Iconoclasm and Later Prehistory by Henry Chapman

Author:Henry Chapman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)

4 Breaking monuments

The symbolic meanings of monuments are numerous, and might variously relate to power, control or religion, which is the basis for why there is a rich tradition of iconoclastic action targeted against them. For example, the statues of rulers, such as Saddam Hussein or Joseph Stalin, can been seen as symbolising tyranny or oppression rather than just the individual depicted, although the plural meanings of monuments can mean that singular interpretations of how they are understood by different individuals and groups can be problematic. In the case of the Bamiyan Buddhas, their destruction in 2001 was motived by a complex range of religious, social, economic and ideological reasons (Noyes 2013a, 169–170). Whether enacted through the toppling of statues, the blowing up of effigies or religious buildings, or through other less physically extreme approaches, iconoclastic attacks to monuments are attacks on what those monuments are seen to represent.

The act of physically breaking a monument creates something new. The toppled statues of despotic leaders in recent years have themselves become iconic following the initial act of destruction, emphasised for the global media through photographic representation and reproduction (Fahmy 2007). Breakage can also alter meaning in more constructive ways. Monuments can be appropriated by a new ruling order through their physical modification, as seen in Daujon’s modification of religious monuments in Paris following the French Revolution (Clay 2012a, 258). On a large scale, we might see the modification of built structures such as state buildings during the medieval period, including Edward III’s modifications to Westminster Palace and Windsor Castle in the fourteenth century, as expressions of political success, literally building on and augmenting legacy (Emery 2006, 287–288).

It is not just the destruction or modification of monuments that creates meaning. The creation of a monument, including the choice of its location as well as it architecture, is in itself an act of meaning-making, with intentions such as to legitimise or establish a new authority or cosmology. To create a memory of one thing through a physical construction can be an active choice to forget another. A new construction, as opposed to the modification of an existing structure, will take place against a backdrop of meaning associated with the location. By physically altering the earth (Bradley 1993), the process of construction might have created place, in dialectical contrast with any previous notion of space (Tuan 1977), becoming ever present for successive generations (Bradley 2002, 156), whether they were re-used or ultimately neglected. In addition to this impositional nature of monumentality, new styles of architecture would also have been interpreted, understood or appreciated in a variety of ways by individuals and communities at the time.

The symbolism of monuments is complex and relates not only to notions of their final form but also to other processes within their biographies. The creation of a monument can be viewed as destroying what was there before, either physically or conceptually. Monuments can be modified, such as through re-appropriation by a new ruling order. They can be physically attacked

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