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The Reformation of Art:

The Aesthetics of Calvinism in the 16th and 17th Centuries

For

Professor Rebecca Smick

Institute for Christian Studies

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Course

Art, Theology and Aesthetics

By

Clinton Stockwell

April 2013

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Introduction

Historically, Calvinism, and the Reformation traditions more generally, have

been understood as being essentially hostile to all forms of art, including

especially the sacred art of the Medieval Church. Many argue that at the feet of

John Calvin and other reformers is found the legacy of iconoclasm, and the

outright rejection of any form of artistic representation that seemed to be

nothing less than idolatry, including the icons, relics, and sacred altars that

dominated religion at the time. Historically, even among the Popes and scholars

of the Medieval ages, there were rigorous debates regarding the place and role of

images. This debate extended to the question of whether or not sacred art, such

as paintings of Madonna and Child, were to be worshipped as embodiments of

the sacred, or whether such art was merely symbolic or representational.

This paper will explore the significance of this historical background to the

Reformers reaction to the sacred art of the Medieval Church. It will seek to

understand why reformers like Calvin eschewed altars, relics, and other images in

the churches. I will explore the question of whether or not Calvin and others

rejected art altogether, or whether they just rejected the function of art as

objects of worship. This paper will argue that far from rejecting art, the

Reformers of the 16th Century believed that there was a place for art outside the

churches, and to a limited degree, even in the churches themselves, depending on

how one defines the nature of art. I will argue that once art was legitimized as

something that could and should be pursued outside the church, that art would

then assume a much larger place in society. Theologically, this would mean a

greater place for the arts as representing the gifts of the Creator in nature and in

the talents of the individual artists. In this respect, the Reformation of the 16th

Century would result in the Reformation of what was understood as art, that art

done for the glory of God need not be limited to the churches, but art could

capture the essence of all aspects of life.

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Iconoclasm in the Medieval Ages

There have been numerous outbreaks of iconoclasm in church history. Fundamental to this

question is why images in the first place? As author, Hans Belting notes, “they came into being because

they were to provide a visual likeness of what they stand for…. Why images? Their physical presence

was needed to allow people to address vows or [to give] thanks to a visible intercessor …. “1 In the Old

Testament, there were numerous stories of Iconoclastic outbreaks, including the Exodus, the story of

Samson or the reforms of King Josiah. The destruction of temples and images in Old Testament times

was a response to one of the first commandments. The Reformers of the 16th Century thought that they

were submissive to the Biblical injunctions versus the problem of idolatry. They believed that they were

under compulsion to worship no other God, and make no graven image. Yet, what was at stake in the

iconoclastic controversies of the Early Church? The iconoclastic controversies of the Early Church and

of Reformation times were responding to prevailing philosophical, religious and cultural issues.

Pulling Down Strongholds – The King Josiah Project

Posted on September 9, 2012 http://www.scottlively.net/2012/09/09/pulling-down-strongholds/

In some respects, the iconoclastic controversy was a contest between two of the most

important philosophical schools of the Ancient world, those who followed Plato, and those who

followed Aristotle. By the Second Century AD, much of the ancient Greco-Roman world was given over

to Platonism and in to its derivative, Neo- Platonism. For Plato, artifacts, or artistic representations

were mere copies of the archetype, shadows of the ideal or the pure idea. “Plato condemned art as

being incapable of attaining truth, and . . . for turning man away from truth. Anyone who wishes to

attain the true image of the divine must take not this path, but that of asceticism, an asceticism of body,

1 Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art (University of Chicago, 1994), 42.

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soul and intelligence.”2 In contrast to Plato, Aristotle established that the beauty of material things, of

the earth, was primary. Matter is not evil and does not have less significance than the pure idea, but is

its equal. These two ideas, one repudiating or denigrating matter, and the other elevating it, are behind

the debate, and frame the “war” over the image from the Medieval ages to the rise of early modern

Europe.3 The debate over matter is epitomized in the great work, The School of Athens by the great

painter, Raphael. At the center of the painting, Plato points up to the sky. And Aristotle, a bit younger

than Plato, points downward to the earth. One school of thought pointed upwards to the heavenlies;

the other earthward and the reality of the material world.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Plato judged art inferior because it is mimetic. Aristotle justifies it for the same reason. Plato

discerned that the true aspiration of art is to represent the divine with an image. But that image

lacks reality. Aristotle, in contrast, places that image on the same plane as all realities existing in

this world, because fundamentally, they are produced in the same way.4

Raphael, “The School of Athens” (1509-1510). Vatican Museum

_____________________________________________________________________________

2 Alain Bescancon, The Forbidden Image: An Intellectual History of Iconoclasm. Translated by Jane Marie Todd (University of Chicago Press, 2000). 35. 3 Ibid., 38 ff. 4 Bescancon, The Forbidden Image, 41.

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Tertullian (165-225), argued more in the tradition of Aristotle for the importance of the doctrine

of the Incarnation-- that images could legitimately be used to reflect on and communicate with the

divine. “We know the truth is apprehended by means of visible images, that is, the invisible through the

visible. For, St. Paul tells us: ‘The invisible attributes of God from the creation of the world are

understood through the things that are made.’”5 Tertullian goes on to question Plato by arguing that

the visible world was a representation of a world beyond it, and that these representations could

function as a “guide, support and authority.” In the Platonist and Neo Platonist worldview, while there

was a continuity between sense and idea, the idea was both more purely the truth, and representations

were relatively speaking, poor copies of the original. On the contrary, Tertullian argued that reason

could not be separated from the senses, so that images could be used to approximate the ultimate

reality beyond our rational and sensual abilities. Similarly, Gregory the Great (540-604) would argue

that the use of images had their legitimate place. “And if anyone should wish to make images, by no

means prohibit him, but by all means forbid the adoration of images. “6 This distinction between

worship and veneration was the key to the “orthodox” understanding of images, for the worship of the

image was never sanctioned, from Gregory to the Council of Trent, but such was never the experience of

the ordinary devotee, as we shall see. For the orthodox view, the image was attached very closely to

the doctrine of the Incarnation of Christ. “The image is a kind of visible proof of the central dogma of

God’s incarnation as a man, which is represented in God’s becoming an image in the earthly material of

the printed cloth.”7 As a result, the doctrine of the Incarnation became the bedrock doctrine for the

veneration of images. “The reality of Christ’s representation, and the image was thereby promoted to a

criterion of orthodoxy.”8 And, “whoever objects to the possibility of representing Christ indeed doubts

the reality of Christ’s life as a human being.”9 In short, for much of the Early Church, Aristotle won out

over Plato.

Yet, these images ultimately served political purposes as well. In Constantinople and in Edessa,

the image became a standard and a symbol of protection: “images of Christ … were gaining reputations

as divine protectors of their respective cities.”10 As to origins, Belting notes that much of the ‘cult of

images’ was derived from funerary processions from Byzantine art and culture, and the evolution of the

image can be identified when images for private religious consumption became cult images for public

rituals.11 As a result, the display of images became necessary for public propaganda. Medieval popes

would use the image to justify their authority as divine representatives in the realm, as vassals of the

state as well as the church. “The theological statement about the mystery of the incarnation coincides

with the political statement about the rule of the pope, who presents himself as the Virgin’s regent on

earth.”12 As a result, the painting of images developed into a proscribed archetype, and the chief

5 Tertullian, from “On the Soul,” in Theological Aesthetics: A Reader, edited by Gesa Elsbeth Thiessen (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2004), 56. 6 Gregory the Great, from “Selected Epistles,” in Thiessen, Theological Aesthetics, 48. 7 Belting, Likeness and Presence, 55. 8 Ibid., 152. 9 Ibid., 154. 10 Ibid., 68. 11 Ibid., pp. 88 ff. 12 Ibid., 129.

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patron of the image in the Medieval age was the Church. So, the “likeness belonged to a model,” and

the painting of an archetype and the veneration of model images became a standard for worship,

theology and religious and political orthodoxy. 13 Thus, the image allowed the church to gain not just

religious, but political authority. As a test of orthodoxy, it also gave symbolic authority of the Church,

over the state.

Yet, Platonism was not dead. In true Platonic fashion, John of Damascus (675-749), argued that

one needed to have imagination to appreciate the true function and place of images. For John, “honor

paid to the image redounds to the original, and the original is the thing imaged from which the copy is

made.”14 Similarly, Theodore of Studios argued that images should be allowed, based on the doctrine

of the Incarnation-- God revealed “himself” historically in the Christ as a human being. Theodore

insisted that the veneration of images was not worshipping the created order, but extended beyond the

creation to the Creator. “For this reason Christ is depicted in images, and the invisible is seen. He who

in His own divinity is uncircumscribable accepts the circumspection natural to His body….” For

Theodore, what matters is not the image per se, but the “prototype.” “It is not the essence of the image

that we venerate, but the form of the prototype stamped upon it, since the essence of the image is not

venerable…. Therefore, when we venerate the image, we do not introduce another kind of veneration

different from the veneration of the prototype.”15 A pronouncement at the Synod of 869 summarizes

this position.

We prescribe that the icons of our Lord … are to be venerated and shown the same honor as is

accorded to the Books of the Gospels. For just as all attain salvation through the letters of the

Gospel, so likewise do all—the knowing and the ignorant—draw benefit from the pictorial

effects of paint…. If, therefore, a man does not do homage to the icon of Christ, he also shall

not be able to recognize His Form at the Second Coming.16

Platonism can be found also in the Catholic mystical tradition that argues that beauty, at least

absolute beauty, is not to be found in the material world, but is found rather in the person of Jesus, or in

the soul. One finds in the tradition of Clement of Alexandria, Augustine, and ultimately in Calvin a

similar emphasis. For Clement, “beauty or ugliness is found only in the soul. Only he who is sincere is

truly noble and virtuous, and only the noble can be considered good.”17 For Clement, beauty is what is

true, and too often, beauty has been mistakenly attributed to women and sexual pleasure. Thus,

rejecting physical pleasure, Clement argued that beauty was rendered a more interior, and “spiritual”

reality, not to be identified with anything that could be approached through the senses. This emphasis

can also be found in John Calvin.

