Negating the Image

Book excerpt: Why do people attack monuments and other public objects charged with authority by the societies that produced them? What do open assaults on images and artworks mean? Iconoclasm, the principled destruction of images, has recurred throughout human history as theory and practice. This book contains seven historical studies of the changing causes and meanings of iconoclasm and the radical transformations in the function of images it has brought about in societies around the world, from Ancient Egypt to Islamic India and Revolutionary Mexico, as well as Medieval and Reformation Europe. Scholars of art history, history and archaeology explore shifting definitions of art and the forms of representation in delineating varied forms of 'iconoclasm'.