Thank you, John Presley, for a great question and a great opportunity to reflect upon the fluid and slippery nature of our cultural icons.
As good Aristotelians, we need to break down the question in order to get to the truth. We can start by defining the term icon. We get the word from the Greek word eikōn, which means “likeness” or “image”. Icons were at the centre of fierce debates in 8th and 9th century Byzantine Christendom; these debates were called iconoclasms. Images of Jesus or the saints were often used in liturgical rituals, and the iconoclasms were struggles over whether these images were the likenesses of divinity or humanity, whether capturing divine likeness was even possible, and whether the use of such icons in rituals was appropriate.
So how does this relate to your question about artistic icons? Well, what this historical struggle essentially tells us is that icons are meant to capture the likeness of something. Just as religious icons are meant to capture the spirit of those they depict, artistic icons arise based on their ability to capture the spirit of their craft as a whole, or a specific movement within their craft. People, symbols, images, even objects can be icons. Think of the image of Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar – that’s iconic. So is Kurt Cobain, an icon of the grunge music genre, and even a certain type of youth culture from the early 90s. His very image is a mosaic of style and attitude from his time period. In fact, he’s such a giant figure that even the logo of his band Nirvana came to represent all these things too.
Looking further into the Byzantine iconoclasms, we learn that the problem with icons was their inability to encapsulate the whole truth. The iconoclastic team argued that the veneration of an ideal represented by an image could easily lead to the worship of the image itself. Since the icons could not represent the whole truth, the true meaning of the rituals would be lost, and the flock thus led astray. The parallels with Kurt Cobain and Nirvana can be seen in things like the promotion of Kurt Cobain’s clothing choices or self-destructive behaviour in place of his creativity, and the wearing of Nirvana shirts by people who might not even know that the image represents a band, let alone ever heard the band. In both cases, the icon has eclipsed the idea.
Our icons are meant to represent something we hold in a high regard, but can often transform into something totally different. It’s for that reason that we should be careful with who and what we treat as an icon.
What do you think? What makes an artist an icon? Let us know in the comments.
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Image: Nirvana Smiley
I received a BA in philosophy from the University of Texas at El Paso in 2008. After that, I spent roughly a decade traveling Europe and North America as a touring musician. Now I am working on a master’s in philosophy and philology at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden with the goal of teaching at the university level. Some specific areas of interest include medieval grammar and free will. Michel Foucault’s approach to the history of philosophy has been a huge influence on me, and his work on notions of the self and power structures bring history to the present.