aniconic
(adjective)
Opposed to the use and veneration of images, especially religious images.
(adjective)
Of or pertaining to representations without human or animal form.
Examples of aniconic in the following topics:
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Mathura Style
- Up to that point, Indian Buddhist art had essentially been aniconic, avoiding representation of the Buddha, except for his symbols, such as the wheel or the Bodhi tree, although some archaic Mathuran sculptural representation of Yaksas have been dated to the 1st century BCE.
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Architecture in the Greek High Classical Period
- Experts hypothesize that it was placed in that location to replace the cult statue as an aniconic representation of Apollo.
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Pre-Iconic Buddhist Art and Architecture
- Because artists were reluctant to depict the Buddha anthropomorphically, they developed sophisticated aniconic symbols to avoid doing so.
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Architecture and Mosaics in the Middle Byzantine Empire
- As a result, aniconic sentiment grew, culminating in two periods of iconoclasm -- the First Iconoclasm (726-87) and the Second Iconoclasm (814-42) -- which brought the Early Byzantine period to an end.