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Afghan soldiers from the ruling Taliban movement and visiting journalists stand in front of one of the destroyed Buddha statues in the central province of Bamiyan, March 26, 2001.
Artist / Origin: Sayed Salahuddin (Afghan, b. 1970)
Region: South and Southeast Asia
Date: 2001
Period: 1900 CE – 2010 CE
Material: Photograph
Medium: Prints, Drawings, and Photography
Credit: © Omar Sobhani/Reuters/CORBIS
Calvinist Iconoclasm
Artist / Origin: Franz Hogenberg (German, ca. 1540– ca. 1590)
Region: Europe
Date: ca. 1566
Period: 1400 CE – 1800 CE
Material: Etching
Medium: Prints, Drawings, and Photography
Dimensions: H: 16 ½ in. (41.9 cm.), W: 22 in. (55.88 cm.)
Location: Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany
Credit: Courtesy of Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz/Art Resource, NY/Photo by Christoph Irrgang
The power of images and their role in religious worship have been sources of conflict and debate across time and cultures. Periodically, these debates have led to moments of iconoclasm, or the eradication of images. The examples of the Bamiyan Buddhas destroyed by the Taliban in 2001 and the Netherlandish churchs stripped of their art by the Calvinists in 1566 offer the opportunity to consider the religious as well as the the political and broader cultural underpinnings of iconoclastic acts. They also raise questions about the use of images as a means of recording the destruction of art.