The Iconic Imagination

Description

Is it merely an accident of English etymology that ‘imagination’ is cognate with ‘image’? Despite the iconoclasm shared to a greater or lesser extent by all Abrahamic faiths, theism tends to assert a link between beauty, goodness and truth, all of which are viewed as Divine attributes. Douglas Hedley argues that religious ideas can be presented in a sensory form, especially in aesthetic works. Drawing explicitly on a Platonic metaphysics of the image as a bearer of transcendence, The Iconic Imagination shows the singular capacity and power of images to represent the transcendent in the traditions of Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Islam. In opposition to cold abstraction and narrow asceticism, Hedley shows that the image furnishes a vision of the eternal through the visible and temporal. FC Half title Title Copyright Dedication Contents Acknowledgements Prologue 1 Images, Representation and Imagination 2 Human Nature and the Imago Dei 3 The Anagogic Image 4 Freedom and the Narrative Image 5 Symbol, Participation and Divine Ideas 6 Idolatry and Iconoclasm 7 Mythology and Theogony 8 Imagination and Revelation Epilogue Bibliography Index of Subjects Index of Names