Ever since the Inquisition, Spain has been associated with imaginative forms of torture. Now, art historian Jose Milicua has discovered that during the Spanish Civil War abstract Modern art was used to torment victims, with the intention of reducing them to a state of madness. Mr Milicua interviewed Alfonso Laurencic, an "artist" commissioned to produce some of these terrifying installations in a prison in Barcelona. Political prisoners were submitted to a type of somewhat avant-garde torture: the "psycho technical method", which consisted in confining the unfortunate men in spaces measuring two metres in height and one and a half metres in width. The walls were decorated with decorative abstract patterns, closely related to the work of Kandinsky and the Constructivists1, which were supposed to blow their minds and damage their sight (the "sea-sick" effect of some Op art2 is well documented). Beds were placed at a 20 degree angle, making them near impossible to sleep on, and the floors was scattered with bricks to prevent prisoners from walking backwards and forwards. The only option left to them was staring at the walls. More technological were the methods applied in prisons in Murcia. Here, according to the evidence of ex-prisoners, a non-stop film showed a human eye sliced by a straight razor blade: echoes of Luis Bu杣el and Salvador Dali's film Un chien andalou,3 first shown in Spain in 1929.

1． Kandinsky：瓦西里·康定斯基（Wassily Kandinsky，1866-1944），俄国抽象派画家。构成主义（constructivism）1920年源于莫斯科的现代艺术流派，以使用玻璃、金属薄板和塑料等工业材料来创作非写实性且常为几何图形的作品为特征。

2． Op art：欧普艺术，一种抽象艺术形式，其特征是利用几何图形或色彩对比产生各种形状与光色的运动来造成视错觉，亦作Optical art。

3． 路易斯·布努埃尔（Luis Bunuel，1900-1983），西班牙电影导演、剧作家。萨尔瓦多·达利（Salvador Dali,1904-1989），西班牙超现实主义画家，前者的好朋友。《一条安达卢西亚犬》（Un chien andalou，安达卢西亚为西班牙南部地区名）是两人合拍的超现实主义短片，素材来源于两人的梦境，其中有剃刀割眼的镜头。

从宗教裁判所时期开始，西班牙就与别出心裁的酷刑联系到了一起。现在，艺术史家何塞·米利库阿发现，现代抽象艺术在西班牙内战期间曾被用作刑罚工具，其目的是把受害者逼疯。米利库阿访问了“艺术家”阿方索·劳伦西克，他曾受命在巴塞罗那的一个监狱里制造这样的恐怖刑具。在这里，政治犯被施加一种可算“前卫”的刑罚：“心理折磨技术”。遭此不幸的人们被拘禁在一个两米高、一米半宽的监房里，墙上有与康定斯基及构成主义者的风格甚为相似的装饰图案，据信这些图案可以摧毁他们的心智并损伤受害者的视力（对于某些欧普艺术作品所造成的“晕船”效应，相关记载颇为详备）。监房里的床（与地面）成20度角摆放，让受害者几乎不能睡觉，而地板上散放的砖块则使他们不能前后走动。囚犯们惟一的选择就是盯着墙壁。穆尔西亚（西班牙东南部城市——译者注）监狱采用的办法更加“科学”。根据曾在此服刑的人提供的情况，这里不停地放着电影，其内容是人眼被一把垂直的剃须刀片切开：它模仿的是路易斯·布努埃尔和萨尔瓦多·达利的电影《一条安达卢西亚犬》中的一个镜头，该影片于1929年在西班牙首映。

Remarks：想像力催生伟大的艺术，同样的想像力使艺术沦为刑具，“为艺术而疯狂”的人们会不会有“做鬼也风流”的感觉呢？