13 Ibid., 153. 14 John of Damascus, from “Orthodox Faith,” in Thiessen, Theological Aesthetics, 68. 15 Theodore of Sudios, from “On the Holy Icons,” in Thiessen, Theological Aesthetics, 70-71. 16 Cited in Belting, Likeness and Presence, 150. 17 Clement of Alexandria, from “Christ the Educator, in Thiessen, Theological Aesthetics, 51.

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Augustine is also the perpetrator of the notion that what matters is not found in the body, but in

the soul. In the Confessions, Augustine repudiates his former life that was in search for love and

meaning in material objects, including sexual relationships with women.

The Augustinian doctrine of the image stands in the tradition of Origenism, since it places the

image of God not in man’s body but in his soul, and in particular, in his mens. Man’s dominion

over the animals is a sign of this phenomenon, since the animal soul does not possess ratio or

mens, the seat of the image. The soul is an image by virtue of its capacity to know God.18

Later in life, after his conversion, Augustine began to pursue beauty and meaning not at the physical but

at the spiritual level. For Augustine, God was the essence of beauty, but God’s beauty is not limited to

the mere mystical experience, but can be found in all things. “He then, is beautiful in heaven, beautiful

on earth; beautiful in the womb; beautiful in his parent’s hands; beautiful in His miracles; beautiful

under the scourge; beautiful when inviting to life; beautiful also in not regarding death; … beautiful on

the Cross; beautiful in the Sepulcher; beautiful in Heaven…. The highest beauty, the real beauty is that

of righteousness….”19 For Augustine, the experience of Beauty was a spiritual experience. “Late have I

loved Thee, Oh Beauty, so ancient and so new. Late have I loved Thee! And behold, Thou wert within,

and I was without. I was looking for Thee out there, and I through myself, deformed that I was, upon

those well-formed things that Thou hast made.”20 John Calvin was of course influenced by the writings

of Augustine, and his rejection of the worship of images, as he perceived it, was due to his preference

for a spirituality that looked primarily to God through the Word. Like Augustine, “whatever Calvin

thinks about what can and cannot be proved about the soul by reason, he clearly affirms a plationized

dualism, claiming that the soul dwells in the body ‘as in a house,’ a ‘prison house.’21 For Calvin, souls

“survive when freed from the prison house of their bodies.”22

Such Platonism can be found throughout Medieval ages, and was debated forthrightly in several

of the Councils of the Early Church. In 787 AD, the Second Council of Nicea established criteria for the

acceptance of images and their veneration. Nicea argued that sacred art had a sacramental power to

bring the intangible within our touching.” This position was more Platonic than Aristotelian.23 This

position represented the “iconodule” position, supporting the worship and the “real presence” of the

divine mysteriously in the image. However, the Council of Frankfort took a different turn in 794.

Frankfort essentially rejected the “iconodule” position of the Second Council of Nicea. “The icondule

position was based on the Platonic notion that the image ‘participates in the reality of the exemplar—

[and] brings about the real presence of the exemplar which dwells in the image.’ The veneration of the

image was therefore considered a legitimate way of honoring the person represented.” 24 As a result,

18 Bescancon, The Forbidden Image, 101. 19 Augustine, from Expositions from the Book of Psalms, in Theissen, Theological Aesthetics, 31. 20 Augustine, from “The Confessions,” in Thiessen, Theological Aesthetics, p. 33. 21 Paul Heim, John Calvin’s Ideas (Oxford University Press, 2004), 131. 22 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, edited by John T. McNeil (Westminster Press, 1960): Vol 1. Chapter 15, Section 2, page 186. 23 Aiden Nichols, cited in Viladesau, Theological Aesthetics, p. 238, note 47. 24 Richard Viladesau, Theological Aesthetics: God in Imagination, Beauty and Art (Oxford, 1999), 54.

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the image was considered “quasi-incarnational,” a “pneumaticophoric locus of supernatural energy

which could be a source of miracles.”25 Yet, Frankford did accept images as being legitimate for

veneration (but not to be worshipped), and it condemned those who did not revere images. “If anyone

does not accept representation in art of evangelical scenes, let him be anathema. If anyone does not

salute such representations as standing for the Lord and his saints, let him be anathema.”26 The

support and veneration of images therefore became the accepted teaching of the church.

Therefore all those who dare to think or teach anything different, or who follow the accursed

heretics in rejecting ecclesiastical traditions, or devise innovations, or who spurn anything

entrusted to the church…, or who fabricate or perverted or evil prejudices against cherishing any

of the lawful traditions of the catholic church, or who secularize the sacred objects and saintly

monasteries, we order that they be suspended if they are bishops or clerics, and

excommunicated if they are monks or lay people.27

This position of the Council of Frankfort was reiterated and amplified in the Fourth General

Council of Constantinople (869-70). Two decades after Nicea, another outbreak of iconoclasm

occurred in Asia. In the Fourth Council in Constantinople, the issue was settled and further crisis averted.

Here, the veneration of the image and the written word were placed on the same plane, and images

were accepted as the lingua franca for the illiterate. In addition to what can be learned from the words

of the gospel, the Council argued that “for what speech conveys in words, pictures announce and bring

out in colours. It is fitting, in accordance with sane reason and with the most ancient tradition … that

the images derived from it be honored and venerated, as is done for the sacred book of the holy Gospels

and for the image of the precious cross.”28 These were viable tangible representations.

For mystical theologians including Thomas Aquinas, Jesus equals perfect beauty, that cannot be

appropriated sensually, but only spiritually. In this respect, reason is also of little value, for one has to

“see” God who is beyond the sense world. Beauty is therefore appropriated not from images of the

imagination but from the truth of apprehension. Similarly, Thomas Aquinas argued that beauty,

goodness and truth were really of the same cloth. For Aquinas the beauty and splendor of Christ flowed

into the body from the soul, the doorway to beauty and to an understanding of beauty.29 For the

mystics, an encounter with Christ transcends the spatial world, for Christ is understood to be the

essence of beauty, absolute beauty, a beauty that can only be seen through the eyes of the soul. For

Aquinas, there was not a contradiction, but a hierarchy of values and of the divine self-disclosure. The

body was not rejected, but the soul was elevated. As Julian of Norwich concludes:

25 Viladesau, 54. 26 From the Second Council of Nicea (787), in Thiessen, Theological Aesthetics, 65. 27 “From the Second Council of Nicea,” in Theissen, Theological Aesthetics, 65. 28 From the “Fourth General Council of Constantinople (869-70), in Thiessen, Theological Aesthetics, 65-6. 29 St. Thomas Aquinas, from Summa Theologica: The Life of Christ, in Theissen, Theological Aesthetics, 90.

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And all the gifts which God can give to the creature he has given to his Son Jesus for us, which

gifts he, dwelling in us, has enclosed in him until the time that we are fully grown, our soul

together with our body and our body together with our soul.”30

“The speech of the Word is an infusion of grace, the soul’s response is wonder and thanksgiving.”31 So,

the Medieval church produced two coexisting traditions, one that celebrated and supported the

veneration of images, comparing such to the doctrine of the Incarnation; the other a more mystical

tradition that sought to find God beyond images and beyond the material world, without necessarily

leaving it.

The iconoclasts (those who sought to abolish the image) declared that to paint an icon of Christ

was to wish to circumscribe (confine) the inaccessible divinity of Christ. The iconodules (those

who served the image) replied that the Word, in becoming flesh, had in fact circumscribed itself

in a form accessible and visible to our carnal eyes. 32

It was not long before the veneration of images began to assume other forms, such as statues, and of

course relics. For Reformers, the very existence of relics provided a context for idolatry, as they

functioned as “idols for the common people.” Further, if a church, abbey or town had relics to attract

Pilgrims, their blatant use was justified as, to say the least, an effective local fundraising strategy, which

became implicitly an important driver of the local economy for an organization or town. “The relic’s

powers made the abbey of Conques [an abbey in France] rich…, with St Fides bringing in more and more

wealth until the church’s treasures, its costly altarpieces and dazzling splendors could hardly be

surpassed. All financial transactions and legal matters of the abbey were decided in front of the statue

which seemed to have a soul and to protect her property… what Fides was in Conques, the silver statue

of St. Peter was in Cluny.”33 Further, such relics and images were combined with story and enhanced

with assumptions of magical qualities. For these reasons, the lure of having a shrine with religiously

significant relics became competitive among rival locations. In Siena, Duccio’s Maesta became the

altarpiece for the city (below). “The Madonna was addressed as the main patroness of the city,”

protecting the city from invasion or harm.34 The town government, not the church, inscribed a prayer

on the image that reads: “Holy Mother of God, be thou the upholder of peace in Siena, and grant [long]

life to Duccio, who has painted thee so [extraordinarily beautiful]. “35

30 Julian of Norwich, from “Showings,” in Thiessen, Theological Aesthetics, 107. 31 Bernard of Clairvaux, from “On the Song of Songs,” in Theissen, Theological Aesthetics, 120-121. 32 Bescancon, The Forbidden Image, 115. 33 Belting, Likeness and Presence, 301. 34 Ibid., 407. 35 Ibid., 408.

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Against such activity stood Gerhard Groote of the Brethren of the Common Life, and other

orders, such as the Cistercians. Bernard of Clairvaux “repeatedly castigated luxurious cult images as an

aberration—prohibited sculptures and paintings in the order’s statutes.”36 Other “pre reformers”

warned against the folly of relic worship. These included not only Wycliffe, Tyndale or Hus, but also the

warnings of the Renaissance humanist, Desiderius Erasmus. But the problem, for artists, is that their

vocation as artists was limited by tradition, and they had to paint for those who would pay for the art.

“Painters were not free to invent the details of images but dealt with archetypes that, more often than

not, were models locally available that has become famous, for reasons obvious at the time….”37 As a

result, “successful” icon or image artists, repeated the same formulaic approach to painting, because it

was both marketable, and was considered to be culturally and religiously orthodox. To reject the image

or to move outside what was acceptable was to enter grounds of inquisitorial suspicion. To produce art

for art sake was not possible or conceivable at this time, especially considering the extent of the realms

controlled by the Pope and his emissaries. “It is characteristic of the thirteenth century in Italy [and

elsewhere] that the history of the image practically coincides with the general history of art.”38

Further, there was something to be gained, not just for the community, or the artist, but also for

the pilgrim or the devotee. Pilgrimages to an abbey or a town to view an image or relic had religious

significance which would demonstrate the faithfulness of the devotee, who in essence would be

regarded as likened to the saints.

