40 Blows Book
40 Blows Book
While exploring ancient art in European museums, I’ve often been struck by a recurring feature in classical sculpture: the damage. The heads of gods, emperors, and everyday people are frequently defaced—noses smashed, chins broken, cheeks gouged, and crosses carved into brows. Yet museums often provide little context for these disfigurements.
In recent years, scholars have increasingly focused on the religious upheavals of late antiquity, especially the rise of Christianity and the iconoclastic waves that accompanied the fall of the Roman Empire. Their research has revealed how sculptures, architecture, and even texts were systematically altered or destroyed to suppress pagan imagery and ideology.
The photographs in this book—taken over many years in museums across Europe—document these damaged faces. They stand as quiet witnesses to a long and often violent history of transformation, belief, and erasure.
This hand-bound softcover booklet features a newsprint interior and a pigment-printed cover on metallic stock.