How Can Images Speak? Some Reflections
How Can Images Speak? Some Reflections

Summary/Abstract: This article examines how images were understood to ‘speak’ in early and high medieval Christian thought by focusing on the performative contexts in which they were read and experienced. Taking as its point of departure patristic reflections by Gregory the Great, Basil of Caesarea and Paulinus of Nola, it argues that images communicate not in isolation but through inscriptions, narrative structures and communal practices. Through analyses of early medieval manuscripts, monumental paintings and Scandinavian golden altars of the high Middle Ages, the article explores how tituli orient reading, how images form narrative and cultic constellations, and how material refinement contributes to meaning. In its concluding epilogue, the article reflects on stylistic change as a transformation in modes of visual address, linking the speech of images to broader anthropological horizons.

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