In its confounding of the logic that maintains terms like high and low, or base and sacred as polar opposites, it is this play of the contradictory that allows one to think the truth that Bataille never tired of demonstrating: that violence has historically been lodged at the heart of the sacred; that to be genuine, the very thought of the creative must simultaneously be an experience of death; and that it is impossible for any moment of true intensity to exist apart from a cruelty that is equally extreme.Rosalind E. Krauss
About This Quote
Bataille was one of the first to suggest that history is one long tale of violence, and that to understand history we should think of it not in terms of progress but in terms of cycles. Bataille’s key insight here was that the real story is one of death and resurrection, not progress. This insight connects with his view that sacred things are always perceived negatively, while the profane things are perceived positively. The negative perception has always been attached to violence, while the positive perception has always been attached to reverence.
Source: The Originality Of The Avantgarde And Other Modernist Myths
Some Similar Quotes
- Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.
- It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.
- Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep.
- Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.
- There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.