITCHELL, Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology, Chicago, University
of Chicago Press, 1987, p. 8. In spite of apparent similarities that can be established between images and words as
signs, the use of “visual language” to describe the ways that images function can be justified only as a metaphor, not as
an exact parallel. What we learn from the universal grammar is that the spoken language, that we use to describe real-
ity and to communicate, is only a secondary manifestation of the essentially biological property that we, as human
beings, have, and that is called “language.” The source of the confusion here is that the concept of “language” is all-
too-easily identified with “communication,” while the universal grammar theory has it as the instrument of thought,
for which communication is only a secondary function. This leaves open the question if some kind of “visual universal
grammar” could be discovered, as a biological/genetic property that defines the basic principles of perception and
visual communication (not “visual language”).
2 M. STEPHENS, The Rise of the Image the Fall of the Word, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998, p. 5.
3 Ibid.
4 N. POSTMAN, Amusing Ourselves to Death, New York, Viking Penguin, 1985.
5 A.W. HUNT, The Vanishing Word. The Veneration of Visual Imagery in the Postmodern World, Wheaton, IL, Crossway Books,
2003, p. 156.
6 Cf. D. DŽALTO, “Art: A Brief History of Absence (From the Conception and Birth, Life and Death, to the Living Deadness
of Art)”, in: Philosophy and Society XXVI (3), 2015, pp. 653-676.
7 Quoted after ST JOHN OF DAMASCUS, Three Treatises on the Divine Images (translated by A. LOUTH), Crestwood, NY, St
Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2003, p. 25.
8 W.J.T. MITCHELL, op. cit., 1987, p. 17.
9 “Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has
seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” John 14:9.
10 It is interesting to note here the distinction between the “aesthetic argument” that we find in Damascus and the
aesthetic argument that we find in the Libri Carolini. Damascus’s aesthetics is placed in the broader context of the cre-
ation and salvation of the world, so the foundation of this aesthetics is still the Incarnation and the future glory of the
transfigured matter. On the contrary, as Umberto Eco rightly pointed out, the Libri Carolini introduces the aesthetic
argument which laid the foundation for the concept of “autonomous” images and autonomous aesthetics. Cf. U. ECO,
Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1986.
11 DAMASCUS, op. cit. (Treatise I), 2003, p. 26.
12 Ibid.
13 “So God created mankind in his own image [and likeness], in the image of God he created them; male and female he
created them.” Gen 1:27. In Hebrew: tselem and demût, in Greek: eikon and homoiosis, in Latin imago and similitudo.
14 Cf. ST MAXIMUS THE CONFESSOR, Comments on the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy by Dionysius Areopagite, PG 4, p. 137.
15 “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” Hebrews 11:1
16 DAMASCUS, op. cit., 2003, p. 31
17 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the begin-
ning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” John 1:1-3.
Selected bibliography
• BERGER J., Ways of Seeing, London, BBC, Penguin, 1972.
• DŽALTO D., “Beauty Will Destroy the World”, in: Beauty and the Beautiful in Eastern Christian Culture. Sophia Studies in Or-
thodox Theology, Vol. 6., N. ERMOLAEV (ed.), New York: Theotokos Press, 2012, pp. 279-291.
• DŽALTO D., “Screens and Screams. Icons Re: Framed”, in: IKON, Journal of Iconographic Studies, Vol. 8, 2015, pp. 35-41.
15
IKON, 9-2016

• DŽALTO D., “Art: A Brief History of Absence (From the Conception and Birth, Life and Death, to the Living Deadness of
Art)”, in: Philosophy and Society XXVI (3), 2015, pp. 653-676.
• ECO U., Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1986.
• HUNT A.W., The Vanishing Word. The Veneration of Visual Imagery in the Postmodern World, Wheaton, IL, Crossway Books,
2003.
• The Language of Images, W.J.T. MITCHELL (ed.), Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1980.
• The Life and Death of Images: Ethics and Aesthetics, D. COSTELLO-D. WILLSDON (eds.), London, Tate Publishing, 2008.
• MITCHELL W.J.T., Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1987.
• POSTMAN N., Amusing Ourselves to Death, New York, Viking Penguin, 1985.
• STEPHENS M., The Rise of the Image the Fall of the Word, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1998.

Davor Džalto

Ikone - između slika i riječi

Načini prezentacije ili načini bivanja?

Ovaj se rad usredotočuje na pojam “slike” (ikone) u kontekstu pravoslavnog kršćanstva, te načina na koji se slike/ikone
odnose spram “realnosti.” Autor se također bavi kompleksnom i ambivalentnom relacijom između riječi i slika u našoj (“za-
padnoj”) tradiciji, kako bi ispitao dublje odlike slika i riječi, kroz jedan teološki diskurs, u njihovom odnosu spram realnosti.
Analiza ove tenzije između riječi i slika omogućuje autoru da ispita razloge koji su doveli do kontrastiranja riječi i slika
u pojedinim povijesnim periodima i teoretskim diskursima, kao i da istraži načine na koje je moguće prevazići ovu tenziju
između riječi i slika u pravoslavnoj kršćanskoj ikonologiji.

Primljeno/Received: 14.01.2016.
Izvorni znanstveni rad

16