The Visual Language of Iconography

If we limit ourselves to the study of Christian iconography, then we are choosing to study the early Christian visual language. We are not necessarily choosing to study early Christian art, neither are we choosing to study Christian theology. Iconography is essentially a visual language, and Christian iconography is parasitic. Andre Grabar, author of Christian Iconography: A Study of its Origins, put it this way,

The Christian iconographic language is comparable rather to one of those special or technical languages that linguists call parasitic because, like parasitic plants, they depend on another language—another plant—and take from it those terms which are needed for the special area involved.

Just as there is a language of electricians, sailors, or thieves—all languages of limited use, which are grafted onto the stock of a national language—there is a Christian iconographic language, which does not comprise a complete repertory of original signs appropriate to all possible uses but consists of a limited group of technical terms which, when added to the normal terms of Greco-Roman imagery of the time, give the image the desired Christian significance.[1]

Although a Christian worldview—the Gospel—was certainly the motivation behind developing Christian iconography, the largest contributor to Christian Iconography was the pagan culture of the Roman Empire. A distinction must be acknowledged between artistic motivation, which is the intent, and desire that moved the artist to create, and language, the mode of communication that the artist chose to employ to express her desired intent.

The earliest Christian iconography dates to the second century, two centuries after the foundation of Christianity. Although Church leadership continued to develop the appropriate language of theology for hundreds of years after the events in the book of Acts took place, basic Christian beliefs, which created a Christian subculture, preceded the development of Christian iconography. It is possible that the roots of Christian iconography reach earlier than the second century examples that have been preserved. Perhaps the very earliest attempts at creating the visual Christian language did not survive for our study and fascination. However, since the earliest artifacts of Christian iconography, the funerary decorations in the Catacombs and on second century sarcophagi were created after Christian theology was basically developed, we must ask why there was such a gap between the onset of Christian theology and the emergence of Christian iconography.

In terms of iconographic development, the second century was not the pivotal period of the Christians alone, and perhaps this historical knowledge sheds some light on the possible reasons why iconographic development was so much later than theological development.[2] As surprising as it may seem, we have the earliest Jewish iconography dating from the second century, and this parallel seems too significant to be only a coincidence.[3] Of course Jewish iconography was nonexistent prior to the date by the command of God to the Israelites in Exodus 20:4. The time that passed between Moses receiving the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai and Septimius Severus amounted to many centuries. While it is impressive that there was a definite shift of the Christian culture towards the arts and visual language after a couple centuries of being an aniconic religion, what’s more surprising is the development of Jewish figurative iconography at precisely the same time. There are several theories of why the second, third, and fourth centuries were so nurturing of iconographic development. Although a complete explanation of the existing theories would bring us further away from our focus on the origins of Christian art, it is interesting to mention that the theory of the late Wilhelm Koehler. He believed that Manichean iconography was a very effective source of propaganda within the Roman Empire, and it perhaps catapulted the creative efforts of the Christians and Jews to counter its success.[4] Whatever the reason, the synchronized acceptance of images of Jews and Christians alike meant that both religions gleaned elements of their language from the same Roman culture that prevailed during the second century, and this is certainly reflected in the stylized figures and combinations of imagery that began to emerge. There are similar illustrations of the distinction between the languages of subcultures within the prevalent contemporary culture that we live in. Consider a recent example that illustrates how the rules of interpreting a visual language within a culture may prevail, even when there are other great differences that set a subculture apart. Consider my personal experience as an illustration of the way a visual language works.

The past Memorial Day weekend I drove with friends from Denver, past Moab, Utah to Mexican Hat, a great junction of canyons in the Southeast corner of the state. Our three-day backpacking destination was the Anasazi ruins; cliff dwellings carved out of the red rocks a hundred feet above our sleeping bags. In my mind, the highlight of seeing the deserted community was climbing up to the lowest level of the dwellings and witnessing the Anasazi paintings, pictographs, and the ancient carvings, petroglyphs, throughout the 800-year-old community. The hands prints and depictions of humans are tangible, simple to understand because of the clarity of their representation. These creative markings have appropriateness, they fit the peaceful desert surroundings. At the same time, they stick out being distinctly human in the midst of seclusion. Any backpacker who happens upon the communicative artwork is lucky to experience the language of the past.

