201 © 2014 Helena Bodin Ingela Nilsson & Paul Stephenson (ed.), Wanted: Byzantium. The Desire for a Lost Empire. Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis: Studia Byzantina Upsaliensia 15. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet 2014, 201–216 11 “Into golden dusk”: Orthodox icons as objects of late modern and postmodern desire • D uring the past fifty years, there has been a clear tendency within west- ern European culture and criticism to approach and interpret orthodox Christian icons in close connection with their Byzantine origin. here have been various serious attempts to apply an originally Byzantine theological terminology to late modern and postmodern thought. In some cases it is even relevant to speak about a desire for these icons. he aim of this article is not to treat this wide-ranging phenomenon exhaustively, but to illuminate and discuss some of its salient charac- teristics.1 Postmodern theory relies neither on transcendence nor on prototypical origin as the Byzantine theology of icons does. Nevertheless, the well-reasoned Byzan- tine use of sign theories, of a semiotics avant la lettre, has challenged and inspired several postmodern thinkers. hey do not draw the same confessional conclusions as Byzantine theologians and icon painters, but they continue to address similar issues as the Byzantines – issues related to the possibilities and limits of artistic representation, to art’s signifying means. As we shall see, this has been done within various postmodern ields, from the point of view of semiotics, linguistics, cultural theory, theology, psychoanalysis, science and intermedial aesthetics. As the theologian Aristotle Papanikolaou has observed, there is a striking ain- ity between postmodern thought and Orthodox theology, especially as it has been formulated by Greek theologians from the 1960s onwards, for example by Christos Yannaras, alongside but without referring to Derrida or Kristeva.2 As Papaniko- laou puts it, “postmodern buzzwords”, such as otherness, diference and desire, have always been central to Orthodox Christianity, and he concludes: “it would be a pity if Derrida had to teach Christians about diference”.3 On the other hand, the Byzantinist Elena Ene D-Vasilescu has suggested the return of the icon as opposed to postmodern trends, ater postmodernism, in the loss of identity and wholeness. She addresses the global problems of the environment and natural resources, issues concerning individualism and fragmentation of the self, and inds a solution in the 1 he current article was inspired by one on a similar theme, published in Swedish: P.-A. Bodin 2010. 2 Papanikolaou 2007, 538. 3 Ibid. 544. Helena Bodin