To understand the causes and the consequences of the Beeldenstorm (Iconoclastic Fury) (1566) in the Low Countries, history and art history have essentially focused on the historical circumstances on the one hand, and the Iconoclasm’s theological foundations on the other.2 Historians have fittingly described the historical contexts, while art historians have delved deeply into the discussion’s theological particularities. Largely neglected however, is the fact that the Iconoclasm created an iconic memory, a volatile mental image powerfully reminding citizens of the religious turmoil and the Bilderfrage (debate about images). Typically, such iconic memories (a term borrowed from neuropsychology3) are lost because they were mental images that existed only in the memories of the beholders. Their life as physical images was brief, and consisted of the debris that ensued after the Iconoclasm. The rubble was cleared away after the fact to make place for new altars: all traces of the Iconoclasm were swept away.4 Notwithstanding their material volatility, such iconic memories nevertheless served as powerful markers in the visual culture of the Low Countries for years in the wake of the Iconoclastic Fury. As I will argue, artists and pamphleteers used them quite deliberately to generate emotional and cognitive responses.

Although the emotional impact of Iconoclasm can hardly be reconstructed, let alone measured, there are a number of sources that can help us gain an idea of its powerful mental effect. These testimonies by contemporaries moreover, demonstrate an intriguing awareness of the cognitive and emotional power of images and their destruction. Richard Clough’s, Marcus Van Vaernewijck’s and Godevaert Van Haecht’s – at times emotional – accounts for instance, are a fair indication of the Beeldenstorm’s impact on beholders. ‘Indeed, those paintings on the walls and the stained glass windows were not saved; they were erased, especially the eyes and the faces, and stones were cast at the windows [...]’5, the Ghent rhetorician Marcus Van Vaernewijck, lamented. Van Vaernewijck’s lengthy text is jam-packed with vivid accounts of the unfortunate events, which he designated as ‘a public plague of God, which no one can oppose’.6 Another famous description is found in a letter the English trader Richard Clough wrote to his employer Thomas Gresham, in which he described the Beeldenstorm in the Netherlands. He labelled it ‘hell’, as if heaven and earth were perishing.7 The Antwerp citizen Godevaert Van Haecht, or the anonymous Antwerpsch Chronykje, in turn, offer forceful reports of the turbulent days and nights at the end of August 1566.8 Van Haecht for instance, remembered that ‘den 21 dach de kercken overall vol gebroken houts en beelden laghen’ (On 21 August the churches were littered with broken bits of wood and sculptures).9

In addition to being straightforward eyewitness accounts, these descriptions give us an idea of what is referred to in neuropsychology as iconic memory. Such iconic memories are triggered by extremely intense experiences and ‘are generally stored deep within the brain [...], where they are linked to the emotions with which they were encoded’, as one scholar explains it.10 ‘The disadvantage of that system is that traumatic experiences are encoded as images and emotions together in the brain and cannot be retrieved independently from each other’.11 Moreover, they differ from other visual memories in that they tend not to change over time. Thus, while for us these famous descriptions of the Iconoclasm are primarily vivid ekphrases of an iconic moment in history, and are studied as such, to the authors themselves they were indelible mental images of traumatic events enmeshed with intense cognitive and emotional responses. Even years later, any reference to such intense experiences arouses the same thoughts and sentiments. This was also the case in the wake of the Iconoclasm, and did not simply apply to an individual, but to the thousands who had witnessed it, albeit not always with the same force. Their power depends largely on the emotional intensity experienced during the events. Nonetheless, the visual recollection, or iconic memory, of such distressing events is indelibly engraved on the minds of those who have witnessed them. To use an analogy, today the mere image of a man in an orange jumpsuit kneeling in the desert is powerful enough to evoke a plethora of cognitive and emotional responses. Indeed, it can be compared for instance to the image of a tragic car accident or an act of terrorism to us – a traumatic image those who experience it will never forget.12

