French Literature Reviews - 2026
É. Michaud, La fin du salut par l'image, et autres textes (éd. augmentée)
Art and Visual Culture
Éric Michaud
La fin du salut par l'image et autres textes
Revised and expanded edition
Published on 11/11/2020
416 p. — EAN: 9782081508002
Established by Christian theology, the salvific function of the image was revived by the Romantics following the proclamation of the "death of God." In this book, three distinct sequences (Save – Unify – Devour) trace the recent history of this function. From the individual salvation of the artist with Eugène Delacroix to the salvation of the "people" through art with Fernand Léger or the Bauhaus, artistic activity has exhausted its promises of happiness, oscillating between the invention of an elusive present and that of a total work of art that ultimately proves destructive.
Yet, after Lucio Fontana pushed the "end of God" even further to assert the limitless freedom of art, and after Joseph Beuys once more enacted the consuming identification of aesthetics with politics, any myth of redemption and future unification seemed to have vanished from artistic practice. Art now presents itself as a sheer desire for survival, here and now, governed by the immanence of market competition.
View the book on the publisher's website…
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An article discussing this book can be read on nonfiction.fr:
The concept of the image as a vehicle for salvation is rooted in Christian theology. Following the nineteenth-century declaration of the death of God, Romantic thinkers sought to transpose this redemptive potential into the realm of secular aesthetics. La fin du salut par l'image et autres textes traces a trajectory from the individual quest for meaning in the work of Eugène Delacroix to the collective ambitions of the Bauhaus and Fernand Léger, highlighting the tension between art as a promise of societal happiness and its tendency toward totalizing, destructive impulses.
The text examines the shift from early modern idealism to a contemporary landscape where the myth of artistic redemption has been challenged by figures such as Lucio Fontana and Joseph Beuys. The volume suggests that the aspiration for future unification has been replaced by a focus on immediate survival within the constraints of market competition. Readers interested in the intersection of aesthetics, theology, and the history of modern art movements may find this collection of essays relevant to their inquiries.
"What Does Art Actualize?", by Christian Ruby (published online on December 21, 2020).