The very constitution of both ancient and modern society rests on the communal acceptance of an image that represents the founder, whether God, King, law, nation or constitution. This brief description, no doubt, begs many questions. Tracing the precise modifications of the regime of images remains a task outside the realms of this book, but it seems both theoretically defensible and experientially resonant that social and political order is legitimised and perpetuated by images. [1, p. 30]
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Notes
Kantorowicz indirectly critiques Schmitt and reinvigorates the notion of political theology. The erudition of this text and its fusing of literature, art, religion and law is a spring board for much interdisciplinary legal scholarship.
From a Lacanian perspective Mitchell sees that some symbolic images act as the father figure, which authorise and command the viewer, like the image of a God, for example [10].
Starobinksi argues that Reason was the new “idol” for the “solar myth” of sovereignty.
Apostolides argues that the effigy of the king was directly replaced by the allegories of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality and other abstractions of legal philosophy [21]. As Ribner points out too, as early as 1793 there was a conscious decision to replace the images of monarchical authority as opposed to mere iconoclasm. An example apt here is France’s Constitution which was treated as a cult object, enclosed in a cedar ark during the Festival of Unity and Indivisibility, August 10 1793 [22].
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Watts, O. Michael Stolleis: The Eye of the Law: Two Essays on Legal History. Int J Semiot Law 25, 439–444 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-011-9249-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-011-9249-2