The Cruel Practice of Art  

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"The Cruel Practice of Art" (L'art, exercice de cruauté) is an essay by Georges Bataille originally published in Médicine de France in June 1949.

It is reprinted in Georges Bataille, Oeuvres Complètes, vol. XI, Paris: Gallimard, 1988.

The English translation is featured on the CD-ROM BLAM! 1 (1993).

Excerpt:

The painter is condemned to please. By no means can he transform a painting into an object of aversion. The purpose of a scarecrow is to frighten birds from the field where it is planted, but the most terrifying painting is there to attract visitors. Actual torture can also be interesting, but in general that can't be considered its purpose. Torture takes place for a variety of reasons. In principle its purpose differs little from that of the scarecrow: unlike art, it is offered to sight in order to repel us from the horror it puts on display. The painted torture, conversely, does not attempt to reform us. Art never takes on itself the work of the judge. It does not interest us in some horror for its own sake: that is not even imaginable. (It is true that in the Middle Ages religious imagery did this for hell, but that is precisely because art was hardly separable from education.) When horror is subject to the transfiguration of an authentic art, it becomes a pleasure, an intense pleasure, but a pleasure all the same.[1]





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