Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2009).

S.-Afr.Tydskr.Kult.-Kunsgesk. 1989,3(4)

388

Georges Bataille's interpretation of Nietzsche: The question of violence in

Surrealist art
H. Janse van Rensburg
Department History of Art, University of Pretoria, Pretoria 0002, Republic of South Africa
Received January 1989 ; accepted April 1989

In this study the response to Nietzsche in the writings of Georges Bataillc in France in the 1930s, as well as some
aspects of his influence on the approach to Nietzsche in Surrealist art, is discussed. The question of the meaning
of violence in Surrealism is examined. Some references to violence by Bataille, Andre Breton, and Salvador
Dali following the Surrealist crisis of 1929 are considered. The question of violence is considered in relation to
the resistance to Fascism in the French art world in the 1930s. Lastly the question of mythological violence is
considered in terms of Bataille's criticism of Marxism and his adoption of a Nietzschcan a-political stance in the
late 1930s.
Die reaksie op Friedrich Nietzsche in Georges Bataille se geskriftc in Frankryk in die 1930's, sowel as aspekte
van sy invloed op die ontvangs van Nietzsche in Surrealistiesc kuns word ondcrsoek. Daar word gckonsentreer
op die vraag na die betekenis van geweld in Surrealisme. Verwysings na gewcld deur Bataille, Andre Breton en
Salvador Dali wat volg op die Surrealistiese krisis van 1929, word oorweeg. Die vraag na die aard van geweld
word ondersoek teen die agtergrond van die weerstand teen Fascisme in die Franse kunswcreld van die 1980's.
Laastens word die begrip van mitologiese geweld ondersoek in die lig van Bataille se kritiek teen Marxisme en
sy beklemtoning van Nietzsche se a-politiese standpunt.
Nietzsche and Surrealism
The term 'Surrealist' was used for the fist time by
Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) in the introduction
to his play Les Mamelles de Tiresias in 1917. Apollinaire
explains the 'drame surrealiste' as the recognition of a
reality constituted by the higher creative powers of the
imagination, using the French preposition 'sur' (on,
upon, towards) as a prefix. As a variation of the French
translation of 'Ubermensch' into 'Ie surhomme', 1
Appollinaire's adoption of the term reflects his interest
in the work of the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche
(1844-1900). 2 Consistent with the function that
Nietzsche affords to the prefix 'tiber' (over), 3 Surrealism, in Apollinaire's postulation, is neither merely a
symbolical or a representative reality, nor is it an
imitation of reality. Surrealism, instead, is defined in
terms of reality as a creative sphere, 'a complete
universe with its creator. In other words nature itself and
not only the representation of a small fragment of what
surrounds us or what once took place.,4 Georges Bataille
(1897-1962) still acknowledges the association between
the term Surrealism and Nietzsche's 'Ubermensch' in an
essay with the title 'La "vieille taupe" et Ie pretixe "Sur"
dans les mots "Surhomme" et "Surrealiste'" in 1930. 5
Despite the conspicious evidence of Nietzsche's
presence in Surrealism, the question of his influence on
Surrealism remains a largely neglected field of study.
The French cultural world in the era of Surrealism,
included such specialists of Nietzsche's work as Antonin
Artaud (1896-1948),6 Andre Malraux (1901-1976),7
Georges Ribemont -Dessaignes (1884-1947), 8 Georges
Bataille, Francis Picabia (1879-1953),9 Andre Masson
(1896-1987)10 and Max Ernst (1891-1976).11 Various
other artists showed a keen interest in Nietzsche's work.
Of interest in this study, is the response to Nietzsche in
the writings of Georges Bataille in particular, and the

role he played in formulating aspects of a French

approach to Nietzsche in the 1930s. The work of Bataille
itself had recently become the subject of renewed studies
in various disciplines. This was partly stimulated by the
acknowledgement of the significance of Bataille's
influence by the philosophers Michel Foucault and
Jacques Derrida. Bataille's writings on Nietzsche in the
1930s also anticipates the return of Nietzsche's work to a
central position in the French philosophical stage in the
1960s. This influence is reflected in the studies on
Nietzsche by eminent philosophers such as Foucault,
Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze and Jean Granier. The
French revival of Nietzsche in the 1960s also includes
significant contributions by Pierre Klossowski (born
1906) and Jean Wahl (1888-1974)12 both of whom were
closely involved with Bataille and his interest in
Nietzsche in the 1930s. The work of Bataille, too,
assumed a significant position in French thought since
the 1960s. In contemporary antihumanist literary
criticism of Derrida, or Julia Kirsteva, Bataillian images
of violence have become common metaphors used to
disarticulate the concept of the rational stable self, and
to establish an alternative concept of 'subjectivity in
flUX,.13
It was particularly through Allan Stoekl's translations
of a variety of Bataille's writings, including his writings
on Nietzsche in the 1930s, that key aspects of Bataille's
thought had recently become accessible to the English
speaking world. 14 Stoekl's critical studies of Bataille had
also contributed significantly to an appreciation of
Bataille in English academical circles. 15 In Art History
the response of artists such as Ernst,16 Masson,17 and
Picasso l8 to images from Bataille's writings was noticed
by various commentators. It is Rosalind Krauss, however, who has suggested in a recent essay that Bataille's
influence on Surrealist artists often exceeded that of

Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2009).

S.Afr.l.Cult.Art Hist. 1989,3(4)

Andre Breton (1896-1966) in the years immediately

following the so-called Surrealist crisis of 1929, and the
publication of the second Manifeste du Surrealisme in
1930. 19
The Surrealist crisis of 1929: Violence

In the literature on Surrealist art, a dominant role is

generally afforded to Andre Breton, who once described
Nietzsche as 'what I detest the most'. 20 This may partly
explain the relative neglect of Nietzsche's influence
reflected in histories of the movement. Artists and
writers, interested in Nietzsche's work in the French
cultural world of the 1920s and 1930s, had often dissociated themselves from the official circle of Surrealism
around Breton, or were sooner or later excommunicated
by Breton. The notable exception is Max Ernst who
pursued an interest in Nietzsche, retained a friendship
with Breton, as well as a carefully restrained participation in the Surrealist circle. It is only in reference to the
art of Ernst that Breton has occasionally acknowledged
Nietzsche's importance to Surrealism. 21 But Bataille,
Malraux, Giorgio de Chirico (1888-1978) and Picasso,
for instance, never belonged to the official circle of
Surrealism; Ribemont-Dessaignes, Artaud and Picabia
soon abandoned the Surrealist circle, while Joseph
Delteil (1894--1978), Michel Leiris (born 1901),
Georges Limbour (1902-1970), Andre Masson and
Salvador Dali (1904--1989) were all denied by Breton at
one point or another. These artists all expressed an
interest in Nietzsche.
More than mere coincidence, the dissociation between
the interest in Nietzsche and official Surrealism signifies
crucial questions in French cultural and ideological
thought of the era. As Bataille was to show, Nietzschean
thought, and the adherence to a Marxist course
proclaimed by Breton, remain essentially incompatible.
Furthermore, the problematic of the interest in
Nietzsche in the Surrealist era, is largely qualified by the
question of the nature of violence in French thought and
art, and its relation to the resistance to Fascism in France
in the 1930s. It is Georges Bataille who was to pursue an
attempt to differentiate between the nature of
Nietzsche's Dionysian aesthetic of destruction and recreation, and the nature of Fascist violence.
Violence is a distinctive quality of Surrealist art in the
1930s. The meaning of Surrealist violence can neither be
separated from its revolutionary aims, nor from the
threat represented by the Fascist adoption of Nietzsche's
'Ubermensch' as a superman-image of the Aryan race.
On the other hand, violence, on a metaphorical level,
also signifies the creative process of destruction, reevaluation, re-creation and the determination of an
alternative aesthetic in Surrealist art. Designated by
Nietzsche's Dionysus-figure, violence, cruelty, brutality,
sacrifice, sacrilege or hubris, perversion and subversion
are central questions in the Nietzsche-image in French
art in the Surrealist era.
Associated by Nietzsche with a pre-consciousness in
Die Geburt der Tragodie (1872), the Dionysian refers to

