The Severed Head: Capital Visions

by Julia Kristeva, Jody Gladding (Translator)

Informed by a provocative exhibition at the Louvre curated by the author, The Severed Head unpacks artistic representations of severed heads from the Paleolithic period to the present. Surveying paintings, sculptures, and drawings, Julia Kristeva turns her famed critical eye to a study of the head as symbol and metaphor, as religious object and physical fact, further developing a critical theme in her work--the power of horror--and the potential for the face to provide an experience of the sacred.

Kristeva considers the head as icon, artifact, and locus of thought, seeking a keener understanding of the violence and desire that drives us to sever, and in some cases keep, such a potent object. Her study stretches all the way back to 6,000 B.C.E., with humans' early decoration and worship of skulls, and follows with the Medusa myth; the mandylion of Laon (a holy relic in which the face of a saint appears on a piece of cloth); the biblical story of John the Baptist and his counterpart, Salome; tales of the guillotine; modern murder mysteries; and even the rhetoric surrounding the fight for and against capital punishment. Kristeva interprets these "capital visions" through the lens of psychoanalysis, drawing infinite connections between their manifestation and sacred experience and very much affirming the possibility of the sacred, even in an era of "faceless" interaction.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Art, Theory, France, Art History, Psychoanalysis

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Julia Kristeva is professor emerita of linguistics at the Université de Paris VII and author of many acclaimed works. Her Columbia University Press books include Hatred and Forgiveness (2012); The Severed Head: Capital Visions (2014); and, with Philippe Sollers, Marriage as a Fine Art (2016).

Reviews

[Larry Ggggggggggggggggggggggggg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I probably only understand 1/3 of this but the history of skulls being used as art is cool

[Proustitute (on hiatus) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A remarkable examination of culture's fascination with severed heads. Kristeva begins with pre-Homo sapiens skull cults, and makes a very convincing argument that Freud failed to see the feminine in the totemic meal. If, for Freud, the eating of the father's brains signified the sons' desire to assimilate his power, for Kristeva it signifies both this as well as the primal infant's orality in coming to terms with the disappearance of the mother, prior to language and acculturation. So the head is both masculine and feminine, and Kristeva sweeps this much needed feminist and aesthetic intervention along with an examination of the decapitation of Medusa; art works ranging from Caravaggio to Artemisia Gentilischi���all the while considering how the head, the corporal seat of reason and power, comes to approximate our infantile fears of abandonment, our anxieties about ourselves, and our masochistic drive to destroy all reminders of our weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

[Blaze-Pascal · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this book.

Kristeva curated an exhibition in the Louvre in the 90's. This book is basically the thoughts she was thinking when she curated the book. How deep is the relationship with the severed head in Western society? Probably as deep as our relationship before history. The entire semiotics approach that Kristeva takes is the cut that Saussure proposed, n'est pas? The painter is cut from the representation of the image... the image is out there in a sense.

Kristeva follows this up, with the idea of the icon in Byzantium culture. This is an area of interest I am not familiar with, but Kristeva seems to take a historical stance on understanding our relationship with images. Perhaps, as a Lacanian student, I find this problematic. However, I think Kristeva likes to play between different understandings, sometimes emphasizing psychoanlytic, sometimes historical, but always rooted within the french of structuralist thought of the 1960's.

I also sense, that Kristeva at this period of her work, speaks to a feminist audience. Kristeva I think has in some ways been adopted against will by feminist thinkers. Kristeva however, I think, is opposed to identity politics, in the same way Hannah Arendt is. However, we need to speak to the readers (the very few readers) who are reading our work, and supporting our career. I don't disagree with anything she says with regards to women and decapitation, especially I find the idea interesting that Picasso always has his female figures decapitated in some way. But I think Kristeva could be deeper and more critical if she really wanted to on these topics, and rather remains a bit mysterious and ambiguous leaving us questions rather than deep explanations which leave the work open for interpretations from multiple views. (this is just my sense however, and may be a reflection of my Lacanianess).

I was inspired by the work, and will continue to read and digest Kristeva's thought, even if that means I will continually realize how the two of us differ. I will be referring to this book again and it was worth my time very much. 4/5 stars

[Yana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Дочитала книгу «The Severed Head: Capital Visions» Юлії Крістєвої — і маю багато вражень.