Meditation in front of religious images was an activity that enabled lay people to play the role

of saints and to live temporarily as a saint. The practice of image devotion involved the same

images that had been used by the saints and had inspired their visions. By training their own

imagination, urban people sporadically entered the saints community, at least in the prescribed

exercises of daily devotion….39

36 Ibid., 304. 37 Ibid., 352. 38 Ibid., 376. 39 Belting, Likeness and Presence, 362.

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Note Archetypal Similarities between these two paintings

In the late 15th century, very few people could travel to Palestine as Pilgrims. It became both

economically feasible and practical for pilgrims to travel to shrines that were closer to home. “Instead

of traveling to the Holy Land, to those places hallowed by the Incarnate God, most Europeans visited

their local shrines.”40 Such excursions “symbolized the journey of life,” and devotion to saints like Mary,

the mother of Jesus, was widespread. Martin Luther emerged, challenging the notion that “good

works,” such as pilgrimages, the purchase of indulgences, or the commissioning of shrines or altar-

places would reconcile one to God. On the eve of the Reformation, everyday life in Europe was

dominated by superstitions. There was widespread belief in witches, magic, omens, and astrology.

Most people believed that their lives were controlled by the fates, so that belief in miracles and in relics

or images were sought as a way to bring peace and harmony amid chaos, destitution and uncertainty.41

By the end of the fifteenth century, the patronage of art in western society was beginning to be

transferred from the church to private hands. “The privatization of the image was part of what was

happening everywhere…. In court circles, even the use of jewels in sacred art felt the pull of

privatization.” Fixed images began to be replaced by portable ones, where the image could be taken

with a family on their journey or travels. Society was undergoing urbanization and with it cultural

pluralism. “What distinguished the new images was their widespread availability.”42 Both the means

40 Helen DeBorchgrave, A Journey into Christian Art (Fortress, 1999), 86. 41 Carter Lindberg, The European Reformations Blackwell (1996), 62. 42 Ibid., 410.

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and the availability of art and artists allowed for a new “era of art” to emerge, where art began to

appear not just in churches, but in private collections and in commercial venues to be bought and sold.

Private tastes in art would demand diversity and complexity in art. Private collections of art emerged as

nobles outdid each other in the collection of show pieces, not for mere religious value, but for the value

of status and for the sake of ostentatious display.

Europe on the Cusp of Revolution in Society and in the Arts

In Reformation studies, there are essentially two schools, those that emphasize the history of

ideas, known as intellectual history, and the evolution of society and culture, known as social history.

For the school of thought based in the triumph of ideas, the Reformation occurred largely because of

the rise of humanism and the rise of new ideas about society and about Christian faith. The “triumph of

the Word” over ritual was certainly a driving force behind the Reformation. The other school of

thought examines societal conditions, and changes within the material culture that creates the

opportunities for social change. This paper accepts both of these paradigms as valid, but argues that

the second paradigm does a better job at weaving together the complexity of issues that created the

possibilities not just for social change, but for revolution. Such was the case at the beginning of the

16th Century in Europe.

A critical change that was happening in Europe at this time was the development of cities, and

with it a more affluent artisan class, and as a result the beginnings of an emergence of a middle class.

Much of the rise of cities was due to a response to an agrarian crisis, famine and the plague. These

factors drew many to the cities for survival. For Carter Lindberg:

There was a remarkable growth of urbanization that drew survivors to the cities. The rise of

the cities and a new, social mobility were also the cause and consequence of the shift from a

natural economy to a money economy, commercial production, and technological development.

Most of those who flocked to the cities looking for a new life did not find it; excluded from the

guilds, most newcomers, if not reduced to begging, became dependent upon jobs that provided

little more than a hand to mouth existence. New attitudes of individualism fostered by the

Renaissance also contributed to the erosion of the sense of a Christian community developed

over a thousand years of the corpus Christianum.43

Whether hard times and dire poverty, or rising expectations, the result was that Europe at the beginning

of the 16th Century had become a tenderbox, a world on the cusp of radical changes and possibilities.

This transformation began first of all in Germany’s cities. According to Stephen C. Ozment, “of

Germany’s almost two hundred cities and towns with populations in excess of one thousand, most

witnessed Protestant movements. Some of the largest, Nurnberg, Strasbourg, Lubeck, Augsburg, and

43 Carter Lindberg, The European Reformations. Blackwell Publishing, (2007 edition), 24-5.

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Ulm, all with populations in excess of 25,000 – became overwhelmingly Protestant.”44 So, why was this

the case? As Ozment points out, by the 16th Century, there was widespread criticism of the church,

clerlcal privileges, abuses, and ecclesiastical practices that fed the Roman clergy, churches and shrines

with much of the local and national treasure. The cities were the places where a new artisan class,

literate and independent, was to be found. And, an emerging leadership was vying for local political

autonomy as well. Fundamental to both Luther and Calvin’s vision, was the understanding that the state

was given by God, and that ideally, if reform was to be carried out, it was best done by a divinely

appointed magisterium, but not by a popular uprising. Unlike the peasant revolts, the reformation

appealed to a wide swath of peoples, some of them from noble and royal backgrounds. For Ozment,

“from the beginning the movement drew a representative cross-section of the urban population. But in

the early phase of the Reformation, the first Protestants were to be found among the more ideologically

and socially mobile, either by reason of social grievance (as with the lower clergy and workers), ambition

(as among certain guilds and the new rich), or ideals (as witnessed by university students and various

humanistically educated patricians).45

Another issue was the rise of literacy. In 1500, only 5% of the European population was literate,

3% in Germany, but the reading public would expand rapidly in the Sixteenth Century, as more and more

people achieved middle-class status and the means to purchase educational opportunity, as well as a

personalized collection of art and painting. If anything, the rise of a middle class in the cities of early

modern Europe also raised the issue of class conflict, and the stark differences between the princes, the

clergy, the artisans and those who still remained poor. The Dutch philosopher Gerardus van der Lieu

described the emergence of iconoclasm during the Reformation era as follows:

The Humanistic Enlightenment, with its view that God is too exalted to be represented; its

fidelity to the Bible, which values the respect paid to the letter of the Old Testament

prohibitions; its ecstatic personalization, which endures neither constraint for image nor

sacrament; the protest of the poor against the riches of the Church—all of this together has the

effect first of destroying images and then shunning them more or less rigorously.46

Iconoclasm exploded in Germany and Switzerland in the early 16th century, and the Reformers were split

on whether to support a popular uprising, which was blazing out of control here and there, or to try to

tame and control it as the responsible role of the magistrates and town authorities. The winds of

iconoclasm as a social movement burned hot in many places. Van der Lieu prophetically summarizes:

[Iconoclasm] … destroys representations, those bibles of the ignorant, in order to impress upon

them more emphatically the images of the Bible itself. To express the holy, one declares one’s

self free from line and color and turns to the spirituality of the word. But this has by no means

done away with the image. For no religion speaks in abstract concepts, religion speaks to

44 Stephen C. Ozment, The Reformation in the Cities: The Appeal of Protestantism to Sixteenth-Century Germany and Switzerland (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), 1. 45 Ozment, The Reformation in the Cities, 123. 46 Gerardus van der lieu, cited in Viladesau, Theological Aesthetics, 55.

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myths, that is in the language of images. And no religion can get along without symbols… For

eve the bare walls and the central position of the pulpit are “symbols.”47

On the surface, the issue was Word over Image, though the perspective here revolves more

around the question, how was the image transformed and “reformed?” Yet, the concern regarding

idolatry plays a significant role. Viladesau describes idolatry as the attempt to make God in our own

image, and to manipulate what the Deity does on earth or in our lives. With this definition becomes the

great problem of how to determine what the will of God is, and to what extent does one’s manipulation

of the deity represent solely a justification for violent action, be it revolution or repression. In short, the

battle over the idols very quickly became a economic and political struggle, not just cultural or religious.

At issue is also one’s understanding of God, and “his” approachability.

This is essential to the meaning of the ban on images: “the reason for the prohibition is not the

material or finite nature of the images, per se, but rather their religious function of allowing

human worshipers to manipulate the deity to their own ends.” YHWH cannot be manipulated;

hence God cannot be made into an idol, whose very meaning is availability to the worshiper’s

desires.48

For Protestant Reformers such as Luther, Karlstadt, Zwingli and Calvin, the Word was more

important than the image, and the Word in itself sought to transform the image into its own likeness.

As a result, the Protestant Reformation was an occasion for a renewed outburst of iconoclasm. For

these reformers, there was too much the temptation to venerate images, relics, or representations of

the apostles or saints, rather than “the one true God.” For the Reformers, such veneration represented

not only the worst of medieval superstitions, but was reinforced by the economic, political and religious

controls of the Pope and the Roman Church. The problem was idolatry, but there were also the

influences of other social movements underway as well, including Renaissance humanism, the rise of

nationalism, and the emergence of artisan and middle class clientele who were impacted positively by

the Gutenberg Press and the ability to publish the word in written form.

The Privatization of Art:

Iconoclastic Outbreak in Germany

Martin Luther (1483-1546) was born to Hans and Margarete Luther, in Eisleben, November 10,

1483 Most of the leaders of the Reformation were scholars and products of Renaissance humanism.

The Northern Renaissance of which Luther was a part was more concerned with the reformation of the

word than art, whereas the Southern Renaissance was more interested in reforming art. As a young

scholar, Luther entered Erfurt in 1501, finishing with a B.A degree in 1502 and three years later

graduated with a M.A degree in 1505. Luther’s father was relatively affluent, a smeltermaster of a local

47 Ibid. 48 Garritt Green, cited in Viladesau, Theological Aesthetics, 56.

15

mine, and wanted his son to become a lawyer. “Knocked down by lightning in 1505, and against his

father’s objections, Luther accepted the vows of an Augustinian Monk in 1506. Hans Luther attended

Martin’s first mass in 1507, only to rebuke his son for disobedience to his parents.