389

deeper strata of consciousness, also called 'nature',

which are the source of all life, consciousness and
creativity. The Dionysian finds expression in the
Apollonian 'principuum individuationis' or consciousness, which to Nietzsche is a necessary layer of illusion
over the substrata of nature. Creativity, for Nietzsche, is
the continual re-emergence of the Dionysian through
'Rausch', ecstasy, frenzy or rapture, forever rearranging the structures of Apollonian thought. It is
worth noticing that Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), being
a central source for Surrealist ideas, was associated with
Nietzsche's views of the unconscious and the supraindividual in the Surrealist review Minotaure in 1933. 22
Nietzsche does not so much denounce Apollonian
thought, but attempts to re-affirm the exigency of
Dionysian nature. He insists on the destructive and recreative nature of the Dionysian-Apollo relation. It
requires that Apollonian thought is never to be codified
into 'truths', systems of logic, or the structures of reason.
Consequently he opposes all cultural structures which
uphold the codification of Apollonian illusions, such as
science, or religious and political dogma. Furthermore,
Nietzsche asserts the multi-layered dimensions of reality
which can never be commensurated by any system of
thought or rational augury. Considering the systematizing of thought as debilitating to the excessive
opulence of reality, he affirms, instead, all possible
occurences of 'life':
'The word "Dionysian" means ... an ecstatic
affirmation of the total character of life as that
which remains the same, just as powerful, just as
blissful, through all change; the great pantheistic
sharing of joy and sorrow that sanctifies and
calls good even the most terrible and
questionable qualities of life; the eternal will to
procreation, to fruitfulness, to recurrence, the
feeling of the necessary unity of creation and
destruction. ,23
Violence in Surrealism, as a response to Nietzschean
thought, was first formulated in terms of the Dada
heritage of nihilism.24 George Ribemont-Dessaignes
whose interest in Nietzsche stems from the Dada-period,
could initially see Dionysian violence as a simple means
of revitalizing social structures. In an essay In Praise of
Violence, published in 1926, Ribemont-Dessaignes
writes a soliloquy of the virtues of violence as a process
of destruction and re-creation:
'Nothing is lost sooner than violence ... War or
revolution is all right; between two bombs
nothing keeps man from dreaming of his
armchair ... An epoch of violence has just ended
- we do not mean the war, but the one which
assailed all the moral defe nces. ,25
However, three years later Andre Breton had clearly
formulated his aim of pursuing a Marxist revolution
through Surrealist transgression. This became clear
during the Surrealist crisis of 1929, which came to a head
with the meeting at the Bar du Chateau in March 1929.
The crisis was largely due to Breton's attempt to have a

Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2009).

S.-Afr.Tydskr.Kult.-Kunsgesk. 1989,3(4)

390

document signed in which members of the Surrealist

group were required to subscribe to a unified commitment to the promotion of the Marxist cause. Rejecting
Breton's 'dogmatism', Ribemont-Dessaignes walked out
of the meeting and wrote in a letter to Breton:
'J strongly opposed the style you have adopted,
... and the badly organized (or efficient, if one
adopts a commissariat de police viewpoint)
ambush concealed under the Trotsky pretext
,26

During the Surrealist meeting at the Bar du Chateau,

Bataille, who refused to participate, was severely criticized by Breton, a criticism that is partly repeated in the
Manifeste du Surrealisme. 27 Breton's second Manifeste
du Surrealisme was completed shortly after the meeting
at the Bar du Chateau and published in December 1929.
Violence is a central theme in the manifesto, and Breton
writes:
'Surrealism was not afraid to make for itself a
tenet of total revolt, ... it still expects nothing
safe from violence. The simplest Surrealist act
consists of dashing down the street, pistol in
hand, and firing blindly, as fast as you can pull
the trigger, into the crowd.,28
Breton was criticized from various sides for his views
of violence after the publication of the manifesto. A
pamphlet, Un Cadavre was published in 1930, by a group
outraged by Breton's treatment of them since the
meeting at the Bar du Chateau. Un Cadavre included
critical contributions against Breton by RibemontDessaignes, Georges Limbour, Michel Leiris, Robert
Desnos and Georges Bataille.
Late in 1929 or early in 1930 Bataille completed an
article as a response to Breton's attacks against him in
the second Manifeste du Surrealisme. In the article 'La
"vieille taupe" et Ie prefixe "sur" dans les mots
"Surhomme" et "Surrealiste "', Bataille refers to Breton's
image of the violence of shooting into a crowd, and
writes:
That such an image should present itself so
insistently to his view proves decisively the
importance in his pathology of castration
reflexes: such an extreme provocation seeks to
draw immediate and brutal punishment ... when
bourgeois society refuses to take them seriously
and to take up the challenge they offer ... the
Surrealists have found the destiny they were
seeking ... For them it was never a question of
really terrifying: The intrinsic character of the
bogeyman they play is sufficient, for they are
eager to play the role of juvenile victims,
despicable victims of a general incomprehension
and degradation. ,29
Furthermore, Bataille criticizes Breton for the presence of a metaphysical idealism in the Manifeste du
Surrealisme. This idealism, according to Bataille, finds
expression in Breton's view of violence. Breton's formulation of violence, therefore, implies a denial of what
Bataille calls the principle of sovereignty. Sovereignty,
Bataille's alternative term for Nietzsche's concept of

'Ubermenschlichkeit', is differentiated from idealism:

'Man is his own law, if he strips himself bare in
front of himself. The mystic before God has the
aspect of a subject. Who strips himself bare in
front of himself has the aspect of a sovereign. ,30
Bataille, who refused to attend the meeting at the Bar du
Chateau because there were 'too many fucking
idealists,3l in the Surrealist circle, interpretes Breton's
view of violence as particularly idealistic: 'Servile
idealism rests precisely in this will to poetic agitation, ...
a completely unhappy desire to turn to upper spiritual
regions. d2
Bataille also identifies an emphasis on the idealistic
aspects of Nietzsche's thought in the Surrealist response
to his work
'At the heart of Nietzsche's demands lies such
flagrant disgust for the senile idealism of the
establishment ... so spiteful towards the hypocrisy and the moral shabbiness that presides over
current world exploitation - that it is impossible to define his work as one of the ideological
forms of the dominant class ... (but) Nietzsche
was condemned by circumstances to imagine his
break with conformist ideology as an Icarian
adventure ... the same double tendency is found
in contemporary Surrealism, ... which maintains, of course, the predominance of higher
ethereal values clearly expressed by the addition
of the prefix 'sur', the trap into which Nietzsche
had already fallen with "Surhomme". m
This criticism reflects Bataille's earliest interpretation
of Nietzsche. It typifies an image of Nietzsche at a time
when the emergence of Marxism as a predominant
ideology, superseded the Nietzscheanism of the Dada
circles. George Grosz (1893-1959) for instance, had
expressed a similar criticism of Nietzsche in 1925. 34
Furthermore BatailIe's criticism is aimed at the arrival of
Salvador Dali in Breton's Surrealist circle, and Dali's
popular image of idealistic Nietzscheanism - what
Bataille terms the 'bogeyman' syndrome in the Surrealist
circle.
Salvador Dali is an immediate sensation after his
arrival in Paris and his entering of the Surrealist group
shortly after the Bar du Chateau meeting of March 1929.
Dali, who called himself 'the Nietzsche of the
irrational',35 indicated that he was associated with
Nietzsche right away after his arrival in Paris in this 'truly
Nietzschean' period of his life. 36
Although Bataille does not refer to Dali in the essay 'La
"vieille taupe" et Ie pretixe "Sur" dans les mots
"Surhomme' et "Surrealiste''', his private notes of this
period identify Dali as a source of some aspects of his
criticism of Surrealism. 37 Shortly after his arrival in Paris
in ]929, Dali attracted considerable attention with the
exhibition of his painting Le 'feu Lugubre'. 38 In response, Bataille adopted an incomplete essay on the
inferiority complex into a criticism of Dali's painting.
Echoing his criticism of the idealistic interpretation of
Nietzsche in the Surrealist circle, Bataille's essay 'Le
"Jeu Lugubre" is explicitly directed against Dali's 'servile

Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2009).

S.Afr.l.Cult.Art Hist. 1989.3(4)

nobility, this idiotic idealism that leaves us under the

spell of a few comical prison bosses'. 39 Idealism in
contrast to 'sovereignty', according to Bataille, has an
imprisoning effect on the mind - a metaphor that he
constantly uses in his private notes on the controversy
with Breton in 1929. 40 Idealism, therefore, implies an
alternative aspect of violence. This, according to
Bataille, can be identified in the intellectual despair of
the laceration of form in Dali's painting, the 'sudden
cataclysms, great popular manifestations of madness,
riots, enormous revolutionary slaughter ... idiotic
idealism. 41
Bataille denies any dimension of creative violence in
Dali's painting, and claims:
'Intellectual despair results in neither weakness
nor dreams, but in violence ... It is only a matter
of knowing how to give vent to one's rage;
whether one only want to wander like madmen
around prisons, or whether one want to overturn
them ... This is said without any critical
intention, for it is evident that violence, even
when one is besides oneself with it, is most often
of sufficient brutal hilarity to exceed questions
about people. My only desire ... is to squeal like
a pig before his canvases. ,42
In his essay 'Le bas materialisme et la gnose' of 1930,
Bataille proposes the concept of the preponderance of
matter, as a denial of idealism, of 'an abstract God (or
simply the idea), and abstract matter; the chief guard
and the prison walls'. 43 In order to motivate an
alternative foundation for the dismemberment of form in
Surrealist art,44 Bataille turns in this essay to Gnostic
sects and Gnostic art objects with its primitive
rearrangements of human form. Bataille's insistence of
the preponderance of matter in Gnostic art, also echoes
Nietzsche's view of Dionysian art as a physiology of art.
In the essay 'Le "Jeu lugubre"', Bataille criticizes
Dali's expression of idealistic violence in particular
painting. In the essay 'Le bas materialisme et la gnose',
violence is given significant new direction in terms of
Surrealist art, by linking it with mythological thought.
Dali responds in his essay The Stinking Ass' in 1932:
'(Materialism) adapts itself so readily to the
violence of images, which materialist thought
idiotically confuses with the violence of reality
... What r have in mind here are, in particular,
the materialist ideas of Georges Bataille, but
also, ... all the old materialism which this gentleman dodderingly claims to rejuvenate when he
bolsters it up with modern psychology.'45
The differences around the question of violence,
apparently, remain unresolved in the years immediately
following the Surrealist crisis of 1929, but it was Bataille
who was to pursue the question of the meaning of
violence. Breton's references to violence in the second
Manifeste du Surealisme, in one sense, look back at the
unrestrained pleas for revolutionary violence in the
Futurist manifestoes of the previous decade. Yet Breton
clearly defines violence in terms of a Marxist revolution,
with the expressed aim of agitating a proposed bourgeois

391

establishment. This is particularly formulated in the

journal Le Surrealisme au service de la revolution,
founded by Breton as the new official mouthpiece of the
Surrealist circle after the meeting at the Bar du Chateau
in 1929.
Dali's revolutionary aims at the time are less certain,
at least as far as his interest in Nietzsche's concept of
Dionysian violence is concerned. Dali did not support
Breton's Marxism, and his interest in Nietzsche is clearly
at variance with that of Bataille. Bataille's identification
of an idealistic approach to Nietzsche by Dali, is of some
interest in terms of the objection to the Fascist interpretation of the philosopher's work. In his lectures on
Nietzsche after 1936, Martin Heidegger was to formulate
a similar criticism against the idealistic interpretation of
Nietzsche in Germany, claiming later that it was his
personal contestation of the Nazi interpretation of
Nietzsche. 46
Dali was accused of being a Fascist by Breton in 1934.
In February of that year, Breton called for a Surrealist
meeting to cross-examine Dali on allegations of his
Fascist sympathies, and of being an enemy of the
proletariate. In his own defence, Dali explained at the
meeting that The Nietzschean Dionysos accompanied
me everywhere like a patient governess and soon I could
not help noticing that he was wearing a swastika
armband,.47
Claiming that the use of swastikas in his paintings was
a-political and merely an expression of his paranoiaccritical method,48 Dali writes:
'Dali, the complete Surrealist, preaching an
absolute absence of aesthetic or moral constraint, actuated by Nietzsche's "will to power",
asserted that every experiment could be carried
to its extreme limits ... But Breton said "No" to
Dali.,49
What Bataille terms the violence of idealism of
'comical prison bosses,50 in Dali's approach to Nietzsche
corresponds partly to aspects of the Fascist interpretation of Nietzsche that Bataille was to oppose in his
writings after 1933. 51 However, at the time of the
Surrealist crisis Bataille was still adhering to the
revolutionary aim of Marxist ideology, and his criticism
of Nietzsche in the essay, 'La "vieille taupe" et Ie prefixe
"Sur" dans les mots "Surhomme" et "Surrealiste''', is to a
considerable extent a Marxist objection. In the early
1930s Bataille's interest in Nietzsche was well established, but not yet fully integrated and formulated. It is
only through his growing disenchantment with Marxism
and the growing threat of Fascism that Bataille was to
formulate an approach to Nietzsche in terms of political
questions, and the question of violence.
After the Surrealist crisis, figures such as Delteil,
Leiris, Limbour and Andre Masson, who were excommunicated from the Surrealist circle, formed a group
around Georges Bataille. Bataille founded the journal
Documents in 1929, in which he published the criticism of
Dali's Le jeu Lugubre, as well as the article on
gnosticism and the physiology of matter. In returning
Bataille's criticism in 1932,52 Dali, however, failed to

Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2009).