Найперше спостерігаємо гру слів: «capital» від лат. «caput» — голова і «сapital» як зібрання символів, образів, історій. Власне це про візії, у яких накопичується вся сила культури і яка може бути відкинута або перетворена на гротеск (перформативне мистецтво, сюрреалізм тощо).

Образ відрубаної голови проходить в есеї крізь історію західного мистецтва, релігії, політики, сексуальності та субʼєктності — від античності до сучасності.

У культурній уяві Заходу відсічена голова — це не лише про фізичне насильство, а й про знаковий жест, що означає жертву або трансцеденцію, покарання і приниження, розрив між тілом і розумом, знищення індивідуального «я» або — навпаки — його звільнення.

Еволюція образів, міфів та філософських концептів, створених довкола образу відтятої голови, простежується, головним чином, у фігурах Юдит, Івана Хрестителя, Медузи, творах Макса Ернста, Пікассо, Бейкона і так далі.

Крістєва, працюючи у традиції психоаналізу, постструктуралізму та феноменології, ставить обезголовлення у фокус конфлікту між свідомим і несвідомим, Еросом і Танатосом, іконопочитанням та іконоборством, фемінністю і маскулінністю влади, релігією і секулярним мистецтвом. А ще обезголовлення — це модус депресивної субʼєктності: втрата обʼєкта любові, втрата себе, що народжує слово, образ, мислення.

Обезголовлення бачимо у християнській традиції. Тут це стає сакральним актом: тіло зневажено, голова — прославлена. Голова — як осередок логосу і спірітусу.

У політичному контексті образ відсіченої голови актуалізувала Французька революція. Це — кара за владу, проте і народження нового громадянства через руйнування старого ладу. З іншого боку, у самому акті зневажено божественність тирана.

Крістєва зауважує високу частотність саме жіночого обезголовлення у західній культурі, повʼязуючи це з тим, що жінка часто фігурує як обʼєкт бажання без голосу і субʼєктності і як загроза, що повинна бути приборкана.

Тут цікавими є жіночі екстреми Саломеї та Медузи. Це два архетипи жіночого бажання і жаху, які водночас перекликаються і протиставляються. Саломея — утілення спокуси і смерті, голова Хрестителя стає її еротизованим трофеєм. Для Крістєвої це образ передусім жінки як ікони, що спокушає та усуває чоловіка. Це про небезпеку жіночого бажання, що реалізується не як слово, а як жест. Натомість Медуза — архетип жінки, якої боїться культура. Вона занадто тілесна, могутня і незрозуміла. Обезголовлення Медузи як акт культурного подолання первісного страху перед жіночим началом.

Однак у Крістєвої відсічена голова є не лише образом насильства, а й візуальним свідченням кризи репрезентації. У західній культурі голова — осередок розуму та логосу. За модерну, це звільнення тіла від диктату голови або — як катастрофа: бо тіло без голови стає монстром та обʼєктом фетишу.

Відсічення голови, отже, є запереченням субʼєкта, падінням Я і кінцем говоріння.

Нині ми оточені зображеннями, та вони все рідше щось означають. Втрата «голови» — символ того, що візуальне більше не привʼязане до сенсу. Власне, це образ культури, яка втратила орієнтири, яка «говорить», але не має що «сказати». Зображення без голови — безцентрове, але не зникаюче. Його повторюють знову і знову, тому що це рештки сенсу в культурі, що переживає втому від надлишку сенсу.

Сучасне мистецтво, яке «відʼєднує» голову, фетишизує, робить обʼєктом перформансу, вже не «зображує», а виставляє саму кризу зображення.

Водночас Крістєва не зупиняється на констатації розриву, а закликає до переосмислення субʼєктності (афективної), визнання тілесності, травми і втрати, до поліфонії і множинності на місці втраченого логосу. Образ, що зображує знищення репрезентації, сам стає формою мислення.

[Lily · Rating 4 out of 5]

A psychoanalytical reflection on the depiction of severed heads in ancient through modern art and how such representations of the skull both evoke and sublimate our fear of death. This is an interesting book, particularly if one is generally familiar with the psychoanalytical lens that Kristeva applies, but nonetheless it is not too hard to follow. There are some fascinating observations and interpretations; For example, in the fourth chapter Kristeva draws an intriguing connection between Jesus, the feminine, and Medusa, positing how iconography transfers the invisible into the realm of the visible through the fixed economy of icons, or in the seventh chapter, where she analyzes images of beheading from the French Revolution. The sheer number of artistic representations that Kristeva draws upon can seem intimidating, but there is a captivating and delicate attention to meaningful details in every single example that makes grappling with this book worthwhile.

[Ishaan Saxena · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third chapter of this book "Qui est Méduse?" or "Who is Medusa?" is a fabulous companion piece to Hélène Cixous' "Le Rire de la Méduse" or "The Laugh of (the) Medusa".

If I had to design a course on (French/Continental) Feminist Philosophy, these would be the two readings for the second lecture :)

[Viktoria Winter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Kristeva’s writing and this was a particularly interesting topic to read about through her own words. Packed with history and observation, I feel as though I annotated almost every page. If you’re a fan of her Abjection theory, you should definitely give this a try.

[chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Various populations currently studied by ethnologists as well as pre-historians consume an animal, "the totem," considered to be a member of the clan, in order to reinforce both the physical identity of the clan's ties and its ties to the divine. Freud interpreted the totemic meal in this way: the prohibition against murder had already been established, but, under special circumstances, the group allowed itself to represent a fundamental murder that had to, in reality, take place. His hypothesis returns us to the Lower Paleolithic: later the totemic meal served only to displace and celebrate the actual murder and consumption of the primitive horde's father, as evoked by Darwin. Basically Freud tells us that eating the father-tyrant, who arbitrarily possessed all the women and all the power, might have been the only way to internalize his power: not by suppressing it but by perpetuating it in modifying it, by stripping it from the father to exercise it collectively in his place. Eating the father, his brain, head, entire body, finally amounts to eliminating his arbitrary nature and, through this new violence, creating... social bonds in place of barbarity: a culture in the place of tyranny. From which follow closely the social pact, culture, and interiority of humans capable, after many repetitions of this rite of consumption-internalization-assimilation, of deferring their drives, representing them, memorizing them, managing them. The "action," which was originally an action of cutting, devouring, murderous as it was, is gradually transformed into representation, into "idea."
-- ""The Skull: Cult and Art"

Ovid insists upon the petrification of the plants that Medusa's blood transforms into coral. Before washing his hands, Perseus delicately sets the serpent-crowned head onto a bed of leaves so that it won't be injured. But, on contact, the supple seaweed stems absorb the monster's power and harden. Henceforth, coral -- called gorgonion in Greek -- possesses the property of becoming mineral if it is exposed to air. In water, its branches are flexible, but as soon as it emerges it turns to stone, saxum. In Ovid, it is the Gorgon's contagious touch, tactu, that petrifies, but in other versions, it is her gaze. Medusa's coral victim? Greek uses the word gorgoneion, parallel to gorgonion, to designate the fixed, visible image of a living original, inaccessible to view. The generic word coralcould come from coré, which means "young girl," like Medusa; or it might be an allusion to Coré-Persephone, the queen of the dead, to whom the severed head of the Gorgon belongs...
Anthropologists and art historians have not failed to point out that this slimy head, surrounded by coiled snake hair, evokes the female sexual organ -- the maternal vulva that terrifies the young boy if he happens to "eye it." Freud discerns there the fascination and horror that female castration prompts just as much as the genital power of the mother, original valley of humans. In unpacking the medusan symbolism, however, we cannot forget to pause at the eye; Medusa-Gorgon cannot be viewed, her look petrifies, her eye brings misfortune; an evil eye, it kills. Female vulva, Medusa's head is a slimy, swollen, sticky eye, a black hole, its immobile iris surrounded by ragged lips, folds, pubic hair.
-- "Who Is Medusa?"