Luther’s Parents, Hans Luther wanted Luther to become a Lawyer

The University of Wittenberg was established by Frederick the Wise in 1504. Frederick was

eager to rival the University of Leipzig, and lured Luther to Wittenberg in 1511.49 His best professor was

given a doctorate in October 19, 1512, ironically bestowed upon him by his rival, Andreas Bodenstein

von Karlstadt. His lectures on the Psalms (1513) and Romans (1515) led him to reconsider the gospel.

On October 31, 1517, Luther nailed the 95 thesis to the door of the Castle Church. The Reformation had

begun.50

Luther was ambivalent when it came to the arts. On the one hand, his benefactor, Frederick the

Wise, was a huge patron of the arts. On the other hand, worship of the image and the corruption by

priests was becoming more of an issue for Germans of the Holy Roman Empire. For Luther, the place of

images was basically an incidental matter, for the preaching of the Word and doctrines like justification

by faith alone could be proclaimed as a way to instruct parishioners about the place of images. Luther

believed he was quite clear, that salvation was by faith alone, not by works. Such a message could be

proclaimed without the irreverent destruction of images in his view. For Luther, the place of images in

the church was neither good nor bad, for there were weightier issues. He wrote that the images were

“unnecessary, and we were free to either have them or not, although it would be much better if we did

not have them at all.”51 Luther thought that images could serve a purpose, for they could illustrate what

was being preached from the Word. In this respect, like artist Lucas Cranach, The Elder (1472-1553), the

Word could be combined with the image to explain what the story was, without necessarily venerating

49 Roland Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Hendrickson, 1950), 34. 50 “Martin Luther,” in Westminster Dictionary of Church History (Westminster Press, 1971), pp. 512 ff. 51 Cited by Thiessen, Theological Aesthetics, 126.

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the image. Therefore, the image could be a sign or an illustration of the biblical story, without the image

in itself being worshipped. Luther in short believed that the preaching of the Word, was not only

superior to the image, but could in effect put the image in its place as a symbol, but not a relic to be

worshipped.

_______________________________________________________________________

Younger drawings of Luther who disguised himself as a nobleman, grew a beard and called

himself "Junker Jörg". He was able to seek a safehaven at Wartburg, a strong fortress on the top of a

mountain, under the protection of Frederick the Wise.

____________________________________________________________________

Perhaps the reason that Luther was so lenient with respect to the arts, was because his chief

protector and benefactor, Frederick the Wise (1463-1525), was a serious collector of relics and images.

Saints bones and other relics were avidly collected and venerated with the conviction this was

efficacious in reducing sentences to purgatory. Thus the Wittenberg Castle church was

dedicated to All Saints: and within it Luther’s prince, Frederick the Wise, housed one of the

largest relic collections of the area – over 19,000 pieces, worth more than 1,900,000 days’

indulgence. This pious intoxication with numbers is also evident in the celebration of the

masses. In 1517, at the Wittenberg Castle church of All Saints more than 9,000 masses were

celebrated which consumed 40,932 candles (over 7,000 pounds of wax) costing 1,112 guilden . .

. . Frederick’s relic collection included a piece of the burning bush, soot from the firer furnace,

milk from Mary, and a piece of Jesus’ crib, to name but a few of his treasures acquired at great

cost and lavishly displayed in expensive containers . . . . Luther’s contemporary, Cardinal

Albrecht, believed his relic collection was worth 39,245, 120 days’ indulgence.52

Frederick the Wise was the Elector of Saxony, one of the seven Electors responsible for electing

the King of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1519, Frederick was considered a candidate for Emperor, though

the electors would elect Charles V instead. Frederick was not only Luther’s sovereign and protector (it

was he who stole Luther off to the Wartburg Castle), but he also had the reputation as a pious Medieval

52 Lindberg, The European Reformations, 60-61.

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prince. He was educated in an Augustinian monastery, as was Martin Luther, and was one of the few

persons alive who had enough wealth and statue to participate in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and this

he did in 1493, the year after indigenous peoples of the New World discovered Columbus on their

shores. In 1523, despite his legendary collection, he consented to end the worship of relics in his

electoral jurisdiction.53

Luther refused to attack images in and of themselves, but rather he questioned the spirit and

the reason by which they were placed in churches. He wrote,

We must permit the images to remain, but preach vigorously against the wrong use of them.

We must preach not merely against this particular misuse or danger, the worshipping of images.

This is a very small matter…. But we must preach against the worst misuse of all, of which the

papists are guilty to overflowing. I refer to the fact that they place images in the churches

because they think they are thereby doing a good work and a service to God…. When the

common man learns that it is not a service to God to place images in the churches, he will cease

doing it of his own accord, without your insistence he will have pictures painted on the walls

only because he likes them, or for decoration of some other reason that does not involve sin.54

In this respect, Luther was very different than the more radical reformers such as Karlstad, Zwingli,

Calvin or Knox. Luther was actually not just a patron of the arts, but an artist himself.

Luther, an enthusiastic musician did not believe that patronage of Christian art was status-

seeking or sinful, [nor did he believe] that the altar should be stripped bare to become the place

of Christ’s sacrifice, or that intercession through May and the Saints was wrong . . . . But,

Luther’s stand . . . unleashed mindless violence and Protestantism became destructive. Works

of beauty in even the humblest parish church, from carved images to reredoses and font covers,

were smashed. Pilgrims who formerly venerated images of Mary or the saints now destroyed

them.55

53 Westminster Dictionary of Church History (1971), 340. 54 Martin Luther, from ‘Receiving Both Kinds in the Sacraments,’ (1522), in Theissen, Theological Aesthetics, 130. 55 Helen DeBorchgrave, A Journey into Christian Art (Fortress, 1999), 87.

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Wittenberg at the Time of the Reformation

___________________________________________________

Perhaps the most radical of reformers in Wittenberg was Andres Bodenstein von Karlstadt

(1486-1541). Karlstadt received his B.A. from Erfurt in 1502 and also studied Thomism at Cologne. He

came to Wittenberg in 1505 and eventually received his doctorate in 1510. When Frederick lured

Luther to Wittenberg in 1512, it was Karlstadt who was the scholar of promise, and it was Karlstadt who

awarded Martin Luther his doctorate. On the eve of the 96 theses, Karlstadt went to Italy in 1515,

receiving a dual doctorates in canon and civil law in May of 1516. After the Diet of Worms (1521),

Luther was forced to seek refuge, as a price was on his head, so he escaped to Frederick’s Wartburg

Castle for protection. Meanwhile, it was Karlstadt who worked towards reform in Wittenberg in

Luther’s absence. Karlstadt has been called by some of his biographers as the true founder of pietism,

and the founder and pioneer of “lay Christian Puritanism.”56 On Christmas eve, 1521, a populist rising

erupted in Wittenberg. “Gangs” of lay persons roamed the streets threatening priests, disrupting

church services and calling for reform. Supporting these outbreaks, Karlstadt on Christmas Day

celebrated communion in the castle church without vestments. He came “dressed as a layman, he

pronounced the consecration in German (not Latin), and disturbed communion in both kinds. Karlstadt

did publicly what Melanchthon had done privately . . . . This was the ‘sign language’ of anticlericalism

and the public break with a millennium of tradition.”57

In early January 1522, Gabriel Zwilling urged Augustinian monks in Wittenberg to remove

images from their churches and monasteries, “smashing statues and burning whatever was combustible,

including the consecrated oil used in extreme unction.” Karlstadt had previously preached that the Old

Testament law forbad images and the worship of idols, so that such should be destroyed and burned,

eradicated from the churches. By 24 January 1522, the Wittenberg city council authorized a removal of

images from the churches, and affirmed the changes initiated by Karlstadt.

56 Cited in Lindberg, European Reformations, 95. 57 Lindberg, 103.

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Karlstadt wrote, 27 January 1522, of the necessity to rid the churches of idols.

See how God forbids all kinds of images . . . . God says you shall not worship them, you shall

not even honor them. Therefore, God forbids all veneration [of images] and breaks down he

papist refute which by their agility always does violence to the Scriptures and makes black

white and evil good . . . Thou shalt not worship them. Thou shalt not honor them. Gloss as you

can, you shall in fact not worship them. You shall not bend your knee before them; you shall not

light candles before them . . . . [Rather] you shall overturn and overthrow the altars. You shall

break their images to pieces. You shall hew down their pillars and burn up their carved images.

We have no godly altars but rather heathen and human ones, as noted in Ex. 20:4. Therefore,

Christians shall abolish them . . . . The highest authorities should also abolish images. 58

Karlstadt went on to write that it is the duty of the city to respond to the needs of the poor, and that the

wealth of the churches as found in images should be converted to a common chest, so that money could

go to the poor so that they would not starve, but might be offered meaningful work.

Common Chest for Poor Relief, LutherStadt-Wittenberg (Photo by Author)

_________________________________________________________________________________

In March of 1522, Luther returned from Wartburg, and gave a series of eight sermons urging

caution with regard to images, and refuting much of the more radical posture of Karlstadt. Luther

rejected the destruction of images by the populace, and feared a popular uprising. For Luther, such

removal could only be done under the authority of the magisterial leadership of Wittenberg. Luther was

also moderate when it came to such destruction. Perhaps due to his relationship with Frederick the

58 Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt, “On the Abolition of Images and That there Should be No Beggars Among Christians (January 27, 1522),,” In: Carter Lindberg, editor, The European Reformations Sourcebook (Blackwell Publishing Company, 2000), 57.

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Wise, Luther was fearful of not only a popular uprising, but the destruction it might bring to Saxony,

both internally and from without. But there was also something fundamental in Luther’s theology--

that would lead eventually to the doctrine of the two kingdoms. Luther believed that religious faith

should not be brought into the realm of civic life, they should be kept separate. Luther held that to

“enforce the gospel by law is to change the gospel into law, and thereby pervert the Reformation. What

is free cannot be compelled.”59 Luther, despite the 95 thesis, proved to be less of a radical reformer

than his colleague, von Karlstadt.

Unfortunately for Karlstadt, Luther went on a personal crusade against his teachings, preaching

and denouncing Karlstadt in churches and public places throughout Saxony. In his “Against the

Heavenly Prophets (1525),” Luther refuted the radical posture of his former colleague and ally.

