Synergistic Relations Between Theories of Visual Perception and Iconoclasm

该奖项支持科学与宗教相结合的科学史研究。本研究探讨了在西方文明的关键时刻，视觉科学、图像与视觉心理实践与图像之间的关系。具体来说，它关注的是对光学的理解与近代早期发生的欧洲暴力宗教反偶像主义之间的关系。研究人员将展示关于视觉和视觉心理学工作方式的共同信念，以及艺术家和神学家对这些知识的不同使用，使宗教艺术与宗教改革对图像的理解发生冲突。本研究揭示的科学、宗教和社会之间的联系将有助于在自然科学、社会科学、视觉艺术和人文学科的几个领域之间建立学术交流。这项研究的结果将纳入本科和研究生两级的课程发展，并将在专业期刊和会议上散发。最后，将有一个会议来扩展本研究的主要探究线的轨迹。这项研究的首要研究问题是，视觉科学能教给我们什么关于反偶像暴力的知识。在这项研究中，研究人员将首先阐述这一时期不同社会阶层对光学的理解，然后比较拉丁语和方言宗教文本中的文本证据以及艺术家的视觉和文本证据。今天的科学认识认识到，视觉、知觉和记忆存储是对大脑产生暂时和长期变化的物理过程。早期的科学家也认识到视觉的力量，特别是当专注于图像时，可以从生理上改变思维。那些迫切要求立即摧毁宗教形象的人一再指出，虔诚的人混淆了物质形象和所描绘的神圣人物，把物质对象当作有生命的东西来对待。正如宗教改革家指出的那样，每天对图像进行冥想的习惯，尤其是对那些看起来活生生的图像进行冥想，会使图像成为人的记忆的一部分，并塑造人的身份。反圣像者明白，他们破坏形象是在破坏个人根深蒂固的心理部分，而这种心理部分在宗教上被认为是有害的。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award supports history of science research at the interface of science and religion. The research explores the relationships between the science of vision, images, and the optical-psychological practices with images at a critical juncture of western civilization. Specifically, it focuses on relationships between understandings of optics and violent European religious iconoclasms that occurred during the early modern period. The researcher will show that common beliefs about the ways vision and visual psychology worked, and the different uses of that knowledge by artists on the one hand and theologians on the other, set religious art on a collision course with the Reformation understandings of the image. The connections between science, religion, and society that are to be revealed in this study will serve to create scholarly exchanges among those in the natural sciences, social sciences, visual arts, and several fields within the humanities. The results of this study will be integrated into curricular development at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and they will be disseminated in professional journals and conferences. Finally, there will be a conference to extend the trajectories of the main lines of inquiry of this research.The overarching research question of this study addresses what the science of vision can teach us about iconoclastic violence. The researcher will engage in this study first setting out the understandings of optics in this period among different levels of society, then comparing textual evidence in Latin and vernacular religious texts alongside visual and text evidence from the artists. Scientific understandings today recognize vision, perception, and memory storage as physical processes that create both temporary and long-term changes to the brain. Early scientists also recognized the power of vision, especially when focused on images, to alter the mind physically. Those who urgently called for immediate destruction of religious images repeatedly point to the fact that the devout had confused the material image with the holy figure portrayed, and were treating the material object as though it were alive. As the Reformers point out, the optical habits of daily meditation on images, especially on images that appeared alive, caused the images to become physically part of the person's memory, and shaped the person's identity. The iconoclasts understood their image destruction to be destroying a deeply ingrained psychological part of the individual that was considered religiously pernicious.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.