Epifanius staat op het punt om een beeld van Christus te vernietigen 1803

Curator: I find this engraving quite striking. What is your first impression? Editor: Foreboding. It’s like we’re witnessing a prelude to some violent iconoclasm. There’s a tension in the pulling of that drape, about to reveal... something. And yet, there’s also such careful, almost obsessive detail in the rendering of the textures and the figures. Curator: Indeed. What we're viewing here is a print titled "Epifanius staat op het punt om een beeld van Christus te vernietigen," or "Epiphanius about to destroy an image of Christ." It’s an 1803 engraving by Reinier Vinkeles and it now resides at the Rijksmuseum. Editor: Engraving. Think about the labor involved, the precise cuts into the metal, the inking, the pressing... There's an interesting contrast here: a mass-produced print depicting the destruction of a singular, perhaps venerated, object. What was Vinkeles trying to say about the role of images at that time? Curator: It highlights the very heart of iconoclasm: the fear of images, of what they represent and the power they hold. Epiphanius, here, embodies that fear. We see the followers looking back with dread or concern; however, the gesture here would show a violent rejection of material religion to keep religious sentiment 'pure'. Editor: Absolutely. And this specific choice of engraving, which inherently duplicates images, to depict an act *against* images... the medium itself becomes part of the statement. Perhaps he was not trying to persuade the viewr's belief, but illustrate an action, as much documentation. Curator: Vinkeles really captures the conflict inherent in religious representation, even as the narrative is still charged through the work. You can sense his tension. It feels loaded with unspoken assumptions, doesn’t it? Editor: Precisely. An intricate, small work about a large historical point, realized via an interesting confluence of means. Curator: The piece urges us to meditate on the endurance of iconoclasm and also understand its historical and cultural moments. Editor: And consider the physical realities of its making, that painstaking process, how it amplifies the central tension itself.