We have noted before how Dr. Karlstadt and image breakers of his kind do not interpret Moses’

commandment as referring to the constituted authority, as is proper, but to the disorderly

populace . . . For, as I have said, where the populace has the right and power to carry out a

divine commandment, then one must thereafter give in and permit them to carry out all the

commandments. Consequently, whoever arrives on the scene first must put to death murder,

adulterers, thieves, and punish rogues. And thereby justice, jurisdiction, dominion and all

authority would fall apart.60

Wary of the consequences of revolution and popular revolt, Luther therefore prosecuted his case

against Karlstadt with all his might. Luther was also aware that it was more difficult to cleanse the heart

than it was to merely rid the churches of their artifacts.

In 1525, Luther was already in reaction to the upscale of violence throughout Germany. The

German Peasant’s War of 1524-6 was one of the most ugly risings and one of the most brutal wars of

repression in European history. Some 100,000 peasants were killed, lands were ravished, and

communities destroyed. In 1524, the Peasant war began with the Black Forest rebellion, led by Joss Fritz.

Fritz appealed to a “godly law” as justification for a rebellion against economic and social repression. At

about the same time, Hans Bulgenbach led a rebellion in the town of Waldshut, and peasants in and

around Nuremberg were in revolt by refusing to pay tithes and burning the grain in the fields. By the

end of 1524, revolutions were breaking out all around Lake Constance, and rent strikes emerged

between the Rhine and Danube rivers. These rebellions would have been rather easily crushed, except

that Charles V was involved in a war versus Francis I of France over control over Italian lands. However,

“with the defeat and capture of Francis at the battle of Pavia on 24 February 1525 this situation

changed.”61 By May, 1525, much of south and central Germany was in the midst of revolution.

59 Lindberg, European Reformations, 107. 60 Martin Luther, “Against the Heavenly Prophets (1525),” in: Lindberg, European Reformations Sourcebook (2000), 64. 61 Lindberg, European Reformations (1996), 159.

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The peasants of course had legitimate concerns, perhaps even more serious than the concerns

levied by Luther in 1517. If Luther protested religious doctrines and the controls of the Church, the

peasants were in revolt over social issues. In 1525, Sebastian Lotzer, a tanner and lay reformer; and

Christoph Schappeler, an evangelical pastor from St. Martin’s church in the imperial city of Memmingen,

penned a list of grievances called “The Twelve Articles: The Just and Fundamental Articles of all the

Peasantry and Tenants of Spiritual and Temporal Power by Whom They Think Themselves Oppressed.”62

The “Twelve Articles” was a manifesto on behalf of Upper Swabian peasants, and within two months,

some 25,000 copies were distributed throughout the Empire. In it the authors linked the gospel with

the cause of the peasants. “Did he not hear the children of Israel crying to him and deliver them out of

Pharaoh’s hand? And can he not save his own body as well? Yes, he will save them, and soon.” Here

was a religiously- inspired rebellion that achieved great traction.63

The Twelve Articles were addressed to the “Christian Reader,” and demanded the right of a

people to choose their pastor; demanded decreased taxation; called for the abolition of serfdom;

insisted on common access to lands and rivers for firewood and for fishing, demanded the cessation of

oppression from the landlords; argued for a return of the meadows and fields for common use; and

insisted on the abolition of heriot, a feudal law or “death tax” that oppressed widows and orphans when

their husbands, who were treated as property, died. The peasant wars were a protest against the

extremes of feudalism and serfdom. To highlight one of the issues, the Twelve Articles states: “We . . .

have grievances concerning the use of woodlands. For our lordships alone have appropriated all the

62 Lindberg, European Reformations (1996), 164. 63 See “TheTwelve Articles of the Upper Swabian peasants (February 27- March 1, 1525), in Lindberg, European Reformations Sourcebook (2000), 91-93

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woods, and when the poor man needs wood, he must buy it at double the price. It is our conviction that

regardless of the kind of woods involved . . . it should revert to the whole community . . . .”64

This was a populist rising with specific grievances and argued for a new social arrangement.

Luther of course, did not support this. He initiallyattempteded to forge a plan of reconciliation between

the parties, but without success. In Luther’s response to the Twelve Articles, he chided both the

princes and the peasants.

[T]here is nothing Christian on either side and nothing Christian is at issue between you: both

Lords and peasants are discussing question of justice and injustice in heathen, or worldly terms .

. . . For “God’s sake, then, take my advice! Take a hold of these matters properly, with justice

and not with force or violence and do not start endless bloodshed in Germany. I, therefore,

sincerely advise you to choose certain counts and lords from among the nobility and certain

councilman from the cities and ask them to arbitrate and settle this dispute amicably . . . . 65

Unfortunately, Luther’s warnings were not heeded. As a result Luther supported the crushing

of the Peasant rebellion by the princes, who for him were the constituted authority. The peasants felt

betrayed by Luther; and the princes justified in using violence to oppress the peasant on the basis of

their “legitimate authority.” Fundamentally, Luther opposed the use of the gospel as a reason for

rebellion, and despite just demands, he argued that nothing justified the taking up of arms versus the

legitimate authorities. “Luther … consistently denied the right to revolt, which he believed would always

make things worse and bring suffering to the innocent.” 66 He wrote:

For rebellion is not just simple murder, it is like a great fire which attacks and devastates the

whole land. Thus rebellion brings with it a land filled with murder and bloodshed: It makes

widows and orphans, and turns everything upside down, like the worst disaster. Therefore let

everyone who can, smite, slay, and stab, secretly, or openly, remembering that nothing can be

more poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel. It is just as when one must kill a mad dog; if

you do not strike him, he will strike you, and a whole land with you.67

There are the linkages between the peasant revolts and iconoclasm. But, for the most part, the

iconoclastic movement was a movement that attracted populations from a wide swath of peoples, some

poor, but many of the artisan class, and even nobles who wanted to throw off the church and gain

reliative political and economic independence, and religious freedom as well. While many

“commoners” in the villages, and in urban places embraced anticlericalism and violent iconoclastic

tactics, such anticlericalism also appealed to a growing number of persons of stature and of economic

means. Iconoclasm became a popular revolt that could potentially unite peasants and the artisan class.

To prevent widespread revolution, city governments embraced the Reformation, and this fed into the

64 “The Twelve Articles of the Swabian Peasants” (February 27 – March 1, 1525), in: Lindberg, European Reformations Sourcebook (2000), 92. 65 Martin Luther, “Admonition to Peace: A Reply to the Twelve Articles of the Peasants in Swabia (1525), in Lindberg, European Reformations Sourcebook (2000), 95. 66 Lindberg, European Reformations (1996), 165. 67 Cited in Lindberg, European Reformations (1996), 166.

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ideology of some of the major reformers, that reformation should be something pursued by the

legitimate government in power, not by the rabble or the poor. In incident after incident, the

destruction of images in the cities of Germany and Switzerland was justified on the basis of the

oppression of the poor, but it was not the poor who benefitted directly, it was the new class of artisans,

guild members, and a nascent “middle class.” Like other Reformers in Switzerland, Luther sought to

distance and disassociate his reform program from the peasant wars that were disruptive of German

society. He preferred comradery with the Princes who supported him, that with peasants who thought

they were following in his footsteps.

The Segregation of Art from the Churches:

Iconoclasm in Switzerland in the time of Zwingli and Calvin

Iconoclasm spread to other places, such as Zurich, Strasbourg and Basle.68 Huldrych Zwingli

(1484-1531) took a more extreme position regarding both the Eucharist the image. Like Karlstadt,

Zwingli argued that images were idols, and these were forbidden by God. He thus embarked on a

crusade to eliminate images from the churches in Zurich, including the Grossminster Church. Zwingli

had addressed this issue in 1523, naming a long list of biblical verses that warned against idol worship.69

Zwingli sought to distinguish between true and false religion, and this conviction came out of his

theology and his study of Scripture. He believed that it was essential for “true Christians” to turn away

from images, which due to the nature of man became worshipped as idols, to the living God.70

However with regard to the images and the paintings that we have in churches, it is evident that

they have created the danger of idolatry. Therefore, one cannot leave them there any longer---

nor in your chamber, in the marketplace, or anywhere one shows any kind of honor. Especially

are they intolerable in the churches, for everything that we have there is holy to us. Where

anyone would have them outside the church as a representation of historical events without

instruction for veneration, they may be tolerated. But whenever one begins to bow before

them and to give them honor, then they are to be tolerated nowhere on earth. For they are, in

short, either an aid to idolatry, or idolatry itself.71

68 See, Lee Palmer Wandel, Voracious Idols &Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg, and Basle (Cambridge University Press, 1994). 69 Huldrych Zwingli, “A Short Christian Instruction (1523),” in Theissen, Theological Aesthetics: A Reader, pp. 134 ff. 70 Carlos M. N. Eire, The War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin (Cambridge, 1986), 85. 71 “Concerning Images,” in Huldrych Zwingli Writings: Volume II: In Search of True Religion: Reformation, Pastoral and Eucharistic Writings, 500th Anniversary Volume, Translated by H. Wayne Pipkin, (Pickwick, 1984), pp. 70-71.

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The history of iconoclasm in Zurich had some antecedents. On September 19, 1523, Laurenz

Meyger, assistant at St. Peter’s church, stood before the Council of the city of Zurich. An altar retable,

some ornaments and some church documents were destroyed sometime the night of September 7-8.

Without confessing to the incident, Meyger described how the objects came to be broken, and then

added how pleased he was that the objects were broken in St. Peter’s. Meyger said that nothing would

please him more than the destruction of the objects, idols, altar and candlesticks, since many who came

to the church had noting, and “must suffer hunger and drudgery.”72 Meyger established a connection

between the wealth spent on dumb idols, and the problem of poverty and hunger in Zurich. Since the

14th Century, St Peters was known for its ministry with the poor as a hospital and advocate for the

hungry in Zurich. The people of Zurich recognized and affirmed this role, which perhaps made it easy to

sanction the act of iconoclasm without punishment. Meyger was calling forth the teaching of St.

