Beeldenstorm in Dutch and Bildersturm in German are terms used for outbreaks of destruction of religious images that occurred in Europe in the 16th century, known in English as the Great Iconoclasm or Iconoclastic Fury and in French as the Furie iconoclaste. During these spates of iconoclasm, Catholic art and many forms of church fittings and decoration were destroyed in unofficial or mob actions by Calvinist Protestant crowds as part of the Protestant Reformation. Most of the destruction was of art in churches and public places.
Print of the destruction in the Church of Our Lady in Antwerp, the "signature event" of the Beeldenstorm, 20 August 1566, by Frans Hogenberg
Protestant polemical print celebrating the destruction, 1566
A German woodcut of 1530 titled Klagrede der armen verfolgten Götzen und Tempelbilder (English: "Complaint of the poor persecuted idols and temple pictures") by Erhard Schön.
An outdoor sermon (The Preaching of St. John the Baptist) depicted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, apparently in 1565, the year before the Beeldenstorm movement began.
Iconoclasm is the social belief in the importance of the destruction of icons and other images or monuments, most frequently for religious or political reasons. People who engage in or support iconoclasm are called iconoclasts, a term that has come to be figuratively applied to any individual who challenges "cherished beliefs or venerated institutions on the grounds that they are erroneous or pernicious."
"Triumph of Orthodoxy" over iconoclasm under the Byzantine Empress Theodora and her son Michael III. Late 14th – early 15th-century icon.
Defaced relief of Horus and Isis in the Temple of Edfu, Egypt. Local Christians engaged in campaigns of proselytism and iconoclasm.
Saint Benedict's monks destroy an image of Apollo, worshiped in the Roman Empire
Byzantine Iconoclasm, Chludov Psalter, 9th century
