Krutost jako umělecký princip

The concept of cruelty as an artistic principle touches on the problem of violence, bodily presence and physical expression in art. By examining this aspect in the art and texts of four important figures of Western modern culture I attempt to cover a small part of this topic, which points to the existential crisis experienced around the World War II. I would like to suggest that the cruelty reflected in their texts and paintings, which is often associated with the symbol of sacrifice, exposes something fundamental about the modern man. On these four examples I will show how the way of thinking about the violence and cruelty in art shifted after the experience of war

1. John Russell, Francis Bacon, London 1965

2. Jacques Derrida, Plato's Pharmacy, in: idem, Dissemination, Barbara Johnson (ed.), Chicago 1981 CrossRef

3. Antonin Artaud, Œuvres complètes I, Paris 1984

4. René Girard, Dionysus versus the Crucified, MLN, Vol. 99, No. 4, Baltimore 1984 CrossRef

5. John Philip O'Neill (ed.), Barnett Newman. Selected Writings and Interviews, Berekeley 1992

6. Antonin Artaud, Divadlo a jeho dvojenec, Praha 1994

7. Jan Kopecký, Antonin Artaud, poslední z prokletých, Praha 1994

8. Hannah Arendtová, Původ totalitarismu, Praha, 1996

9. W. Yates, The Real Presence of Evil: Francis Bacon's Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, in: Arts, No. 8, 1996

10. Georges Bataille, Prokletá část / Teorie náboženství, Praha 1998

11. Adela Yarbo Collins, Finding Meaning in the Death of Jesus, The Journal of Religion, Vol. 78, No. 2, April 1998 CrossRef

12. Barnett Newman: Umělec, kritik, Řevnice-Praha 2003

13. Georges Bataille, from Heterogeneity to the Sacred: Preceedings of the konference, Cambridge 2006

14. Kate Liebman, Passion in Painting. Barnett Newman's Stations of the Cross, New Haven 2016