Ambrose, that the wealth of the church should go to the care of the poor.73

A second incident took place on September 13, 1523, when Lorenz Hochrutiner brazenly

destroyed the candlesticks of the Frauminster. Despite being imprisoned for two weeks, Hochrutiner

participated in a second desecration of images in the Frauminster, with Claus Hottinger, a well known

iconoclast. Hottinger declared that he wanted to sell the wood and give the money to the poor, he was

aware that, like the peasants of 1525, that access to firewood was often the difference between survival

and death during the depths of winter. Hochrutiner and Hottinger were both banned from the city of

Zurich for two years (not executed). But their actions created a debate, and the Town Council called for

a series of disputations to resolve the issue of how one interprets images and the mass.

On Thursday, December 10th, the Town Council requested Zwingli’s advice on the matter of

images. Zwingli responded that “the paintings should be immediately closed and not opened again

until further notice,” and that images made of gold, silver or other ornaments should not be carried in

ritual procession. This was a rather moderate solution to the problem. However, Zwingli went on to

argue that “no one shall place any images either within or without the churches, unless he has put them

therein previously, or unless and entire congregation… has decided to do this.”74 Even so, by the end of

1523, the images were still remaining in the churches, despite several acts of iconoclasm, by some of

Zurich’s leading citizens. Further, at this point, the Council of Zurich, agreeing with Zwingli, was

providing for a moderate solution. However, the more conservative members of the Great Minster

72 Wandel, Voracious Idols and Violent Hands, 65. 73 Wandel, Voracious Idols, 66. 74 Charles Garside, Jr., Zwingli and the Arts (Yale, 1966), 152.

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protested any action at all, no matter how cautious. This provoked a fourth disposition the following

year. A small gathering was invited to a debate on January 19-20, 1524. Regarding the images, the “old

believers” made their case, but failed. Zwingli and the “new believers” had prevailed, though it was not

until May of 1524 when a decree was passed to wait for the town council to make its decision regarding

images. In Zurich, as a result, iconoclasm came to be legislated. “For the first time in the West, the very

activity of iconoclasm acquired a legitimacy it had not held before. This provided a potent paradigm for

reform.”75 Other towns began to look to Zurich for an example of what became a magisterial agency for

reform, rather than a popular uprising. Then an act of iconoclasm in nearby Zollikon occurred within 24

hours of the decree that the Council would announce its policy regarding images. This forced the hand

of the Zurich Council who, being afraid of a widespread iconoclastic outbreak, ruled in favor of reform.

Zwingli was asked to write a series of recommendations, which were given to the Council, made

public, and then became the law of the land. So the last week of May, 1524, the Council agreed to the

following five points. First: that persons who have made the images or who brought them to the

churches, should take them out within a week. If not, the church warden would remove the images.

Second, for images paid for by the church as a whole, the church would make a collective decision

regarding the process of removal. Third, such actions should be done quietly and peacefully, even as

“no one shall make any more images . . . and no sculptor shall care them on pain of heavy

punishment.”76 Fourth, if the congregation should decide to leave images in churches, they shall burn

no candles before them, and five, an exception should be made for crucifixes as religious symbols.77

However, by June20- July 2, 1524, the Council began removing images from the churches. A committee

of twelve men were chosen to carry out the task. They moved to the churches, and “once inside, they

locked the doors behind them, and then, free from all disturbance of the curious crowds without, began

to dismantle the church.”78 The work as decreed by the Council was quick and total, and accomplished

in a thirteen day period.

Every standing statue was removed from its niche or its base, and, together with the base, take

out of the church. It was then either broken up by the masons, if made of stone or plaster, or

burned, if made of wood. Every painting was taken down from the altars and burned outside.

All murals were chipped away or scraped off the walls. The altars were stripped of all images

and vessels, all votive lamps were led down and melted outside, and all crucifixes were

removed. Even the carved choir stalls were taken up and burned. Then the walls were

whitewashed so that no traces whatsoever of the old decorations and appointments might be

seen.79

As a result, by Sunday, July 3, 1524, there was not a “statue, a painting, a crucifix, a votive lamp,

a reliquary, a shrine, or image, or decoration of any sort” that remained in any of the churches of Zurich.

On the one hand, a pilgrim, Hans Stockar reported that there was not anything to be found in the Zurich

75 Wandel, Voracious Idols, 60. 76 Garside, Zwingli and the Arts, 157. 77 Garside, 157. 78 Garside, Zwingli and the Arts, 159. 79 Garside, Zwingli and the Arts, 159.

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churches, “it was hideous.” On the contrary, it was a moment of triumph for Zwingli and the

iconoclasts, now legitimated by the town council. Zwingli exclaimed in triumph: “In Zurich we have

churches which are positively luminous; the walls are beautifully white.”80

This model of iconoclasm was to be repeated in other cities, including Bern, Basle and Strasbourg. In each case, there were popular outbreaks, and then the town council would seize the moment and would be the organ of change, organized iconoclastic efforts to “cleanse” the churches of their idols. This had the effect of quelling the possibility of disorganized violence from the populace. Thus, unlike the violence of the peasant revolt of 1525, the iconoclastic movements in the Swiss cities were carried out by the magisterial class. Political as well as economic and religious issues were at stake. In Strasbourg, the iconoclasts were so successful that they put the artists out of work. “The artists of Strasbourg addressed a petition to the city government, asking its help in changing their profession, as they had been without work since ‘the respect for images had noticeably fallen away through the word of God.’”81 This all had occurred before Calvin came to Strasbourg in 1538, and in Geneva, the town had legitimized the reform, and the removal of the images, prior to Calvin’s arrival in 1536. Calvin’s crusade against relics was seemingly a reaction to his own less than tasteful experience as a child, when his mother brought him to Ourscamps Monastery, to “kiss” the skeletal remains of “Anna”, a relic of the presumed mother of Mary. Calvin writes: Anna, mother of the Virgin Mary, has on e of her bodies at Apte in Provence, and another in the

church of Mary Insulan at Lyons. Besides, she has one of her hands at Treves, another at Turin,

and a third in a town of Thuringia, which takes its name from it. I say nothing of the fragments

which exist in more than a hundred places. Among others, I remember having myself, long ago,

kissed a portion of it at Ursicampus, a monastery in the vicinity of Noyon where it is held in great

reverence. Lastly another of her arms is in St. Paul’s at Rome. 82

Geneva had already abolished religious art within its churches by 1535, so that the political struggle to

rid churches of images was not a political problem for Calvin. Yet, Calvin stood in the tradition of the

iconoclasts, including Lactantius, Eusebius, and Augustine; and he stood against images and their

inevitable worship. “God does not teach through simulacra but through his own word. To claim that

images serve as books for the unlearned is simply to show that the church has abdicated its duty to

transmit that word.” 83

Calvin’s view of images in the Institutes of the Christian Religion did not evolve much from his

1536 to 1559 versions. Against the dead images of the saints, and even the sanctioned archetypes of

Madonna and Child, and Crucifix, Calvin hoped that the church would embrace those “living images,”

rather than dead replications. All ceremony or devotion, for Calvin, should be “devoted to the concept

80 Cited in Garside, Zwingli and the Arts, 160. 81 Cited in Belting, Likeness and Presence, 465. 82 “An Admonition, Showing the Advantages Which Christendom Might Derive from an Inventory of Relics,” John Calvin: Tracts and Letters. Volume 1 Tracts, Part I, Edited and Translated by Henry Beveridge (Banner and Truth, 2009). 83 Bescancon, The Forbidden Image, 187.

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of the glory of God.”84 For Calvin, the difference was between images that might be worshipped and

those that were clearly symbols or signs of something else. He contrasted the “dead” images of

Medieval Christendom with the “living images” of New Testament Christianity. Calvin believed that next

to Scripture, the second book of God was to be found in nature. In each case, God is revealed in these

two books, though it takes spectacles to see God in them, for they function as mirrors/reflections of

God’s glory and majesty.

In the Institutes (1559 version), Calvin laid down his basic understanding with regard to images

and the arts. For Calvin, “true religion” binds the faithful to God alone, and not to relics, images, or

even to churches as institutions. 85 This was basic to Calvin’s theology, the supremacy of God, and the

danger of worshipping images, which he relegates as pure superstition which easily becomes an object

of false worship, idolatry. What bothered Calvin even more was the extent that the organized church

used relics and images for monetary or political gain. Hence, idolatry was not only a temptation to the

populace, but was encouraged by those in power. In chapters XI and XII, Calvin presents his

perspective regarding the use of images in worship. Calvin is basically critical of human nature, as it

seemed too easy for the human being to succumb to idolatrous temptations. “Since this brute stupidity

gripped the whole world – to pant after visible figures of God, and thus to form gods of wood, stone,

gold, silver, or other dead and corruptible matter—we must cling to this principle: God’s glory is

corrupted by an impious falsehood whenever any form is attached to him.”86

Reminiscent of Karlstadt and Zwingli, Calvin appealed to the Old Testament (Exodus 20:4)

warnings against any form of idolatry: “You shall not make for yourself a graven image, nor any

likeness . . . .” For these reformers, any use of images inevitably leads to idolatry. Yet, Calvin thought

that under certain conditions, images were permissible. He wrote: “because sculpture and painting

were gifts of God, I seek a pure and legitimate use of each…. Within this class some are histories and

events, some are images and forms of bodies without any depicting of past events. The former have

some use in teaching or admonition; as for the latter, I do not see what they can afford other than

pleasure.”87 Here, Calvin seems to make allowances for sculpture and paintings, but not in the church,

and not for religious purposes. He agreed with the program of reform and iconoclasm in Geneva before

his arrival. Let there be no images or likenesses in the churches, where rather, the Word of God should

be preached.

Calvin believed in what he called “living images.” In the Old Testament, before the canonization

of Scripture, God had revealed “himself” in many different ways. God was revealed in the Creation, and

in particular in the creation of human beings, who were made in the image and likeness of the Creator.

84 Serguisz Michalski, The Reformation and the Visual Arts: The Protestant Image Question in Western and Eastern Europe (Routledge, 1989), 60. 85 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Edited by John T. McNeil, translated and indexed by Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960): Vol. I. Chapter XII, pp. 116 ff. 86 Calvin, Institutes (1960), Ch. XI, p. 100. 87 Calvin, Institutes (1960), Ch. XI, p. 112.

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God also revealed “himself”88 in other forms, sometimes material, sometimes not. These included the

Ten Commandments, the Torah, the Temple in Jerusalem, and even Jerusalem itself as the city of God.

