In the collective imagination of yesterday and today, “cruel art” mirrors an impressive number of images that punctuate the history of art: in this way, crucifixions, martyrdoms, wounds, scenes of torture and massacres have come down through the centuries. Contemporary creation also explores this theme : since cruelty is at the heart of the human being, as many thinkers repeat over and over again, it haunts art. To bear witness to the brutality of the world has thus been a permanent challenge that artists have tried to take up, by showing cruelty naked or disguised. In all periods, they are witnesses to it, and sometimes even victims of it. Art can be a sacrifice, and art then rhymes with life.