The following three articles were presented as papers at the international conference ‘Iconoclasm: Past and Present Issues’ organized by the Academia Europaea Wrocław Knowledge Hub on 4–6 October 2021. They formed the final section of the conference, considering iconoclasm from both a literary and artistic perspective. They cover examples in nineteenth-century European narrative literature, referring to the deliberate destruction (or intentions, attempts to destroy) of artificial images; the spreading of the iconoclastic effects of apartheid-ridden South Africa all over the ‘sacrosanct’ territory of history; and the dual role of image, both as a weapon of propaganda and as a device to disclose the truth.