THIS rich and groundbreaking book by Benjamin A. Saltzman, associate professor of English at the University of Chicago, begins with a meditation on an image by the fourth-century BC artist Timanthes. It depicts the sacrifice of Iphigenia, who is put to death at the bidding of her father, King Agamemnon, in response to a prophecy that only this will ensure success in the Trojan war. Timanthes depicts the father facing away from the scene of the sacrifice, his head in a hood and his hand covering his face. What, we might ask, does this turning away represent? Is the hiding of the face a stroke of genius or an artistic failure to depict an apt emotion? Like all turning away, it is rich with ambiguity.

Such reflections permeate the book and prompted me to reflect again on the oft-contested line in Stuart Townend’s song “How deep the Father’s love for us”: “the Father turns his face away” (from the dying Jesus on the cross). I have never been comfortable with this line, but it resonates precisely with Agamemnon as imagined by Timanthes and, perhaps, reflects a basic human sense of how a powerful authority figure should and would behave in such a situation. But, then again, is Agamemnon covering his face and looking away because he is appalled, or ashamed, or just trying to think about something else? And is the best parental option to turn away when a child suffers?

Christian imagery permeates this wide-ranging study, especially in the final two chapters, “Darkness” and “Retroversion”. The extended meditation on the darkness that covered the earth when Christ died on the cross, and the depiction of eclipsed sun and moon in so many images, also influenced my reflection on Townsend’s problematic line, making me want to suggest that it be recast as “creation turns its face away.”

Seeking to unravel the ethics of looking or not looking, Saltzman quotes Susan Sontag, who writes that we should “let the atrocious images haunt us” so that we do not forget what humans can do to one another. He, none the less, argues that turning away can also be appropriate and good. It depends on contingencies and intentions. Sometimes, we will turn away in disgust, revulsion, or horror, or because we fear being overwhelmed or traumatised by what will be imprinted not only on our retina, but in our memory. Other times, our turning away might be because we really don’t want to know: we can’t bear the prospect of the ethical burden of having seen. On yet other occasions, to turn away might be respectful, as when Noah’s sons see their father’s involuntary drunken exposure.

Perhaps the most important takeaway from this remarkable book is the insistence of the richly ambivalent nature of this gesture, which can be a pre-conscious reflex or carefully thought through. Now it has been written, there is no excuse for thinking that turning away is a simple gesture with one meaning — indeed, for turning away from the complexity of turning away.

The Revd Dr Stephen Cherry is an Emeritus Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge.

Turning Away: The poetics of an ancient gesture
Benjamin A. Saltzman
University of Chicago Press £24
978-0-226-84722-1
Church Times Bookshop £21.60