In contrast to the Anasazi culture, I can reflect upon the drive to Mexican Hat from Denver, and remember all the hundreds of signs and billboards in between our departure and our destination. There is some evolution of imagery among the signs as one moves west from the Rocky Mountains, forests, and Colorado culture to the desert red rocks, plateaus, and Native American influence upon the culture of Utah. The colors, pictures, and fonts change. There is even more of an image gap between the modern day representations of Anasazi paintings on the billboards and the original pictographs and petroglyphs of the Anasazi at Mexican Hat. Yet, there is a connection between all of the signs I encountered on the journey last weekend. That connection is the intention of the creators to use images as a visual language of communication. Both the Colorado and modern Utah graphics assume that viewers have within them ideas about how our culture communicates visually. For example, we read right to left, while driving in our cars we read signs to our right, bolded letters signify importance, colors have certain meanings such as water, emergency, caution, geographical data, etc. There are many more rules that most modern American viewers know. People are familiar with this language immediately upon viewing it, after having experienced it in their environments, and they trust implied meaning without question by the time they become familiar with certain meanings.

When I view the ancient artwork of the Anasazi I attempt to make sense of it by using the canon of modern-day rules of interpretation that I am familiar with. Perhaps some of these rules are universally known and innate within us, as human beings, and perhaps it is appropriate to expect that I can make sense of the age-old artwork by using these rules. However, if my culturally indoctrinated sign-reading tendencies do not reflect the sense of the Anasazi people, then their image-language is lost to me, though I will never know it.

Having laid before you a lengthy example of both the usefulness and confusion of an iconographic language let us turn to Andre Grabar’s account of the origins of Christian iconography. His main point, the fundamental idea that he presents before explaining the development of early Christian art, is that Christian iconography is a language developed out of the pagan culture of the Roman Empire. The secular culture of the day proceeded Christianity, providing cultural citizens of the day with cultural rules of interpretation. Christians of the second century were conditioned to “read” images according to the cultural norms of the day. Even if their worldview was antithetical to the pagan religious pluralism prevalent within the Roman Empire, they could not have created Christian art distinctly outside of the pagan iconographic language.

Even if it were possible to develop Christian iconography that was completely uninfluenced by the pagan culture that would not have been a desirable approach to art for early Christian artists. The intention of all art everywhere is to communicate ideas—even if the intention is only to communicate the idea of confusion to the viewer, or only to communicate an idea back to the creator herself; communication is central. This first principle of communication is even truer for the early Christian artist who understands the duty to “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” Matthew 28:19. It is understandable then, and not shameful at all, for the Christian to admit that early Christian iconography was not merely influenced by pagan art and pagan images, something rarely discussed in Christian art circles, the pagan iconographic language was employed to communicate Christian truths. Grabar writes about borrowing symbols for theological purposes,
An incalculable number of features, inseparable from the Greco-Roman imagery of the empire, passed into the Christian iconographic language just as naturally and inevitably as words, expressions, and syntactical or metrical constructions of the first centuries of our era—or Aramaean, Greek, or Latin—passed into the language of Christian theologians.[5]

The examples of how pagan symbolism was used for visual Christian communication are so numerous that we can speak about them in general terms. Frequently occurring motifs in early Christian art include ships and water, the dove, palm branches, and shepherds.[6] Ships and water often represented stories of Jonah and indicated deliverance and salvation. The dove and palm branches also indicated deliverance, salvation, and victory—themes that are congruent with the Hellenistic athletic traditions. The Greek Goddess, Athena, is usually pictured with a laurel wreath around her head, and her accompanying personification of Victory, Nike, often bears the palm as she hovers above the victorious party in narrative depictions of athletics and warfare. Shepherds were common in the art of funerary environments in the Roman Empire. They were so common, in fact, that the distinction between Christian sarcophagi and catacombs picturing The Good Shepherd, Christ, and Hellenistic sarcophagi picturing pagan sheepherds is often so subtle that it is easily missed.[7]

