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7 NoFo 1 (2010)

handle is hein.journals/nfdnsaisy7 and id is 1 raw text is: Editorial G eorges Bataille's text Lascaux, or the Birth ofArt (1955) accompanies a pho- tography book on the cave paintings that were found in 1940 in Lascaux, France. In this text, Bataille envisions the making of art as something that tran- scends the limits of the world. The delimited world, in turn, is established and recreated by another human activity: work. In this text, Bataille ventures no less than a reconstruction of a general theory on the formation of humanity. The field is prehistoric anthropology. Untroubled by uncertainties, he simply draws on a selection of facts and proceeds to his brave, bold theory. Bataille's very own interest in the 'diabolic' features of human life is clearly perceptible. His construction of a prehistory of art, mim- icking the objective style of science, is nonetheless eloquent. Sweeping through different but always huge divisions of prehistoric time, he theorizes on glacial periods, invokes reindeers' recurring migrations, argues about archeological find- ings of stone crafting, burial places, shapes of the human neck in skeletons, and so forth. Eventually, Bataille weaves it all into a fascinating and at least internally consistent narrative. The tale is full of vision. The basic division outlined in the Lascaux text is that of two different human worlds, the world of work and the world of art. The world of work emerged first, followed by the world of art. These are the 'two capital events in the human his- tory' (Bataille 1958, 25). Together, they make humanity distinguishable from animality. Needless to say, these worlds of work and art constitute for Bataille not only consequent stages in human history, but the duplicate, polarized human condition that has prevailed ever since. The world ofwork emerged 500,000 years ago when humans started to make tools. Soon after, they started to make tools for the making of more tools. This created and cultivated in human character a new quality, a kind of general reserv- edness. To make tools, one must be able to curb one's desire. The maker of tools had to calm the raving feelings of hunger, sex and killing, and abstain from their direct satisfaction. One had to postpone, suspend the satisfaction, look forward and wait. The faculty of patience emerged and started to advance in humanity.

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