Crime & châtiment by Jean Clair.Publication Date: 2010.
From March-June 2010, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris held an exhibition titled Crime and Punishment, which took its name from Dostoevsky’s novel and examined the theme of criminal characters in literature from 1791-1981. The dates coincide with L.-M. Lepeletier de Saint-Fargeau’s call for the abolition of the death penalty in 1791, and its eventual abolition in France in 1981. The works of Goya, Géricault, Picasso, and Magritte were used to trace the evolution of the criminal through the lens of scientific, psychological, and metaphysical debates about murder that took place during this turbulent period.
The project was the brainchild of French criminal lawyer, professor, and politician Robert Badinter, who spent his career opposing the death penalty as a member of the Socialist Party. It was, however, the essayist and art historian Jean Clair (pen name of Gérard Régnier), who served as curator to the exhibition, and who chose the Dostoevskian theme. The edition of the catalogue featured here includes a number of essays by leading French academics and artists. Such themes as "Thou shalt not kill," "Figures of Romantic crime", and "Justice," point towards "Crime and Punishment" as a work of central cultural importance in debates over criminality and the criminal.