Were there Humanist iconoclasts? It seems plausible, given the interest in Platonism and Neoplatonism among Humanists. And here’s a quotation from the Humanist Vives: “If that very picture which we are gazing at, is obscene, does that not contaminate our minds, especially if it be subtly and artistically depicted? Not undeservedly did wise men wish to banish from the state such artists together with their pictures.” Zwingli might be another connection point of Humanism and iconoclasm, as might Calvin. That would make for an interesting complication: Instead of a simple artistic Renaissance-iconoclastic Reformation duality, you have iconoclastic humaists.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Classroom Heals the Wounds of Generations
“Hope,” wrote the German-American polymath Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, “is the deity of youth.” Wholly dependent on adults, children…
Still Life, Still Sacred
Renaissance painters would use life-sized wooden dolls called manichini to study how drapery folds on the human…
Letters
I am writing not to address any particular article, but rather to register my concern about the…
