LA DAMA DUENDE [THE PHANTOM LADY]

Abstract

From his very earliest writings, art was always important for Georges Bataille. Rather than something static, art, for Bataille, always involves an experience and an exigency towards freedom and even the impossible. It was apparent from the very form of Bataille’s art review Documents, which juxtaposed heterogeneous images, texts and topics, that art was intended as an experience. Bataille found in Andalusia the kind of art that triggers an exigency, an excess or a form of ecstasy in the viewer or the participant, from the paintings of Picasso to flamenco performances. Art that evokes the potency for interior uprising is given form in the various figures of fleeting spirits, such as the will-o’-the-wisp or the genie called duende, as described by Lorca in “Play and Theory of the Duende” and illustrated in Calderón’s La dama duende [The Phantom Lady]. Bataille, who was moved by a performance he had witnessed at the Moulin Rouge, compared the spirited dance of the performers to the will-o’-the-wisps, the spirits that suddenly appear to unsuspecting wanderers, luring them off their path. Born in the marshes where the dead are buried, will-o’-the-wisps flare up, evoking an exigency in whoever beholds them. Thus, the will-o’-the-wisp or the duende exemplifies the potency of images, their flaring and fading away, and their ability to move us.

Keywords:

• Georges Bataille
• art
• duende
• Calderón
• Lorca

disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

This text served as the preface to a collection of Georges Bataille’s writings titled Bataille. Courts écrits sur l’art (Paris: Lignes, 2017). Taylor & Francis would like to thank Sébastien Raimondi at Éditions Lignes for kind permission to publish the translation of the original text in this present issue of Angelaki.

1 Editor’s note: Didi-Huberman refers specifically to the “Foire au jambon et à la ferraille.”

2 Bataille’s text appeared, in fact, in the sole issue of Actualités, a review he had founded and which was intended to defend “L’Espagne libre.” Among others, Albert Camus, Jean Cassou and Maurice Blanchot were involved. Cf. M. Surya, Georges Bataille, la mort à l’œuvre (Paris: Gallimard, 1992) 664. I have written a commentary on this text, titled “L’Œil de l’expérience” [2004] in Vivre le sens (Paris: Centre Roland Barthes–Seuil, 2008) 147–77.

3 Compare with A. Métraux, “Rencontre avec les ethnologues,” Critique XIX (1963): 195–96.

4 Translator’s note: the French term genre covers both meanings.

5 See, for example: Bataille, “L’Art primitif”; “Le Passage de l’animal à l’homme et la naissance de l’art”; “Au rendez-vous de Lascaux, l’homme civilisé se retrouve homme de désir”; Lascaux ou la naissance de l’art.

6 See, for example, Bataille, “Soleil pourri”; “La Mutilation sacrificielle et l’oreille coupée de Vincent Van Gogh”; “Van Gogh Prométhée”; “Les Mangeurs d’étoiles.”