The slaughterhouse
The slaughterhouse is a place where death hovers and bodies are ritualistically
fragmented into useful and useless parts. Gravity resembles the perishable and the
temporary.
For centuries humans have considered meat as a highly important nutritional aspect
in daily life, by placing it at different positions in the food chain depending on the
value and ethics of every society. In the 16th century in central Europe meat was a
relatively expensive and not easily accessible food, thus generating a significant urge
and desire to consume it. Correspondingly, at the same time, in an overly strict
Christian society, a strong dilemma was placed weather someone’s desire to
consume meat endangered the soul’s corruption and condemnation after death. This
intrigued many artists, like Pieter Aertsen, in whose work “Butcher's Stall with the
Flight into Egypt” (1551), these beliefs are portrayed. Rembrandt, however, gave
another dimension to the painted slain cow, showing a characteristic resemblance to
depictions of the crucifixion.
This in turn was what enabled the next generations of artists to associate the topic
with pain and sacrifice scene, having the distortion of body organs as an example of
the slaughtered animal. Each animal is sacrificed for consuming. The man on the
other hand, is sacrificed for the man himself. Francis Bacon, facing the slaughtered
animal bodies, portrayed the anguish of human existence through the deformation.
All are subject to the same physical entity. All are flesh, and we are too. We are
bodies that recycle blood.