392

realize that Bataille had given the theme of violence an

important new direction in terms of Surrealist art.
Rather than stressing the ideological aims of revolutionary violence, Bataille transposes the theme of violence to
a metaphorical level of primitivism and myth, thus
introducing into the theme of violence the question of
creativity and the meaning of creative violence. This
pursuit is continued in other essays in Documents, and
the journal published a variety of well-illustrated articles
on archaeology, anthropology, studies of primitive
objects, ritual sacrifice, and primitive art. With
contributions by authors such as Bataille, Limbour,
Robert Desnos (1900-1945), aud Michel Leiris who was
a professional anthropologist, Documents played a
leading role in the revival of primitivism and
mythological themes, and also became an important
visual source for Surrealist art in the 1930s.
Bataille's own contribution to Documents included the
essays 'Oeil', 'Le gros orteil', 'L' Apocalypse de SaintSever' (1929), and 'Soleil pourri' (1930) which were all
particularly important as sources for visual art in the
1930s, and were responded to by artists such as Alberto
Giacometti, Andre Masson and Pablo PicassoY Bataille
also published essays on the Marquis de Sade and sadism,54 sacrificial mutilation, the metaphorical meaning
of parts of the human body and its forms in art, metamorphoses, deviations from nature; primitive art, and a
variety of aspects of primitive cultures. The journal
closely reflects Bataille's interest in Nietzsche's concept
of Dionysian violence as an expression of primitivism,
and in his various essays Bataille lays a metaphorical
foundation for his later theoretical work on Nietzsche.
The journal Minotaure, a luxurious variant on the
lines laid down by Documents, appeared for the first time
in June 1933. In Minotaure the groups of Breton were
moving in closer collaboration than ever before, and
Minotaure published essays by Bataille, Desnos, Leiris,
Limbour, Masson, as well as members of the Bretoncircle. The title of Dali and Luis Bunuel's film L'Age
d'Or (1929) was initially considered for the journal, but
it was Bataille and Masson who persuaded others to
accept the title Minotaure. Masson writes: 'Not only in
its title was Minotaure endebted to Bataille for it was
infused with his spirit, especially in its beginning'. 55
Minotaure continued to explore the theme of primitive
violence established by Documents, and Albert Skira,
co-editor of the journal, writes in the introduction of the
first issue in 1933, that the title Minotaure was chosen
because of the 'aggresive and Dionysiac character of the
myth,.56 Thus Minotaure, through the efforts of Bataille,
established what was to become a central myth in
Surrealist art, a myth essentially related to Nietzsche's
aesthetics of destruction and re-creation.
Bataille and Communism in the early 19305
From late 1931 to early 1934 Bataille was involved in an
anti-Stalinist Marxist review, La Critique Sociale, edited
by Boris Souvarine. Other participants on the editorial
board were Leiris, the philosopher Pierre Klossowski,
translator of some of Nietzsche's work into French and

S.-Afr.Tydskr.Kult.-Kunsgesk. 1989,3(4)
also brother of the artist Balthus (Klossowski de Rola,
born 1908); as well as the political photographer Dora
Maar.
Participation in La Critique Sociale represents the high
point of Bataille's Marxist involvement, and in the
journal he defines the notion of violence repeatedly in
revolutionary terms as an expression of class struggle. In
the essay 'La notion de depense' (January 1933) Bataille
sees revolution as the liberation of the need of the
'lower' classes to 'expend' the ruling classes in an
orgiastic social revolution. In an essay entitled 'La
structure psychologique du fascisme' (November 1933),
Bataille explores the problematic of fascism as a ruling
class sustained by the 'idealism' of authority as 'an
unconditional principle situated above any utilitarian
judgement'. He considers conditions of violence such as
'excess, delirium, madness,57 as a means of breaking the
laws of the ideal of authority and commensurability of
Fascism. Bataille's approach to violence in these essays
is related to the anthropological writings of Marcel
Mauss,58 but there also appears some echoes of his
interest in Nietzsche's Dionysian pnmlhvlsm in
Bataille's opposition to Fascism, and the essays look
forward to Bataille's 'Nietzsche et les fascistes' of 1937.
Although Bataille still supports revolutionary aspects of
Marxism, the essay 'La structure psychologique du
fascisme', as well as an essay 'La critique des fondements
de la dialectique hegelienne' (March 1932), already
depart from the orthodox Marxist dialectic, and lays a
foundation for his subsequent distinction between
Nietzsche and Fascism on the one hand, and Nietzsche
and Communism on the other hand.
Politically the early 1930s are characterized by the
emergence of a threat of Fascism, represented in the
ideologies of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco. During an
international congress against Fascism in Paris in 1933,
the French Communist Party became manifest as the
dominant force in the French anti-Fascist movement.
The government of the French Radical Party fell from
power early in 1934, and a long period of political crisises
and uncertainty ensued. Strikes, violence, and clashes
between French Fascists and Communists broke out in
February 1934. The French Front Populaire, and
alliance of the Communist Party and the nonCommunist Socialist Party, eventually assumed control
in the elections of March 1936. A new government was
formed in June 1936.
The close ties between Surrealism and the Communist
Party were ruptured when Breton and Paul Eluard
(1895-1952) were expelled from the Party in 1933.
However, when violence broke out in Paris in 1934,
Breton still called for a unified Communistic stance in
opposition to Fascism. A document to this effect, 'Appel
ala lutte' was signed by members of the Surrealist group
in February 1934. 59 The signatories included Surrealist
members such as Breton, Eluard and Ferdinand Leger
(1881-1955), as well as non-members such as Malraux,
Leiris, and Dora Maar.
Bataille founded the group Contre Attaque late in
1935, a group which included, of all people, Andre

Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2009).

S.Afr.J.Cult.Art Hist. 1989,3(4)

Breton. Bataille used a hall in the Rue des Grands

Augustins for meetings of the Contre Attaque. The hall
was later made available to Picasso for the painting of
Guernica.
Bataille read a speech 'Front Populaire dans la rue' at
the first meeting of Contre Attaque in 1935, calling for
the support of the Communists against Fascism. He
emphasized force, agitation, and violence against
Fascism to such an extent that it implied the exclusion of
political and doctrinal debates. By the time the speech
was published in the only issue of Cahiers de Contre
Attaque in May 1936, Breton and the Surrealist contingent had already dissociated themselves from Contre
Attaque. Breton accused Bataille of 'sur-fascisme' ,60 an
allusion to Bataille's unpublished 'La "vieille taupe" et Ie
prefixe "sur" dans les mots "Surhomme" et "Surrealiste'"
of 1930. In later years, Bataille did not deny that there
was a certain 'paradoxical fascist tendency' in Contre
Attaque, and even in himself at the time. 61
Although Bataille still supported the Front Populaire
early in 1936, he suddenly abandoned Communism after
the Front Populaire had come into power in the elections
of March 1936. Disillusioned by a mass who has no
interest in political theory, he also rejected, subsequentIy, any hope in subversive violence with a revolutionary
aim. Instead Bataille turned to the notion of the role of
marginal groups in a revolutionary society, originally
advocated in his essays on Gnosticism, madmen,
knights, and sects of heterodox Christian mystics
published in Documents. Instigated by the collapse of
Contre Attaque, Bataille rejected a Marxist ideology
altogether, and pursued in its place an a-political stance
based on the examination of the meaning of mythological structures of thought in Nietzsche's philosophy. The
question of violence was henceforth to be emphasized in
terms of the meaning of creativity in a given community.
Bataille's writings on Nietzsche after 1936

Shortly after the Spanish civil war broke out in April

1936, Bataille visited Andre Masson in Tossa in Spain
where the latter was living at the time. In Spain Bataille
and Masson planned an organization and a journal that
was to be dedicated to Nietzsche, as well as to the
opposition of the Fascist interpretation of Nietzsche
elsewhere in Europe. The name Acephale, based on a
mythological race of headless people without a leader,
was adopted as a metaphorical indication of Bataille's
new political direction. As a result of the risk of Fascism
encountered in Contre Attaque, the Acephale-group
was resolved not to become involved with political
power or any official political party.
Acephale was a private and secret sect which was
closed to the public, although the journal was intended
for public distribution. At the same time Bataille started
another project known as the College de Sociologie, a
series of public lectures on studies of such human
tendencies as the Acephale-group hoped to spark
through ritual activities. Participants in Acephale

393

included Bataille, Masson, Klossowski, Jean Wahl,

Georges Ambrosino and Jules Monnerot. The College
de Sociologie was centered around Bataille, Callois and
Leiris.
The first issue of A Cf?phale, dedicated to the idea of the
'sacred conspiracy', was published in June 1936. An
essay on Nietzsche, entitled 'La conjuration sacree',
written in Spain by both Bataille and Masson, introduced the first issue of Acephale. The essay expounds the
purpose of the Acephale-group, which were later re-capitulated by Masson as the aim to 'unmask the religious
behind the political'. 62 Masson also designed the cover
for the first issue of Acephale, a depiction of the headless Acephalic being, based on Masson's drawing of
Dionysos of 1933. 63
The second issue of Acephale, dedicated to Nietzsche
and the pre-classical Greek philosopher Heraclitus,
appeared in January 1937. Bataille published an introductory essay on Nietzsche, and translated a section
from Nietzsche's lectures on Heraclitus in the
'Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen' for
this issue. Bataille also published his important essay
'Nietzsche et les fascistes', and Pierre Klossowski
published an essay 'Creation du Monde' about
cosmological aspects of Nietzsche's thought. Max
Raphael's essay 'A propos du fronton de Corfou', which
attributes the revival of pre-classical Greek architecture
to Nietzsche's influence, was reprinted in this issue. This
study had already appeared in the first issue of
Minotaure in June 1933.
The third and fourth numbers of Acephale appeared as
a single issue in July 1937. The issue is dedicated to
Nietsche's figure of Dionysus, and the Nietzscheinspired philological study, Dionysos: Mythos und Cultus
which was published by Walter Otto in Frankfurt in
1933. Jules Monnerot appealed for the substitution of
scientific truth with the mythical truths of Nietzsche's
Dionysus in an article entitled 'Dionysos philosophe'.
Bataille offered a review of Karl Jasper's Nietzsche:
Einfuhrung in das Verstiindnis seines Ph ilosophierens ,
published in Berlin in 1936. Bataille also published an
important article, 'Chronique nietzscheen' on the
Dionysian mysteries. Masson included four drawings of
Dionysus from his Sacrifices of 1933, in this edition of
Acephale.
An article on Nietzsche, the symbolism of the obelisk
and the myth of the labyrinth by Bataille, was published
with the title 'L'Obelisque' in the journal Mesures in
April 1938. The last issue of Acephale did not appear
until July 1939. Bataille published the essays 'La folie de
Nietzsche' and 'La pratique de la joie devant la mort' in
this issue. In the latter essay the question of violence and
the meaning of creative violence was directly linked to
the threatening world war. The war broke out a month
later, in August 1939.
In his attack against Fascism in 'Nietzsche et les
Fascistes', Bataille refers to Nietzsche's criticism of antiSemitism, in order to dissociate him from the Nazi
interpretation of his work in Germany. Bataille criticizes
Elizabeth Forster-Nietzsche (he calls her Elizabeth

Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2009).

394

Judas-Forster) for 'selling' her brother's work to the

Nazis because of her own anti-Semitical feelings.
Bataille shows that during Hitler's visit to the Nietzschearchives in 1933, Frau Forster-Nietzsche had presented
him with anti-Semi tical texts by her late husband
Bernard Forster, pretending that the texts were written
by Nietzsche.
Bataille also analises the propogandical use of
Nietzsche's work by Hitler, Alfred Rosenberg,
Mussolini, Alfred Baumler in his 'Nietzsche, der
Philosoph und Politiker' of 1931, and Emmanuel
Levinas in his 'Quelques reflexions sur la philosophie de
l'hitlerisme', published in Paris in 1934. Bataille
criticizes the various interpretations of Nietzsche for the
idealism of a proposed 'higher' reality, and concludes:
'Fascism and Nietzscheanism are mutually
exclusive, and are even violently mutually
exclusive, as soon as each of them is considered
in its totality ... Insofar as Fascism values a
philosophical source, it is attached to Hegel and
not to Nietzsche.,64
In his essay 'La critique des fondements de la
dialectique hegelienne' of 1932, Bataille had still
attempted to reconcile the Hegelian dialectic with
Nietzsche's notion of Dionysus. His disillusionment with
Marxism, however, also implies a change of attitude
towards Hegel, and in 'L'obelisque' of 1938, Bataille
claims: 'Nietzsche is to Hegel what a bird breaking its
shell is to a bird contently absorbing the substance
within,.65 It became necessary for Batialle to confront
any dialectical movement, no matter how transgressive,
with a Nietzschean intervention. Showing that both
Marxism and Fascism find a philosophical foundation in
a Hegelian dialectic, Bataille, instead, turns towards
Nietzsche's non-dialectic materialism, which he interpretes as essentially a-political: 'This "Dionysian" truth',
he claims, 'cannot be an object of propaganda'. 66
Consequently Bataille opposes the Fascist use of
Nietzsche's work for the purpose of violence and war
propaganda, and claims that Nietzsche's metaphores of
war are essentially in conflict with the literal interpretation of Nietzsche by the Fascists:
'War, to the extend that it is the desire to ensure
the permanence of a nation, ... is the demand
for inulterability, the authority of devine right .. .
opposing the exuberant power of time .. .
National and Military life are present in the
world to try to deny death by reducing it to a
component of glory without dread. ,67
Fascism, consequently, represents to Bataille the
suppressive forces of commensurability and inulterability and is signalling, therefore, a time of cultural decay:
'When communal passion is not great enough
to constitute human strengths, it becomes
necessary to use constraint and to develop the
alliances, contracts, and falsifications that are
called politics. ,68
Art, according to Bataille, constitutes a significant
aspect of the incommensurable heterogeneous 'excess'
that he requires for a vital community, and is, in

S.-Afr.Tydskr.Kult.-Kunsgesk. 1989,3(4)
particular, threatened by Fascism. Describing his era as
a time of a crisis of conventions, art, according to
Bataille, has the additional aim of transgressive violence
against the constraining forces of the military ideal of
commensurability. Violence, however, is now clearly
defined in terms of mythological 'excess'. Quoting partly
from Nietzsche's Die Geburt der Tragodie ,69 Bataille
writes:
'Military sovereignty, tying existence to the past,
is followed or accompanied by the birth of free
and liberating sacred figures and myths,
renewing life and making it 'that which frolics in
the future' ... The Nietzschean audacity demanding for the figures it creates a power that
bows before nothing - that tends to break down
old sovereignty's edifices of moral prohibition
- must not be confused with what it fights ...
The very first sentences of Nietzsche's message
come from "realms of dream and intoxication".
The entire message is expressed by one name:
DIONYSUS ... (in other words, the destructive
exuberance of life). 70
The Dionysian aesthetic of destruction and recreation
is identified by Bataille as a most vital attempt to break
out of the constraints of commensurability. Following
Nietzsche's Dionysus, Bataille saw it as an essential aim
of ACI?phale to regenerate heroic and orgiastic rituals,
the rebirth of 'living' myths and the touching off in
society of the primitive communal drives leading to
sacrifice. Violence, then, is identified as the re-creative
violence of a Dionysian aesthetic. Myth, as Bataille
states in 'L'apprenti Sorcier' is the way open to man
after the failure of science and politics, to reach the
lower 'chthonic and essential' drives: 'Myth ... is the
frenzy of every dance: it takes existence "to its boiling
point": it communicates to it the tragic emotion that
makes its sacred intimacy accessible. m
As an exclusive sect, the Acephale-group participated
in rites such as meetings in a 'sacred' place near a tree
struck by lightning, a point of intersection between lower
'chthonian forces' and 'falling higher forces'. 72 These
rituals, which anticipates in a sense the Happenings of
the 1960s, led to conflict when there was the possibility
of a human sacrifice to be performed. The speculations
were brought to an end by the objections of particularly
Roger Callois,73 and the anthropologist Michel Leiris
who accused Bataille of misinterpreting ancient rituals.
Although Bataille and Andre Masson called themselves
'ferociously religious' ,74 ACI?phale celebrates the most
primitive roots of religiosity rather than any metaphysical conception of religion. 75
In publications, Bataille continued an approach to
myth that was already familiar in his writings for
Documents in the early 1930s. In Acephale, however,
Bataille proposes Dionysus as acephalic man and as
Nietzsche himself, as a basic orientation towards myth.
Pursueing the metaphorical structures already prevalent
in his publications in Documents, Acephale explores
aspects of the myth of Dionysus in particular, such as the
image of the Minotaur, the labyrinth, Ariadne, ecstatic

Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2009).

S.Afr.l.Cult.Art Hist. 1989,3(4)

love, ecstatic violence, sacrifice, metamorphosis,
dismemberment, etc. However, recourse to myth in
Bataille's writings cannot be separated from the political
background against which he wrote. Bataille's Acephalic
being remains an alternative for what he sees as the
'monocephalic' or single-headed nature of a Fascist
community. Acephale represents a headless, or, conversely, a policephalic or many headed community. 76 It
is in the plurality of the many-layered or un-unified
community that Bataille finds prospects for the
accomodation of the 'excess' of myth and the Dionysian
spheres of existence.
Bataille's explorations of Nietzsche's Dionysus, and
the violence of the Dionysian aesthetic of destruction
and re-creation, reflects an essential influence on, and
interaction with, central aspects of French art in the
1930s. What Breton in the 1930s still disparagingly refers
to as the 'my the nietzscheen', 77 becomes a dominant
theme in the art of the Surrealist era, and it is not until
1942 that Breton acknowledges the need for a Surrealist
myth, and the relevance of Nietzsche to Surrealist art, in
the American journal View. 78 Bataille's writings is a
relevant continuation of the Surrealist interest in Freud
and the unconscious in the 1920s, and Bataille plays a
dominant role in the development of the interest in
Mythology in French art in the 1930s.
The theme of violence in Surrealist art, expressed in
revolutionary terms in the Surrealist circle in the 1920s,
is pursued and integrated into a more comprehensive
conception in Bataille's writings, uniting an aesthetic
and the political problematic of the era. Bataille is not
necessarily an initiating influence in the Surrealist
interest in the works of Nietzsche. 79 Bataille's interpretation of Nietzsche evolves from a literary and artistic
response to Nietzschean metaphors in the 1920s, for
instance in the art of Max Ernst and Andre Masson. It is
in Bataille's writings, however, that the Surrealist
interest in Nietzsche is eventually the most efficaciously
formulated.

References and Notes

1. See the discussion by 1.M. NASH, The nature of Cubism;
A study of conflicting explanations - Postscript: The
Nietzsche of Cubism', Art History, Vol. 3(4), December
1980, p. 442.
2. For Apollinaire's interest in Nietzsche, see
C. GRAY, Cubist Aesthetic Theories, (Baltimore, 1953),
pp. 35-69. Also see my essay, H. lANSE VAN
RENSBURG, 'Picabia and Nietzsche', S.Afr.l.Cult.Art
Hist., Vol. 1(4), December 1987, pp. 362-363.
3. It should be noted that the term 'Ubermensch' was first
translated into English as 'Superman' in the first complete
translation of Nietzsche's works into English, edited by
Oscar Levy and published in 1911 (re-edition New York,
1964). This mis-translation, which reflects the
consciousnesses of an era rather than any dimensions of
Nietzsche's thought, was for instance also adopted by
Bernard Shaw in his play Man and Superman early in the
century. This term, finally discredited by the
supercelestial comic-strip hero Superman, jumping over

395

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.
9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.
17.

buildings with Louise Lane in his arms, had been

superseded by the more correct translation 'Overman' in
recent translations of Nietzsche's work.
G. APOLLINAIRE, Oeuvres completes de Guillaume
Apollinaire, (Paris. 1965-1966), Vol. 1. 'L'Enchanteur
pourrisant, suivi des les mamelles de Tircsias de Couleurs
du Temps', pp. 609--611. English quotation from
1. GUICHARNAUD, Modern French Theatre, (London,
1975), p. 280.
GEORGES BATAILLE, 'La "vieille taupe" et Ie pretixe
"Sur" dans les mots "Surhomme" et "Surrealiste'" (1930).
English translation in GEORGES BAT AILLE, Visions
of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939, (Minneapolis,
1985), The "Old Mole" and the prefix "Sur" in the words
"Surhomme" (Ubermensch) and "Surrealist"', pp. 32-45.
Artaud's concept of 'Le Theatre et la peste' is significantly
influenced by Nietzsche's Dionysian principle. See A. &
O. VIRMAUX, Artaud: Unbilan critique, (Paris, 1979),
pp. 220--225.
D. BOAK, Andre Malraux, (London, 1968), pp. 180-214, argues that the most central aspects of Malraux's
theoretical work were decisively influenced by Nietzsche.
See R. DELAUNAY. 'Projet de Couverture',
Litterature, Vol. 3(18), Paris, March 1921, pp. 1-7.
See my essay H. lANSE VAN RENSBURG, 'Picabia
and Nietzsche', S.Afr.J.Cult.Art Hist., Vol. 1(4),
December 1987.
See my essay H. lANSE VAN RENSBURG, 'One night
on Montserrat: Religious ecstasy in the art of Andre
Masson', to be published.
Sec my essay H. lANSE VAN RENSBURG, 'Max Ernst,
the hundred headless woman and the eternal return',
to be published.
Sec A.D. SCHRIFT, Nietzsche and the question of
Interpretation: Hermeneutics, Deconstruction, Pluralism,
(Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1985).
See C. DEAN, 'Law and sacrifice: Bataille, Lacan, and
the critique of the subject", Re-Presentations, 13, Winter
1986.
Allan Stoekl translated Bataille's Visions of Excess:
Selected Writings 1927-1939 (Minneapolis, 1985); Story
of the Eye (London, 1979); Blue of Noon (London, 1978).
A. STOEKL, 'The Death of "Acephale" and the will to
change: Nietzsche in the texts of Bataille', Glyphs,
Baltimore, Vol. 6, 1979; A. STOEKL, Politics, Writing,
Mutilation; The Cases of Bataille, Blanchot, Roussel,
Leiris, and Ponge, (Minneapolis, 1985). Other significant
English commentaries on Bataille are M. RICHMAN,
Reading Georges Bataille; Beyond the Gift, (Baltimore,
1982) and C. DEAN, 'Law and sacrifice: Bataille, Lacan,
and the critique of the subject", Representations, 13,
Winter 1986. The latter essay considers violence in
Bataille's writings as a critique of a Cartesian concept of
subjectivity. against the background of the French
Psychoanalytic movement in the 1930s.
W. SPIES, Max Ernst, Collagen: Inventor und
Widersprach (K6In, 1975).
D. A. BIRMINGHAM, 'Masson's "Pasiphae": Eros and
the unity of the cosmos', Art Bulletin, Vol. 69(2), lune
1987.

Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2009).

396
18. R. KAUFMANN, 'Picasso's crucifixion of 1930',
Burlington Magazine, Vol. 111(798), September 1969; L.
GASMAN, Mystery, Magic and Love in Picasso, 19251938 (Michigan, 1983).
19. R. KRAUSS, 'Corpus Delicti', published in R. KRAUSS
& J. LIVINGSTON, L'Amour fou: Photography and
Surrealism, (New York, 1985).
20. ANDRE BRETON, quoted by C. LANCHNER, 'Andre
Masson: Origins and development', published in W.
RUBIN & c. LANCHNER, Andre Masson, (New York,
1976) p. 86.
21. See my essay H. JANSE V AN RENSBURG, 'Max Ernst,
the hundred headless woman and the eternal return',
to be published.
22. J. FRO IS-WITTMANN, 'L'Art Moderne et Ie principe
du Plaisir', Minotaure, Vol. 1(1), June 1933, pp. 68-69.
23. F. NIETZSCHE, The Will to Power, (Translated by W.
Kaufmann, New York, 1968), paragraph 1050, p. 539.
24. See my article H. J. V AN RENSBURG, 'Picabia and
Nietzsche', S.Afr.1.Cult.Art Hist., Vol. 1(4), December
1987.
25. G. RIBEMONT-DESSAIGNES, 'In Praise ofViolencc',
The Little Review, (London), Vol. 11-12, Spring and
Summer 1926, p. 40.
26. G. RIBEMONT-DESSAIGNES, Letter to A. Breton, 12
March 1929, after the Surrealist meeting at Bar du
Chateau, 11 March 1929. Quoted in M. NADEAU, The
History of Surrealism, (London, 1968), p. 158, note 5.
27. For a general review of the conflict between Breton and
Bataille, see M. NADEAU, The History of Surrealism,
(London, 1968), pp. 160--172.
28. A. BRETON, Manifest du Surrealisme, La Revolution
surrealiste, December 1929. English translation by R.
Seaver and H.R. Lane in A. BRETON, Manifestoes of
Surrealism, (Ann Arbor, 1969).
29. GEORGES BATAILLE, 'La "vieille taupe" et Ie pretixe
"Sur" dans les mots "Surhomme" et "Surrealiste"'. The
article was accepted for publication by the journal Bifur in
1930, but Bifur was c10scd down before Bataillc's article
could appear in print. However, the responses of amongst
others Breton and Dali suggest that copies of the article
were available for them. (See note 57.) The article was
published for the first time in Tel Quel in 1968. An English
translation is published in GEORGES BATAILLE,
Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939.
(Minneapolis, 1985), The "Old Mole" and the prefix
"Sur" in the words "Surbomme" (Ubermensch) and
"Surrealist"', pp. 39-40.
30. GEORGES BATAILLE, quoted by A. MASSON,
'Some notes on the unusual Georges Bataille', Art and
Literature, Vol. 3, Autumn and Winter 1964, pp.
108-109.
31. GEORGES BATAILLE, letter to Andre Breton, March
1929, quoted by M. NADEAU, The History of
Surrealism, (London, 1968), p. 156.
32. GEORGES BATAILLE, 'La "vieille taupe" et Ie pretixe
"Sur" dans les mots "Surhomme" et "Surrealiste''', English
translation published in GEORGES BATAILLE, Visions
of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939, (Minneapolis,
1985), 'The "Old Mole" and the prefix "Sur" in the words

S.-Afr.Tydskr.Kult.-Kunsgesk. 1989.3(4)
"Surhomme" (Ubermensch) and "Surrealist"', p. 41.
33. GEORGES BATAILLE, 'La "vieille taupe" et Ie pretixe
"Sur" dans les mots "Surhomme" et "Surrealiste ''', English
translation published in GEORGES BATAILLE, Visions
of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-1939, (Minneapolis,
1985), 'The "Old Mole" and the prefix "Sur" in the words
"Surhomme" (Ubermensch) and "Surrealist"', pp. 33-36.
34. G. GROSZ, in G. GROSZ & W. HERZFELDE, Die
Kunst ist in Gefahr, (Berlin 1925), English translation
quoted in H. JANSE V AN RENSBURG, 'Picabia and
Nietzsche', S.Afr.J.Cult.Art Hist, Vol. 1(4), December
1987, p. 364.
35. SALVADOR DALI, Diary ofa Genius, (London, 1966),
p.23.
36. SALVADOR DALI, Diary of a Genius, (London, 1966),
p.22.
37. GEORGES BATAILLE, Oeuvres completes (Paris,
1970), Vol. II, 'Dossier dc la polemique avec Andre
Brcton', p. 421.
38. SALVADOR DALI, leu Lugubre, 1929, exhibited at the
Galerie Goemans, November 1929.
39. GEORGES BATAILLE, 'Le "Jeu lugubre'", Documents,
8, December 1929, English translation published in G.
BAT AILLE, Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 19271939 (Minneapolis, 1985), The Lugubrious Game', p. 28.
40. GEORGES BATAILLE, Oeuvres completes, (Paris,
1970), Vol. II, 'Dossier de la polemique avec Andre
Breton', pp. 421-422. The double entendre also refers to
a confrontation that Dali had with thc Spanish prison
system before his arrival in Paris. Thc occurence, which
became part of Dali's reputation in Paris, is related in
SALVADOR DALI, Diary ofa Genius, (London, 1966),
first section.
41. GEORGES BATAILLE, 'Le "Jeu lugubre"', Documents,
8, December 1929, English translation published in G.
BAT AILLE, Visions of Excess Selected Writings, 19271939, (Minneapolis, 1985), Thc Lugubrious Game',
p.28.
42. GEORGES BATAILLE, 'Le "Jeu lugubre''', Documents,
8, December 1929, English translation published in G.
BAT AILLE, Visions of Excess; Selected Writings, 19271939, (Minneapolis, 1985) , The Lugubrious Game', pp.
24 & 28. Dali refused reproduction rights of his painting
for the publication of the essay.
43. GEORGES BAT AILLE, 'Le bas materialisme et la
gnose', Documents, 2(1), 1930. English translation in G.
BATAILLE, Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 19271939, (Minneapolis, 1985). 'Base Materialism and
Gnosticism', p, 45.
44. GEORGES BATAILLE, 'Le bas materialisme et la
gnose', Documents, 2(1),1930. English translation in G.
BATAILLE, Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 19271939, (Minneapolis, 1985), 'Base Materialism and
Gnosticism', pp. 49-52.
45. SALVADOR DALI, 'The Stinking Ass', This Quarter,
5(1), September 1932, also published in L.R. LIPPARD,
Surrealists on Art, (Ncw Jersey, 1970), p. 98.
46. MARTIN HEIDEGGER, 'Spiegelgesprach mit Martin
Heidegger', Der Spiegel, Vol. 23, 1976, p. 204.
Heidegger's lectures on Nietzschc were published as M.

Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2009).

