World's largest Jesus statue

I will let the pictures speak for them selves this time...

What’s up with all the burning?

In the recent controversies surrounding the now-cancelled (?) burn a Quran day by pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, state-leaders from the US, the UN to the Vatican has condemned the planned act. At the same time, media has shown us images of demonstrations in the Middle East where american flags and effigies of Terry Jones are burned. So what’s up with all the burning? 

The obvious answer is that the aggressive act of destroying a symbol of what you hate functions as a form of stress relief. Burning the image is channeling communal anxieties and antipathies. But burning effigies has its roots in ancient magical practice; a public desecration of an absent body. When burning a straw-witch, a flag, a book or a pastor-effigy, the burning is explained as a communal attempt to harm a hated subject (person, state, people or religion) who is otherwise unapproachable.  The act of burning an effigy or a key symbol as a substitute of the actual enemy is related to imitative (homoeopathic) image-magic, so-called envoûtement, although I doubt the culprits of today actually envision their acts to have any real effects on their victims. It is magic in the sense that there is no actual link between the harm done to the effigy and the actual victim, only an imagined effect.

If the effect is imagined, then why are people so upset by a torched Quran, (or rather the muṣḥaf – the physical book containing the Quran)? Would the outcry would be less vocal had some radicals planned a burn the New Testament day? To Muslims the Quran is more than a book and more than a scripture. It is an object containing the words of God and is treated with the utmost respect. It should not be touched in an impure state. In parts of the Muslim world, in particular where Arabic is not spoken, the Quran is treated more as a venerated object in the home – rarely to be opened. And the correct manner to dispose of an old Quran is to wrap it in pure cloth and bury it, much like the how a person is buried, or its pages can be tied to a stone and cast in a flowing river. The book then, is more like a relic or an icon then it is a book. Thus, both victims and culprits seem to agree that by burning the Quran harm is actually inflicted upon someone – probably God. The Quran contains the word of God and is thereby linked to His person; attacking the book is the same as attacking God’s only material manifestation on earth. Still, the effect of the attack is only a presumed effect, or is it?  

The envoûtement of the modern day seem to work in new ways through the power of media rather than through magic. What would happen had not the media aired the planned Quran-burning? Probably very little I suppose. A group or radical Christians would have made a bonfire, and probably felt good about it – just like magic has an interior communal effect rather than the presumed exterior effect on the victim. God, Islam or Muslims would be harmed as little as pastor Terry Jones felt the effect of his effigy being consumed by flames in Kabul. In fact, an illuminating parallel happened two years ago when the extremely radical Community of Christ actually did burn the Quran, but was ignored. The irony of it all, may be that when the international burn a Quran day is cancelled, the Community of Christ will step forward again and have their Quran-burning moment in the spotlight.

A ship's final port

The Viking ships of Norway are in need of a new home. Where should it be, and what should it look like?

One of the more important archaeological finds of the previous century was the unearthing in 1904 of a rich Viking burial by the Oslofjord in Norway. It contained a well preserved ship, the Oseberg ship, which is now one of the highlights for tourists visiting Oslo.

Based on the name of the mound, Ose-mound, the excavators hoped the mound would reveal the intact burial of Queen Åsa, the founder of the Yndlinga Dynasty in Norway, and buried in an earth mound around the year 834. At first, their hunch seemed to be correct. In the burial chamber two women was unearthed; a woman of high status in her fifties, accompanied by an elderly woman, perhaps her servant. They were laid to rest on the ship, ready for their final journey, and were surrounded by their earthly goods needed in the afterlife, including, beds, axes, tapestries, silk, a peacock, a sled and a wagon. Sacrificed dogs, hoses and an ox accompanied the two. Today, it is argued that the woman was a volve, a priestess of the Norse religion, or that the older woman is actually Åsa, but the final word on the matter is certainly not said.

The ship itself was beautifully preserved, 21m in length, 5m wide, and with exquisite carvings. Since 1926 it has been on display in a purposefully built museum-house in Bygdøy, near Oslo, where it was joined in 1932 by two other ships. Today the Viking ship Museum probably constitutes the most important exhibition in Norway. The two women were originally returned to their mounds, but have now been re-excavated and are on display in the museum.

