Critical Response to Images and the Making of Images in the European Middle Ages:The Libri Carolini and Carolingian Art

• Applicant: Privatdozent Dr. Peter Seiler
• Subject Area: Art History
• Term: from 2017 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 356770127

The Libri Carolini are much the fullest statement of the Western attitude to representational art that has been left to us by the Middle Ages (Dodwell 1993, 32). Written on command of Charlemagne in 791-792, the work undertakes a point-by-point refutation of the Second Council of Nicaeas (787) acts and decrees regarding images and speaks in favour of a via media between iconoclastic and iconodule convictions. The project sets two objectives: Firstly, to analyse the concepts of the Libri Carolini as a major contribution to the long process of transformation of the Mosaic Law against images. It puts into focus arguments of critical response to images, especially those that confirm that images are no more than material objects and that image-making therefore is a matter neutral to religious problems. Secondly, the project investigates in which ways the moderate but critical attitude of the Libri Carolini regulated the various fields of image-making in the Carolingian Empire.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants