From rejection to reconciliation: Protestantism and the image in early modern England

From the start of the reformation movement in England, contemporaries were quick to conclude that a break with the Roman Catholic Church and the adoption of Protestantism entailed a profound reappraisal of the place of visual imagery in worship and devotional life. Accordingly, religious change prompted a great deal of serious and sustained soul-searching about the characteristics of permitted imagery, the contexts and locations in which it might (and might not) be allowed, and the nature of its use. This article is concerned with the complexity and nuance of the relationship which evolved between Protestantism and the visual arts in post-reformation England, building upon a wave of recent historiographical interest in the enduring and renewed role of the image in processes of religious reform.