At least, we, contemporary scholars and art historians, often miss the distinction, but this may not reflect the apprehension of ancient viewers. One may think of the Christian t-shirts that are sold in Christian bookstores, which, upon first glance, seem like a logo for a well known American company, but after a longer look one realizes that the word has been switched to some word or phrase that is tied to a mainstream Christian worldview. Christians and nonbelievers alike can detect the difference, but those removed from the culture will not immediately recognize the substitution—especially someone who is not familiar with this word play of the English-American language. In the same way, it is very likely that we don’t understand the obviousness of Christian iconography creeping into the iconography of funerary Roman environments.
Another, more specific example of this kind of borrowing, or image-intention blurring, has to do with the representations of fish in the Eastern Mediterranean area. The Semitic cult of Dagon and the goddess Atargatis were both represented in art as a fish, and also devotee of both deities believed that eating a meal of fish was necessary to harness their powers. It has been suggested “some converts, in Syria for example, transferred to Christ the reverence and worship they had given once to these fish deities,” and that perhaps this is the explanation behind the complex development of the Christian icthus.[8] The symbol was merely a transition of intention, rather than a new creation of symbolism, as was the case with the cross.[9]

The intimate relationship of early Christian art with pagan culture says everything about the burden for clear communication that was the heart of early Christian artists, and really does not lessen the importance, uniqueness, or truth of the Christian message. On the contrary, it actually enhances it by revealing artistic intention and Christian motives; namely that a clear message is necessary and nondiscriminatory. Nondiscriminatory because, using the Christian iconographic language to express transcendent ideas does not exclude pagans from understanding what is being asserted, since the same language rules are used.
It is not surprising then, because Christians must always wrestle with the question of how much culture can color faith without compromising the Christian message, that the contemporary church must decide that clear communication of the gospel is important enough to engage the current secular language so that secular communities can “read the signs.” The church must realize the distinction between language and message, and not shy away from the secular former at the expense of the Christian latter.

The more we understand about contemporary Christianity and early Christianity, which the origins of Christian iconography reflect, the more apparent it is that the Roman Empire and the United States of America present a similar backdrop for the development of Christian art—especially for contemporary Protestant communities who are without the luxury of the rich artistic traditions of the Roman Catholic and Greek Orthodox Church. We live in the most visual culture that the world has ever know—even though illiteracy is not as widespread as it used to be among the lower classes—with television, the internet, films, graphic technology, and such advanced printing technology that billboards can be found in the countryside all the way past Moab, Utah. For the Protestant Church to not go through an art reformation, of sorts, would mean that they are denying culture with extreme tenacity and incredible success. However, without the rich education of Church art history, without a background of promoting spiritual formation through creative means, Protestant artists find themselves in a very experimental stage, and it is just as it was for Christian artists in the second, third, and fourth centuries. The language choice is a pagan one, Christian artists look to secular culture for influence, but they are doing so with good intentions. Iconography is about clear communication within a community, and that much hasn’t changed.




Bibliography

1. Gough, Michael. The Origins of Christian Art. Praeger Publishers, Inc.: New York, 1973.

2. Grabar, Andre. Christian Iconography: A Study of Its Origins, Bolligen Series XXXV. Princeton Univeristy Press: Princeton, 1968.


[1] Andre Grabar, Christian Iconography: A Study of its Origins, Bollingen Series XXXV (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1968), p. xlvi-xlvii.
[2] Ibid., p. 23.
[3] Ibid., p. 22.
[4] Ibid, p. 28.
[5] Ibid., p. xlvi.
[6] Michael Gough, The Origins of Christian Art (Praeger Publishers, Inc.: New York, 1973), p. 18.
[7] Ibid., p. 21.
[8] Gough, p. 24.
[9] The cross was not used in Christian symbolism until several centuries later when the memory of the inhumane punishment had passed from the minds of Christians and the Roman culture.