Publication details
Le mythe de l’« icône » : anachronisme et désir moderniste
| Title in English | The Myth of the “Icon”: Anachronism and Modernist Desire |
|---|---|
| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2025 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Perspective-Actualite en Histoire de L Art |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| web | https://journals.openedition.org/perspective/31951?lang=en |
| Doi | https://doi.org/10.4000/156go |
| Keywords | anachronism; art history; history; historiography; category; icon; devotion; images; narrative; national identity |
| Attached files | |
| Description | The term “icon”, commonly used today to designate a sacred image, especially in the context of so-called Byzantine art, conceals a recent historiographical construction that is far removed from its Medieval meanings and uses. Our essay traces the history of this semantic construction from the rediscovery of wood paintings in 19th-century imperial Russia to their reinterpretation by the modernist avant-gardes and the art market in the 20th century. By exploring the shifting meanings of the word and the contexts that shaped its appropriation, we shed light on the aesthetic, political and identity issues underlying such a transformation. The icon thus emerges not only as an object of devotion and aesthetics but as the embodiment of the artificial construction of a fragmented artistic imaginary, vacillating between the affirmation of a national cultural heritage in the East and the modernist reinvention of a “universal” art in the West. |
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