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“But the Image Wants Danger”: Georges Bataille, Werner Herzog, and Poetical Response to Paleoart

Abstract The high-profile theatrical release of Werner Herzog's feature-length documentary film Cave of Forgotten Dreams in Spring 2011 invites reflection on the way in which paleoart is and has been engaged with at a cultural level. By Herzog's own account, the film falls on the side of poetry, rather than science. This article considers what is at stake in a “poetical” engagement with the scientific findings concerning paleoart and argues that such approaches harbor value for humanity's understanding of its own history. To this end, Herzog's work is brought into dialogue with Georges Bataille's writing on paleoart, in particular, Lascaux—a precedent of poetical engagement.