S.Afr.J.Cult.Art Hist. 1989,3(4)

HEIDEGGER, Nietzsche, (4 volumes, Berlin, 1961).
37. SALVADOR DALI, Diary ofa Genius, (London, 1966),
p.25.
48. Dali formulates paranoiac-critical activity as the
'spontaneous method of irrational knowledge based upon
the interpretive-critical association of delirious
phenomena'. SALVADOR DALI, La Conqui3te de
L'irrationel, lecture in Brussels, June 1934. English
translation published in SALVADOR DALI, The Secret
life of Salvador Dali, (London, 1968), p. 418. The method
is partly based on Nietzsche's concept of Dionysian
'Rausch'.
49. SALVADOR DALI, Diary of a Genius, (London, 1966),
p.30.
50. See discussion note 38 above.
51. See in particular GEORGES BAT AILLE, 'La structure
psychologique du fascisme', La Critique sociale, 10,
November 1933; and 'Nietzsche et les fascistes',
Aeephale, 2, January 1937; English translations in
GEORGES BATAILLE, Visions of Excess; Selected
Writings, 1927-1939, (Minneapolis, 1985), 'The
psychological structure of Fascism' and 'Nietzsche and the
Fascists', pp. 137-161, and pp. 182-198.
52. See note 44 above. Despite his criticism of Bataille, Dali
acclaims Nietzsche as the source of his own interest in
myth and legend. See G. LASCAUL T, 'Eine
Scheherazade des Klebrigen zu den Texten von Salvador
Dali', published in I.F. WALTER, Salvador Dali:
Retrospektive 1920-1980, (Munchen, 1980).
53. For Giacometti's response to Bataille's images of
primitivism, see R. KRAUS, The Originality of the AvantGarde and other Modernist Myths, (London, 1986), pp.
76-85. Masson's response to Bataille is discussed in my
essay H. JANSE VAN RENSBURG, 'One night on
Montserrat: Religious ecstasy in the art of Andre
Masson', to be published. Picasso's response to Bataille is
discussed in H. JANSE VAN RENSBURG, 'Picasso's
Vollard Suite and a Dionysian view of art', to be
published, and H. JANSE VAN RENSBURG, 'Picasso's
Ariadne, light in the Surrealist labyrinth', to be published.
54. The interpretation of the work of Sade is a further point of
controversy between Bataille and Breton in 1929-1930.
Once again a smear of faeces painted in on the pants of a
figure in Dali's The Lugubrious Game is part of the
controversy.
55. ANDRE MASSON, 'Some notes on the unusual Georges
Bataille', Art and Literature, Vol. 3, Autumn and Winter
1964, p. 111.
56. A. SKIRA, Introduction, Minotaure, 1, June 1933. Freely
translated.
57. GEORGES BATAILLE, 'La structure psychologique du
fascisme', La Critique Sociale, 10, November 1933,
English translation in GEORGES BATAILLE, Visions
of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939, (Minneapolis,
1985), The Psychological structure of Fascism', pp. 14245.
58. See M. MAUSS, 'Essai sur Ie don, form archaique de
I'cchange', Annee sociologique, 1925. Mauss is
acknowledged in GEORGES BATAILLE, 'La notion de
depense', La Critique Sociale, no. 7, January 1933, p. 15.

397

59.

60.
61.
62.

63.

64.

65.

66.

67.

68.

69.
70.

71.

Nietzsche's influence is later acknowledged in G.

BATAILLE, 'Chronique nietzscheen', Acephale no. 3-4,
July 1937.
'Appel a la lutte', 10th February 1934, see M.
NADEAU, L'Histoire du surrealisme et documents
surrealistes, (Paris, 1964), pp. 381-386.
GEORGES BATAILLE, Oeuvres completes, (Paris,
1970), Vol. 1, notes, pp. 640-641.
GEORGES BATAILLE, Oeuvres completes, (Paris,
1970), Vol. 7, 'Notice autobiographique' (1958), p. 461.
A. MASSON, 'Some notes on the unusual Georges
Bataille', Art and Literature, Vol. 3, Spring and Winter
1964, p. 107.
See the discussion in my article H. JANSE V AN
RENSBURG, 'One night on Montserrat: Religious
ecstasy in the art of Andre Masson', to be published. The
drawing Dionysos of 1933 appears in A. MASSON,
Sacrifices (Paris, 1936) with an introduction entitled
'Sacrifices', by Bataille.
GEORGES BAT AILLE, 'Nietzsche et les fascistes',
Acephale, 2, January 1937, English translation in
GEORGES BAT AILLE, Visions of Excess: Selected
Writings. 1927-1939, (Minneapolis, 1985), 'Nietzsche
and the Fascists', pp. 185-186.
GEORGES BATAILLE, 'L'obelisque', Mesures, 4(2),
15 April 1938, English translation in GEORGES
BATAILLE, Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927/939, (Minneapolis, 1985), The Obelisk', p. 219.
GEORGES BAT AILLE, 'Chronique nietzseheen',
A cephale , 3-4, July 1937, English translation in
GEORGES BATAILLE, Visions of Excess: Selected
Writings, 1927-1939, (Minneapolis, 1985), 'Nietzsche an
Chronicle', p. 210.
GEORGES BATAILLE, 'Propositions', Acephale, 2,
January 1937, English translation in GEORGES
BATAILLE, Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927/939, (Minneapolis, 1985), 'Propositions', p. 200.
GEORGES BATAILLE, 'Chronique nietzscheen',
Acephale, 3-4, July 1937, English translation in
GEORGES BATAILLE, Visions of Excess: Selected
Writings, 1927-1939, (Minneapolis, 1985), 'Nietzschean
Chronicle', p. 203.
See F. NIETZSCHE, The Birth of Tragedy, (Translated
by F. Golffing, New York, 1964) paraf. 1, pp. 22-24.
GEORGES BAT AILLE, 'Chronique nietzseheen',
Acephale, 3-4, July 1937, English translation in
GEORGES BAT AILLE, Visions of Excess: Selected
Writings, 1927-1939, (Minneapolis, 1985), 'Nietzschean
Chronicle', p. 206, emphasis by Bataille.
GEORGES BATAILLE, 'L'Apprenti sorcier', Nouvelle
Revue Francaise, 298, July 1938, English translation in G.
BATAILLE, Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 19271939, (Minneapolis, 1985), The Sorcerer's Apprentice',
p. 232. This is Bataille's only article to appear in Nouvelle
Revue Francaise before the war, which was the leading
intellectual review at the time. Bataille's article appeared
along with Michel Leiris' 'Le Sacre dans la vie
quotidienne', and Roger Callois' 'Le Vent d'hiver',
signaling to the public the activities of the College de
Sociologie.

Reproduced by Sabinet Gateway under licence granted by the Publisher (dated 2009).

398
72. GEORGES BATAILLE, Oeuvres completes (Paris,
1970), Vol. II, 'Instructions pour la "recontre" en foret',
pp. 277-278.
73. R. CALLOIS, 'The "College de Sociologie": Paradox of
an active Sociology', Sub-stance, Vol. 11 & 12, 1975, pp.
61-64.
74. M. LEIRIS, letter to Georges Bataille, 1939, published in
GEORGES BATAILLE, Oeuvres completes, (Paris,
1970), Vol. II, pp. 454-455.
75. See my article H. lANSE VAN RENSBURG, 'One night
on Montserrat: Religious Ecstasy in the art of Andre
Masson', to be published.
76. GEORGES BATAILLE, 'L'obelisque', Mesures, 4(2),

S.-Afr.Tydskr.Kult.-Kunsgesk. 1989,3(4)
15 April 1938, English translation in GEORGES
BATAILLE, Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 19271939, (Minneapolis, 1985), 'The Obelisk', pp. 219-220.
77. ANDRE BRETON, quoted by W. CHADWICK, Myth

in Surrealist Painting, (Michigan, 1980), p. 2.

78. ANDRE BRETON, 'The Legendary Life of Max Ernst,
preceded by a brief discussion on the need for a new
Myth', View, Vol. 2(1), May 1942.
79. More detailed explorations of the response to Nietzsche in
Surrealist art, and Bataille's interaction with and
influence on Surrealist art, will be presented in
forthcoming articles.