Historically and art historically speaking however, iconic memory is highly problematic. Its cognitive and emotional impact is barely measurable. Should one want to study it, one is almost entirely dependent on historical empathy and indeed, analogy. Unlike iconic ‘events’ today – Charlie Hebdo or the Islamic State iconoclasm, for example – in the past these volatile images were not registered directly. Such events had no lasting physical counterpart in the sixteenth century (photograph or video), and so immediately became a mental image, surviving exclusively in the minds of the contemporary beholders. The iconic memory and the events giving rise to it thus were described only by a handful of chroniclers. Later visual references, such as the well-known Hogenberg print13 or the Van Delen, and Van Steenwijck paintings, were aestheticised reconstructions made years if not decades later.14 They do not reflect actual events, but rather a filtered account of them. Moreover, these visual ‘recordings’ were made primarily for commercial and aesthetic reasons and fit into longstanding pictorial traditions.15 They were not intended as faithful records of the facts; more than anything else, they are imaginative compositions by successful artists. To study them as the registration of a historical fact would be utterly naive. Moreover, iconic memory actually prevented an unbiased reading of such images by contemporaries. Therefore the concept of iconic memory needs to be taken into account in historical memory studies, which tend to focus on remembrance and commemoration and to ignore its full visual power.16

Even though the visual momentum of the Beeldenstorm is lost, and there are no visual records besides the artistic interpretations mentioned above, nevertheless it might be possible to reconstruct the artistic use of iconic memories. As a result of the Beeldenstorm and other ‘traumatic’ events in its aftermath, imagery that had been or seemed ‘neutral’ for centuries, was so no longer. In the blink of an eye minor iconographic references became powerful allegories.17 Moreover, in the age of Iconoclasm the germ of an understanding of iconic memory was already present in the theology of the image.

Indeed, while iconic memory might seem like a recent scholarly concept, people in the 1560s, 1570s and 1580s were fully aware of the mental power of distressing destructions. ‘Vernacular’ image theology in the sixteenth century is quite informative with respect to the iconic effect that experiencing the destruction of art could have.18 Many an author in the 1560s and 1570s tried to explain to a general audience what enkindled the power of images, either defending or demonising it. The arguments raised by both parties are indicative of the growing understanding of the image as a psychological phenomenon, and reveal the mounting knowledge of the ways in which images in general, and religious works of art in particular, could be deployed to various ends.19

Desiderius Erasmus took the lead, as he did so often. When he ridiculed popular devotion in his Laus Stultitia, he specifically stressed the use of imagery, literally – the practical manipulation of the objects.20 This most famous of humanists was no lone ranger. Popular devotion was controversial, especially for its physicality, namely the fact that people ‘used’ images materially and tangibly. Following in Erasmus’ footsteps, Protestant and Catholic theologians alike commented extensively on this physical devotion. It was a huge bone of contention. To Protestants, especially Calvinists, the physicality itself confirmed the idolatrous nature of Catholic devotional practice.21 According to them, the physical veneration of the image substantiates the fact that it is not a plain material object, like a chair or a table, but rather an animated object imbued with something ‘divine’ and ‘intangible’ – agency as it would be called today.22 The example John Calvin gave in his commentary to Ezekiel to illustrate the controversy is telling.

Calvin’s anecdote neatly summarises what ‘religious use’ does to an image: it turns a simple, man-made object into something noteworthy, iconic ... or even holy.24

Calvin’s comments however, were by no means exceptional. The most important and influential theologians of the 1560s to 1580s – the Catholics Martinus Duncanus, Renatus Benedictus and François Richardot, or the Protestants Anastasius Veluanus and Petrus Bloccius – all discussed the correlation of the physical object with the beholder’s affection for it.25 The Catholic theologian Martinus Duncanus for instance, systematically distinguishes between ‘betamelijck ghebruyck’ (‘appropriate use’) and ‘misbruyck’ (‘abuse’) of images, while the radical Calvinist writer Petrus Bloccius considers every ‘use’ to be abuse.26 Duncanus also distinguishes between the educational and edifying usage, stressing the supremacy of the symbolic power of images (‘figuere beteeckenisse’) over their material nature.