Yet, for Calvin, God’s self revelation was also to be found in the city, and in particular, the city of

Jerusalem which would also be the image of the great eschatological hope in the end times. As

Zachman describes:

The presence of God in the city meant that God would be the protector of the city. This was

manifested to the Jews by means of the physical appearance of the city, including tits towers

and ramparts, for “in these external things the blessing of God in some respect shone forth.” As

we have repeatedly seen with symbols of the presence of God, the walls and towers are signs

that should elevate the minds of the pious to God in heaven. “In making mention here of her

towers and walls, we are not to suppose that he would have the minds of the faithful rest in

these things. He rather sets them before us as a mirror which represents the face of God.” The

same should be said of the palaces of Jerusalem, and its citadels, for “by the aid of these

outward things they should elevate their minds to the contemplation of the glory of God.”89

In anticipation, one may conclude that Calvin’s metaphorical grasp of the city would also have a direct

influence on his hope for the city of Geneva, for their Calvin would seek to create a city that reflected

the image and purpose of God on earth, like no other place, and this was the conclusion of John Knox in

1559. As John Knox, the Reformer of Scotland would famously say:

I neither fear nor ashame (sic) to say, [Geneva] is the most perfect school of Christ that ever was

in earth since the days of the apostles. In other places I confess Christ to be truly preached; but

manners and religion so sincerely reformed, I have not yet seen in any other place.90

Zachman finds much of this idealization of the Genevan theocracy, and its repudiation of idols, in

Calvin’s writings, including the Institutes and tracts on the reform of the church therein. Remember, in

the 16th century, there was little of what we know today as a “separation of church and state.” For

Zachman, in Calvin’s thought, “even the lands around Jerusalem” were reflections of God’s grace and

favor. “In sum, the whole appearance of the city of Jerusalem, from its palaces and walls to its

mountains and environs, was a living image of the favor and protection of God.”91 More than that, the

city of Jerusalem was understood by Calvin as a “theater of God’s glory.”

God made Jerusalem a theater of God’s glory both by adorning it with many gifts and by

defending it from its enemies by God’s power alone. This is what made the devastation of the

88 I will be using “Himself” in quotes to reflect the understanding of God by the authors and culture of a Sixteenth Century European context. I am quite aware of the explosion of questions and deliberations by theologians in the 21st Century who are exploring alternative gender constructs for the Being of God. 89 From John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms; cited in Randall C. Zachman, Image and Glory in the Theology of John Calvin (University of Notre Dame, 2007), 221. 90 John Knox, cited in Carols M.N. Eire, War Against the Idols: The Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin (Cambridge University Press, 1989), 276. 91 Zachman, Image and Glory, 221.

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city under the judgment of God all the more striking and alarming, when God departed from the

Temple and the city before the Babylonian exile.92

Zachman goes on to say that even after the Temple was destroyed, and even during the exile, the image

of Jerusalem as a reflection of God’s glory remained. This is relevant when it comes to understanding

the role of the Reformers in their own cities, whether Wittenberg, Zurich, or Geneva. The transference

is obvious. If the Reformers did not purify the city of its images, and if the people did not turn to the

strictures of the Ten Commandments, judgment and rejection, the wrath of God, could be sure and swift.

The sixteenth century and the Reformation would not have been possible without the emergence of the

city as a strategic political, economic and social location. It was in these cities that a war was fought, not

just over idols, but over the future possibility that a city could be cleansed and made righteous before

the Creator. Yet, clearly for Calvin, references to a “heavenly Jerusalem” in his writings were a veiled

metaphor for cities such as Strasbourg or Geneva.93

In the Institutes God is not only Sovereign, and “other” than the Creation, God is imperceptible

and cannot be described. In the Institutes, Calvin “praises the omnipotence and greatness of God, while

at the same time emphasizing the immeasurable distance from us.”94 This great impass and distinction

between God and the created order is pervasive in Calvin’s writing. There appears also to be an explicit

dichotomy between body and spirit, between matter and the things of God. Calvin seems to hold to a

Neo Platonic disregard of the world, privileging instead the need for humans to approach God and the

life that really matters in a spiritual world. Although God reveals God’s self in nature, the theater of

God’s glory, the pain and suffering endured by humans on earth is enough to cause us to yearn for the

life beyond, the life in the heavenlies. Therefore, worship should be directed to God, the transcendent

one, and not mediated through the church, through priests, or though relics and images. In this sense,

“divine transcendence” precludes image-making.

For Michalski, Calvin distinguished between latria and doulia, (adoration and veneration).

Adoration should be restricted to God alone. Yet, even though God revealed God’s self ultimately in

Christ, it is surprising that the Incarnation, what we refer to as Christology, is “afforded less importance

in Calvin’s theological System.”95 This is nowhere more obvious than his treatment of the images. He

rejects representations of Christ and the crucifix, along with representations of the apostles or the saints

so pervasive in Catholic dogma and practice. Calvin seems to prefer the transcendent Christ over the

corporeal Christ.96 For Calvin, humans tended to

“anthropomorphize” and visualize religion to the point of idolatry due to the debasement of human

beings as a slave of sin. Humans for Calvin were corrupt and prone to superstition.

92 Zachman, Image and Glory, 222. 93 Sergiusz, Michalski, The Reformation and the Visual Arts: The Protestant Image Question in Western and Eastern Europe (Routlege, 1989), 70. 94 Ibid., 62. 95 Michalski, p. 66. 96 Michalski, 66.

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However, Calvin was not against art. He condemned images but not art in and of itself.97

“Sculptures and paintings were gifts of God. “98 Rather for him, the preaching of the Word would

replace the rituals and ceremonies of the Roman Catholic Church, and all but two of the sacraments,

Baptism and the Lord’s Supper (The Eucharist). Far from opposing all artistic representations, Calvin

affirmed sculpture and painting as gifts of God. He just did not want these to be objects of faith and

worship. For Calvin, “works of visual art, in particular paintings of landscapes or histories, can both

affirm God’s creation and providence, and provide a further means by which his people can shape their

self-understanding and be sanctified.”99 For Calvin, like other works of art, such could be acceptable as

symbols that help the believer look beyond oneself, but could not be objects of worship in and of

themselves. “Artwork(s) in Reformed churches are clear representations, symbols, not objects of

worship.”100 As Bescancon summarizes:

Art is put back in its place, which is subservient: expelled from lofty spheres, divine realms, the

life of the church, the personal effort of sanctification, art finds its place in ornament,

illustration, ah0onest recreation. In the Calvinist home, the divine blessing is expressed in solid

and decent architecture: it is also bestowed on the walls, where the honest painter’s craft is

applied to render landscapes, still life’s, and portraits of the masters of the house…. This seems

to be the program of Dutch painting. But in a strange reversal, by means of the very

representation of earthly things, and underlying sacred content emerges from the art dedicated

to the profane.101

The irony of Calvin’s life and writings, is that as much as he was forced to flee France for his own

safety, his appeal to Francis I in his introductory chapter in the Institutes was not a piece that

demonstrated disrespect, nor did he advise revolutionary action on the part of French Protestants. In

fact, Calvin demonstrated the opposite, a respect for the office of King, however repressive of the

people.

Despite Calvin’s personal distaste for idols and images, his reaction to iconoclasm moderated by

the end of his life. Michalski notes that in 1661, upon hearing the news of destruction in the town of

Suave, Calvin wrote against the “widespread armed iconoclasm and by the many scandalous episodes

associated with it.”102 Calvin sent Beza to be part of a Protestant Catholic Colloquy in St. Germain in

January of 1562. The purpose there was to achieve magisterial recognition of Protestantism in France,

and elsewhere, and to discourage violent outbreaks by Protestants, or violent repression by those in

power. Early on, it seemed that certain members of the Catholic clergy were ready to make some

concessions. Perhaps Calvin was aware that such iconoclasm as a movement of the people would

jeopardize the success of the Reformation. Perhaps more than this, he was ideologically committed to

an interpretation of scripture, Romans chapter Eight, that argued that those in power were ordained to

97 Bescancon, The Forbidden Image, 189. 98 Cited in Bescancon, 189. 99 Christopher Richard Joby, Calvinism and the Arts: A Reassessment (Leuven, Belgium: Peters, 2007), 113 100 Joby, Calvinism and the Arts, 134. 101 Bescancon, The Forbidden Image, 189. 102 Michalski, 73.

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be where they were, and were therefore not to be challenged politically in a revolutionary manner. On

the contrary, writes Michalski, Calvin was “convinced that Hugenot iconoclasm was corrupting morals

and worse still, harming the cause of the Reformation in France.”103

Calvin condemned the burning of idols in Suave. He was horrified by the pulling down of a cross,

and the unrestrained destruction of churches and public religious images. He wrote, rather, that “God

has never commanded the casting down of idols, except to his own house and in public to those he arms

with authority.”104 His reaction to iconoclasm in Lyons was similar. Calvin condemned the

“inconsiderate zeal,” the “heat of passion,” and the unrestrained violence of the protesters. He wrote,

“by what title is it to take away by force things which do not belong to any private person? “We have

been told that the booty, which had taken from St. John’s church has been exposed to sale to the

highest bidder, and knocked down a hundred and twelve crowns.”105

Looting of the Churches of Lyon by the Calvinists in 1562. Antoine Carot.

Calvin advised that the clergy there “quit acts of plunder and robbery. For you should rather

quit these people, and separate yourself from them, than bring disgrace on the gospel by associated

with them.”106 Clearly, Calvin was against such spontaneous violence from the “common people.”

Perhaps this reveals a certain separation of theology and spirituality from ordinary political struggles,

but his attitude towards iconoclasm certainly reveals his commitment to legitimate authority and the

proper role of the magistrates to govern the city and to be the agents of change.

However, if Luther sought and received protection from the local princes of Saxony, it was the

Genevan political leadership that invited Calvin to Geneva. Eire points out that the “Reformation”

would not have survived if merely a popular uprising--as was the case in many towns-- without the

support and cooperation from the magistrates. Appealing to divinely established authorities, and a

103 Ibid. 104 Ibid, 74. 105 John Calvin, “To the Church at Lyons (13 May 1562),” in John Calvin: Tracts and Letters, Vol. 7: 1559-1564” (Banner of Truth, 2009), 269. 106 Ibid.