The architect, Arnstein Arneberg, designed a chapel to house the three ships, which today seems in many ways outdated. It is difficult to view the ships as a whole in the narrow halls, which is also easily crowded by visitors. As important is the question of the symbolic connotations which the building itself conveys. The shape of the museum, and placement near Oslo should be understood in context of the need for Norway to stand out as an independent new country with ancient roots. Norway achieved independence in 1905, and the Viking-history had a central place in the national narrative. Archaeological context was downplayed and national history underscored. 


The ships and their occupants belong to a very different religious tradition; a time before Christianity reached Norway, and a time before Norway was unified. Even so, when seen from above, the museum has the appearance of a cross, a Christian church, meaning that the ships have been re-buried in a new religious setting. Inside the museum a similar context is conveyed. Here the framing of the ships and the visitor’s experience is more of a Christian mausoleum containing ships, rather than an exhibition. Although an esthetically forceful experience, the Norse burial in this way is not only de-contextualized, but also Christianized and nationalized, making the story told not about the Vikings, but about Norway. One may even get the impression that the ships belong to the early Christian nation, rather than the pre-Christian era.

It is now being discussed whether or not the ship should be moved to a new building near the attractions of Oslo city, or if they should stay where they are. The third alternative, to open a new museum closer to the original mounds is regarded an option by only a few. 

Visualizing political opinion in Holland

Today the blog Islam in Europe reports from the dutch preparations for election. Here a visual compass has been created by the newspaper Trouw to assist voters with reading disabilities to find the party close to their hearts. Among the thirty issues raised are expulsion of immigrants and the right to free speech. 

As Islam in Europe notes, the illustrator has decided that no blondes (or read-heads) should be present in the Muslims crowd, while the presumably right-winged group on the left have several blondes. Another interesting feature is the way the speech bubbles seem to communicate the message that the mullah is propagating a positive message about gays, Jews, and western women, while the blond politician is giving a straight forward-speech on Muslim immigrants. For a reader not fluent in dutch, like me, the message then is "should we be allowed to talk (positively) about other groups in the society", rather than the actual "Everyone may say in public what he wants, even if it leads to discrimination".

Another image show immigrants leaving Holland. A man in a wheelchair, a woman in burka and a family. Here the illustrator is able to communicate the message well. Expulsion has grave consequences for the individuals involved, and should not be done lightly, although I'm quite sure the blond politician above would have drawn the image quite differently.  

Ways of Seeing

The 1972 BBC television documentary, Ways of Seeing, by John Berger was probably one of the earlier attempts to lift our understanding of art beyond its art-historical and aesthetic value. Although visual religion is hardly touched upon in the series, important issues in the study of visual culture are raised. Throughout the documentary, the focus is on the spectator’s ever changing perception of images.

The four program series explains how the meaning of an artwork changes with its context, in particular according to how the artwork is displayed. The same painting can be understood quite differently when it is on a museum wall, in a church or in a book, and its interpretation changes with the gender, age, education and culture of the spectator. Modern reproductions of artworks as postcards or as television images are seen as examples of how the meaning and function of art develop with its media. Here Berger is influenced by the essay "Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit" ("The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction") by Walter Benjamin in 1935. Other examples are how an accompanying text, i.e. an art historical descriptions or a commercial text, alter our perception of what is displayed. The textual, architectural, ritual, musical and social setting of an artwork determines how we grasp the message of the image.

Episode two and three in the program focus on oil-paintings and the female nude in particular; the materialization of female form in the images. It is argued that the paintings of nudes had a similar function as photos of female models in modern magazines and commercials. The images are created for the male spectator, but also become the form in which women reflect their own bodily-images. The program also focuses on the presentation of material wealth displayed in the images, arguing that the main purpose of oil-paintings was to display and enhance the owner’s social status.

Episode four talk about commercials. Berger argues here that the commercial photograph has taken the place of the oil painting. Both painting and photograph display material wealth, but where oil-paintings display the owner’s possessions and achieved wealth and status, the commercial photograph show us the possessions and status yet to be achieved.

Ways of seeing Episode 1: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.

Ways of seeing Episode 2: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.

Ways of seeing Episode 3: part 1, part 2, part 3.

Ways of seeing Episode 4: part 1, part 2, part 3.