Iconoclasm and Imaginary of Holiness. Politics of Image in CounterReformation Times.

Recent historiographical literature and the proliferation of the Cultural Studies give account ofhow and because the history of the Christianity cannot be understood if the history of its aestheticdiscourses and their symbolic representations is not specified. In this article, interests to me to emphasizethe system of relations between aesthetic and political in the project of the Hispanic Baroque, specially Ilocate “the political” nucleus of the catholic aesthetic of the Counter-Reformation from the reconstructionof “theological” debate that was had about the use of the religious images. In the first place review brieflythe history of the problem of the legitimacy of the representations. Later, I indicate the political justification of the catholic option by the images as a reactive discourse to the coming of new forms ofreligiosity, mainly of protestant iconoclasm and the baroque immoderation.