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strict reading of the Book of Romans, Chapter 13, Calvin argued that the Reformation must be carried

out, not by the populace, but by the magistrates-- “who have been appointed to curb the tyranny of

kings” and have a duty to overthrow idolatrous tyrants…. In the Institutes, Calvin lays out his political

program.

But we must, in the meantime, be very careful not to despise or violate that authority of

magistrates, full of venerable majesty, which God has established by the weightiest decrees,

even though it may reside with the most unworthy men, who defile it as much as they can with

their own wickedness. For, if the correction of unbridled despotism is the Lord’s to avenge, let

us not at once think that it is entrusted to us, to whom no commandment has been given except

to obey and suffer.107

Note, that for Calvin, a hired hand in Geneva, and never in possession of citizenship until 1559,

argued that respect must be given to magisterial control, even for those who were not living up to their

God-given responsibilities, and even in situations that were difficulty to bear even if conditions of

despotism and persecution. “Calvin always preached unlimited and unqualified obedience to

established powers, arguing that the private individual had no right to resist. Secondly, Calvin never

defined the role of ‘inferior magistrates,’ nor did he say in what matter they were to correct tyrants.”108

All of this points to a certain amount of ambiguity, and a wide range of interpretations as to the extent

that Calvin supported “democracy,” a nascent capitalism, or was merely exporting some form of a

Medieval urban theocracy. What is clear is that Calvin legitimated iconoclasm, and while he may have

been its beneficiary, he was not its instigator.

Calvin, Luther and Zwingli each emphasized the prerogative of magisterial reform in their

respective cities. But, Calvin, discovered in fact how little impact he had in controlling the passion of

popular risings, or of containing iconoclastic fervor elsewhere. “A mass movement in great territories

with local leaders and a penchant for rituals of denigration and destruction could not be induced to

moderation by the letters and interventions of even an impeccably iconophobic great reformer” such as

Calvin.109 And neither was Calvin able to predict or control what happened to the images and the art

that became the product of the Reformation. In this respect, one could argue that Calvin was not only

a supporter of art in general, but he was actually reluctant to support iconoclastic movements set on

destruction, and hostile to legitimate authority. For Calvin, artists had a legitimate role in society, to tell

stories, to portray landscapes, to capture portraits of leaders. Calvin’s acceptance of art was to the

point where he allowed himself to become in a sense and icon of the Reformation.110

107 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, In Two Volumes, edited by John T. McNeil (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1960, Vol. 4. Section 31), pp. 1518. 108 Eire, War Against the Idols, 289 109 Michalski, 74. 110 Mary G. Winkler, “Calvin’s Portrait: Representation, Image or icon?” In: Finney, Seeing Beyond the Word, pp. 243 ff.

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Portraits of Calvin: Sage, Scholar, Reformer, Saint.

Conclusion: The Legacy of Calvinism and the Commercialization of Art

After the death of Calvin in 1564, Calvinism as a religious and political system began to migrate to other places in Europe. The iconoclasm that appeared in Switzerland appeared in the Netherlands and elsewhere. In town after town, from Antwerp to The Hague, Utrecht, and Delft, Protestants sacked churches; holy objects and stained glass were smashed, vestments torn. There is still a mutilated stone carving in Utrecht Cathedral; the heads of saints have been hacked off and their bodies disfigured—a poignant reminder of those bitter days.111

But the outbreaks were not purely religious. Economic troubles forced Philip to levy harsh taxes versus the Netherlands, and the result led to open warfare in 1568. “Philip failed to understand the needs and the aspiration of his subjects in the north, and was blind to the injustices his increasingly repressive measures imposed.”112 The war continued. The States-General of the Northern provinces, united in the 1579 Union of Utrecht, passed an Act of Abjuration declaring that they no longer recognized Philip as their king. The southern Netherlands (what is now Belgium and Luxembourg) remained under Spanish rule. In 1584, The Dutch gained an advantage over the Spanish because of their growing economic strength, in contrast to Philip's burgeoning economic troubles. The war, known as the “Eighty Years' War,” only came to an end in 1648, when the Dutch Republic was recognized by Spain as independent. Whether nationalism, or religious or economic freedom, Holland was now free to develop its own culture and society independently of the Pope and the Spanish crown.

111 DeBorchgrave, 144. 112 DeBorchgrave, 143.

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Dutch Calvinist Iconoclasm 1566 – An engraving by Franz Hogenberg

In Michael Aitsinger's "De Leone Belgico" (Cologne, 1588)

Altar piece in St. Martin's Cathedral, Utrecht attacked in Reformation iconoclasm in the 16th

Century

After Protestant Holland gained independence from Spain and the Roman Catholic Church, Holland grew rich due to trade and became an economic empire. The resulting wealth created families with income, and with a demand for art and objects that would demonstrate their growing wealth. However, the demand was not for large scale paintings, but for small pictures that depicted everyday life. Many of these were woodcuts that could be enjoyed in the privacy of one’s home or office. These paintings or woodcut drawings exemplified the Calvinist belief in frugal living, and also their “high moral thinking, hard-work, down to earth sermons and Bible reading.”113 In this environment, painters began to paint landscapes and portraits, not icons, and scenes of ordinary life. The irony is that many of the paintings had religious content, but they were painted for personal consumption, not for the churches.

As the buying public [became] the new patrons, competent Dutch artists made their names by specializing in still life, landscape genre scenes—paintings of everyday life—or seascapes. They sold these domestic scenes of comfortable materialism, in which any hint of the strange or the mystical was purged, at markets and at fairs. Apart from the fashion for detailed still-life paintings in which an hour glass skull, flowers, or the symbols of the fleetingness of existence reminded the purchaser that “all is vanity,” few artists attempted to dig into the depths of the Bible.114

By the time “Calvinism” had impacted Northern Europe beyond Germany, nationalist fervor was

in full swing. Thanks to the iconoclasts, the practice of painting and artistic development was effectively

pushed out of the churches. Yet, “art” found away in the Protestant temples in ways that were discreet

to the purpose of church buildings. In theory, nothing was to stand between the preacher and the

congregation. Yet, Protestant Temples built in France did follow certain artistic patterns:

113 DeBorchgrave, 145. 114 DeBorchgrave, 157.

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Decoration occasionally included the arms of the local elite, the municipal arms, or even the

royal arms. The latter reaffirmed in visible fashion Reformed loyalty to the French monarchy. . . .

In addition, religious decoration such as biblical inscriptions was often affixed to the interior walls,

and there was always a Decalogue Board.115

In the Reformed church buildings of Hungary, while altars were removed, this does not mean

that worshippers preferred a drab building without decoration. On the contrary, artists were employed

to utilize popular folk art to decorate and adorn the buildings. Such ornamentation was not meant to

be worshipped, as altars were, but merely added to the aesthetic beauty and ornamentation of the

Great Reformed Church interior, Debrecin, Hungary

churches. “Far from eschewing church decoration as a threat to the decorum or discipline of a godly

community, the Reformed Church has preferred colorful profusion to drab sparseness, celebrating (and

in the process adding to) the plenitude of creation. “116 Such beautiful ornamentation and paintings can

be found in the woodwork of Hungarian Reformed Protestant churches. In English and Dutch churches

of the 16th century, symbols were used such as doves, the use of mathematical formulas in architecture

and even biblical stories. Even in church architecture, elements of symbolism and art could be found,

though not the altars or the shrines of the Medieval church. Church architecture reflected an emergent

artistic tradition that reflected beauty in simplicity, form and function, and in symbolism that was

recognized for its attention to local folk traditions, and universal symbolic meanings.

115 Helene Guicharnaud, “An Introduction to the Architecture of Protestant Temples Constructed in France before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes,” in Paul Corby Finney, editor, Seeing Beyond the Word: Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 1999), 155. 116 George Starr, “Art and Architecture in the Hungarian Reformed Church,” in Finney, Seeing Beyond the Word, 340.

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Romanian Reformed Protestant Church Pulpit, Kolozsvar, 1646

Influenced by Calvinism, though not necessarily unique to Calvinism, artists like Durer,

Rembrandt and others were painting religious stories from the Bible, setting them in the landscapes of

17th Century Holland. Artists, freed from both the patronage of the church, and the limits of iconic

archetypes, developed the freedom to paint landscapes, portraits, architecture, and still-life paintings

that had little connection to the religious iconography of the past. The iconoclastic movement s in

Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere thus had the effect of pushing art “out of the churches” and into

the realm of popular culture. Art became not just the prerogative of the church, but could now be

sought for and owned by private individuals. “Calvinistic” artists in the Netherlands, free to do their

own art, often did paint biblical stories, and often did seek to portray the “recurrent motif of a wander

who seems to be headed for a distant church or castle.”117

117 Reindert L. Falkenberg, “Calvinism and the Emergence of Dutch Seventeenth Century Landscape Art—A Critical Evaluation,” in Finney, Seeing Beyond the Word, 350.

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Rembrandt, Story of the Good Samaritan

A pilgrimage could now be accomplished symbolically, or aesthetically. More than this, the

Calvinist artists of the Low Countries in the 17th Century, including Rembrandt, were enlarging on one of

John Calvin’s best ideas, that God was somehow to be found in that second book of revelation, the book

of nature as the “theater of God’s Glory.” Art had undergone its own Reformation, for once located

outside the churches, artists could now paint anything and on any subject--- to the glory of God.

Iconoclasm in the Reformation would thus serve the function of enlarging what was sacred, what was

art, and what could be painted, even if not located in a church. Artists were now able to paint any

subject, beholden now, not to the Church, but to common grace, and to the Supreme Giver of all gifts.

Calvinist artists such as Visscher118, but also other Dutch landscape painters and printmakers,

are singing songs of praise of the Lord and His Creation. Their landscapes show a positive

approach toward nature and the pleasures it offers to the eye. 119

118 Claes Janszoon Visscher (1587 – 19 June 1652) was a Dutch Golden Age draughtsman, engraver, mapmaker and publisher. 119 Falkenberg, in Finney, Seeing Beyond the Word, 350.

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“The Preaching of John the Baptist”

BREENBERGH, Bartholomeus

(b. 1598/1600, Deventer, d. 1657, Amsterdam)