In point of fact, such debate was not new in the sixteenth century. The intriguing interaction between the actual object and the image pictured in it (‘figuere beteeckenisse’) had been a source of discord in image theology from early Christianity. Theologians and scholars throughout the ages were well aware of the fact that the impact of both the image and its possible destruction were due to an intriguing mental process.27

The late sixteenth-century theologian Johannes A Porta even devoted a chapter to the phenomenon in his well-known D’net der Beeltstormers, explaining it with a ‘schoon ghelijckenisse’ (‘a nice comparison’).28 Imagine, A Porta writes, a bride whose groom leaves her to go on a long journey. She, staying behind, will use his picture not only to remember him, he argues, but the object itself will become a precious gem as it embodies his likeness. She will not be able to destroy it, according to A Porta, because the object has become a relic of his presence.29 For exactly the same reason he challenged the iconoclasts to destroy the images of their own ancestors instead of those of Christ, the Virgin and the saints. They will not be able to do so, he proclaimed, as the ‘figuere beteeckenisse’ of such objects is too strong. Reflecting on iconoclasm, A Porta knew perfectly well that this phenomenon does not occur only in visual communication. A few pages later, he compares the love for and veneration of images with love letters, arguing that one kisses and embraces a missive from a loved one even though it is mere paper. It is the ‘figuere beteeckenisse’ that causes the physical veneration of the object. This is why the destruction of a sacred manuscript is so hard on believers. The content merges with the object.

Living in the twenty-first century and being exposed to an overwhelming amount of images, we systematically delete the bulk of virtual images without hesitation. Yet we still find it difficult to tear up the photographs of our loved ones tucked away in our wallets. The signifiant and the signifié always interact whereby the material object acquires reliquary value.30 The psychological preconditions causing this response are food for other sciences, but the phenomenon itself, and the fact that people were well aware of it in the sixteenth century, is vital to understanding the Iconoclasm’s visual and emotional impact, and it is especially helpful in understanding the ways in which the Iconoclasm gave rise to such a powerful iconic memory, which in turn created an opportunity for new visual narratives. Thus, to fully fathom the Iconoclasm and its visual and emotional impact, one must understand the correlation between the object and its meaning, and particularly the ways in which its destruction created iconic memories.

A Porta does not use the psychological phenomenon only to defend the religious use of images. He also discerns in it an argument for condemning iconoclasm.31 In destroying an image, you simultaneously destroy everything it represents, he maintains. The ‘figuere beteeckenisse’ is wiped out along with the material object. Indeed, this occurrence, whereby the ‘figuere beteeckenisse’ merges with the materiality of the object and the object attains a reliquary status, is mirrored in iconoclasm. A Porta however, underestimates the power of iconoclasm. The destruction of an image actually validates the fact that the object is more than mere gold, stone, wood, paint or whatever plain material; the need for its destruction stems from the real belief that the material object in fact does hold some ‘divine’ power due to its ‘figuere beteeckenisse’. The deconstruction of the image and the object thus strongly confirms and even emphasises its reliquary value. The image of the debris accentuates the power of the lost original, visually and mentally, albeit with the difference that through Iconoclasm the ‘icon’ becomes an entirely mental icon, an iconic memory. The strange merging of values between what is depicted and the object depicting it, as occurs when we hold an image of a loved one, is powerfully reinforced when the object is eradicated. The shock generates even greater empathy with the object itself, rather than what it depicts. As such, the Iconoclasm initiated a shift from a focus on what was depicted to the materiality of the object and its reliquary value precisely because it triggered iconic memories. In this respect the Iconoclasm only aggravated what it was trying to eliminate, namely the contamination of the spiritual and the material world, and consciousness of the power of the senses of sight and touch in religious matter. What was scattered in 1566 was registered by thousands as an iconic memory. It became an image with an enormous visual, cognitive and emotional charge. For us for instance, the mere image of bits of the sculptures shattered during the is attacks on the Mosul Museum recalls the horrific facts of our own age. Van Vaernewijck’s enduring, amusing description of children running through the streets mocking images and shouting ‘vive le gues, or we will decapitate you’32, suddenly becomes an upsetting anecdote again.