Posterminaries
- PDF / 172,183 Bytes
- 1 Pages / 576 x 777.6 pts Page_size
- 101 Downloads / 138 Views
A Touch O'Clast We regularly strive on this page to tease or completely debunk something, either directly or at least by implication. Our targets have heretofore had well-known blemishes—what we would call "consensus foibles." Rationales for science funding, committees that don't work, peccadilloes of language, and various other symptoms of groupbureaucratic-think make easy targets. Essentially, clay feet galore! Then, long, long ago, from far, far away (actually last year from Pittsburgh) came the call, nay the challenge, to suggest an icon to adorn our POSTERMINARIES page. It would be applied when and if the Bulletin's/brmaf is freshened by, among other ploys, the addition of departmental icons. Not having easily come up with a simple, clever, meaningful postermicon, we naturally decided it was a silly and frivolous request in the first place that deserved vigorous debunking on this very page.
A modicum of research into any superficially straightforward notion always reveals ramifications upon ramifications, muddling the best initial idea. Happy to say, the icon is a most muddled concept. How to begin? Perhaps by asking, "What do Lionel Barrymore and the little ten-by-twenty-pixel image of an envelope on your computer monitor have in common?" The answer is "both everything and nothing"—a gross equivocation originating from the bifurcation in modern times of an ancient practice. Recognition with and without respect, respectively, correspond to both icons, the idol of the silver screen and the clip-art of the PC screen. We can hypothesize on how such a disparity evolved. Originally, we worshipped a relatively small constellation of deities each associated with particular human pursuits like harvesting, loving, warring, etc. Demand for attention from the gods far exceeded their ability to make personal appearances. Proxies were therefore devised. Graven images played stand-in for the oversubscribed originals. Thus it was that icons and idols proliferated. You could pray to and venerate the gods of your choice through their surrogates, objects that in short order became ubiquitous. Artisans of the day became adept at creating ornate and intricate representations of each icon's particular alter ego. Today's psychologists might call the next phenomenon transference because eventually the icons themselves became objects of devotion. So long as they provided ceremonial solace to the soul and produced the requisite number of periodic miracles, all was well. In those days, the distinction between idolatry and iconolatry was academic. There were however prophetic bumps in the road, the biggest being Emperor Leo III
who, in 726 AD, outlawed icons in religious art. He noticed that their influence was "draining thousands of men from active economic activity."1 Designers practiced on decorative mosaics for the duration and, after lifting of the ban over a century later, they hedged their bets by introducing abstractions where once the human form sufficed. Given the limited galaxy of gods and demigods, finite venues for their
Data Loading...
