The Hidden God: Image and Interdiction in the Netherlands in the Sixteenth Century

The sixteenth century was an age of lconoclasm. Never since the eighth and ninth centuries had images been subjected to so concerted an onslaught as in the century of Raphael and Titian, Durer and Bruegel. Protestant theologians attacked the validity of art itself, and attempted to restnct or redefine its uses. A few wished to do away with all representational images, but the majority were specifically concerned with religious art. Catholic theologians sprang to the defence of images, using arguments which had been forged in the great Byzantine controversy as well as by authorities who ranged... Mehr ...