Abstract

This chapter addresses the difficult relationship between words and images, as religiously encoded in the Second Commandment ("You shall not make for yourself a graven image") and as inscribed at the heart of art history as the clash between logos and icon, meaning and image. A discussion of two paintings by Nicholas Poussin (1594- 1665) that depict scenes of idolatry leads to the argument that Poussin's dilemma exemplifies the central problem of art history: How are we to make use of visual representation without lapsing into meaningless idolatry? Poussin's solution, it is suggested, is to focus not merely on what idolaters and iconoclasts believe (or are believed to believe by their adversaries) but also on what they actually do to one another-particularly acts of violence inflicted on alleged idol worshippers.

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