Drawing ennobles and lightens: bloodless, Salome's seduction is barely hinted at in the folds of her dress, and John the Baptist's face is only suggested, with brown ink, by the fleeting pen of Michelangelo Buonarroti. A beheading for Michelangelo? The setting is occupied only by her: the dancer. Hardly visible, the saint becomes blurred: who was this again? Most sovereign of all, Rembrandt, still using brown ink, but with sharp lines this time, cuts across the right angle at the top of the page, as if the intransigent sword were laying bare his own universe, while delicately, as if to escape from the picture, a dream-like line below suggests the trembling of the headless body, the bodiless heady.
These graphic figurations are true "economies" in the sense that icons gave to this word: transubstantiations of the tortured prophet into lines, and lines into palpable cuts.
That suffering can be nothing more than a passage to serenity, that the most barbaric decapitation can prefigure a delicious peace -- one promised by the new religion, one that the artist, perpetuated by this work, hopes to win after death? Andrea Solario's splendid drawing, more and better than any other, suggests this. His severed head is already in ecstasy. The triumph of sublimated sadomasochism? Devotional self-contemplation? Perhaps.
-- "The Ideal Figure; or, A Prophesy in Actuality: Saint John the Baptist"

The power of horror is contagious. It figures but it disfigures as well: the source of a resurgence in our representations that cut through the forms, contours to expose the pulsing flesh. From disfiguration to expressionism, to abstraction, to minimalism -- and back. When Grunewald paints a bald, clean-shaven, grimacing Man's Head, he inscribes an imbecilic agony into this effigy sticking out its dumbfounded tongue, into these creased wildcat eyes, and into the furrowed skin of the cheeks, to the point of morbid pleasure. Fascination and abjection, ecstasy and vomit -- pain has neither subject nor object: between the two, it corrupts, and spreads. But Grunewald could not have known that an identical vision would surface in 1903 with Picasso and his Head of a Crying Woman. With her tongueless mouth and seemingly severed head, the woman is leaning back a little, her eyes are more painful, the felt horror stands out, incurved, invaginated: eagerness turns to ecstatic contemplation. Meanwhile, spare symbolist Puvis de Chavannes draws, with black pencil, pen, and red chalk, highlighted with white gouache, an orgasm bordering on tears, unless this is suffering disguised as pleasure. Closer to us, who doesn't recognize the serialized head of Marilyn Monroe or her mouth, cut out and copied by Andy Warhol: the most seductive of stars available to billions of viewers, unless that's suicide on her lips?
-- "Powers of Horror"

And my head rises
Solitary look-out
In the triumphal flights
Of this scythe

As clean rupture
Rather repulses or severs
Ancient discords
With the body.
-- Stéphane Mallarmé, Hérodiade

Inner experience is a transubstantiation that necessitates a beheading, a traversal of consciousness so that the inferno of the void can be revealed.
-- "The Face and the Experience of Limits"

[Senia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting for sure and the history presented within is fascinating, but Kristeva is in fact a serious Freudian which I just can't get behind.

[Rhonda Milton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this after it was discussed in The English Heretic Collection and its a marvellous whirlwind through the coils of the female severed head. I think it was written for a catalogue and there’s a pace to it that needs acclimatising to, but once your in her headspace then its infectious. One of those books you annoyingly/wonderfully could reference every point on the page. Damn I wish I could replace my head with Kristeva’s

[Rubí · Rating 4 out of 5]

good theory. challenging and short read. Took me a bit to understand her writing style/rhythm/voice but really enjoyed once i did

[Kevin · Rating 3 out of 5]

head

[Jade Aslain]

If you like Bataille... if you like to contemplate death... If you are curious about the metaphysics of the passage from the invisible to the visible, the economy of the icon... If you are interested in the path of incarnation, or the interplay between the ephemeral and permanence... If you strain yourself to find the limits of representation, either in language or in imprinted image, to find what escapes representation, to know what fades after the face is frozen by death --how each of us really has more than one face, none of which are captured in the severed head... Then this book is for YOU.

I just adore Julia Kristeva. For those of you who shy away from Freud, Lacan, Klein, etc., you can forget about them: although Kristeva makes use of them here and there, they are not terribly important --and in so many wonderful ways, Kristeva transcends their idiotic dogmatisms. She is much closer to Bataille, or even the younger Wilhelm Reich.

[R.J. Gilmour · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kristeva looks at the symbolism and history of decapitation by looking at how decapitated heads have been used in art and literature.

[Shane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kristeva's study into decapitation, its history, and the morbid fascination it holds is told with an artistic flair for writing. The book, and the associated images from art history that the author draws upon, is brilliantly engaging. Her wit is also scattered throughout: she never severs her train of thought.