MALRAUX AND THE DEMONS OF ACTION
however, means the emergence of the obscure and of the demoniacal,
rather than of any truth. "The domain of the demoniacal is the
domain of everything which, in man, aims at his destruction. The
demon of the Church, the demon of Freud, and the demon of Bikini,
have the same face.... Satan paints only in two dimensions....
If
compared to the nineteenth century, our century appears as a Renais–
sance of Fate. The Europe of ghostlike cities is not more devastated
than the idea of man it had created."
No sooner has Malraux said this, however, than he tries to show
the opposite, namely the existence, in modem art, of a classical urge:
"A humbly imperious simplification, the same which made the author–
ity of cezanne, and which has brought about the resurrection of
Bach, connects in a common style the works of Piero della Francesca,
El Greco, Latour, Vermeer, Goya, with the frieze of Olympia and
the Romanesque statues. Emerging together with the barbaric Renais–
sance, hailed and recognized with it,
this
style is possibly the greatest
style created by the West."
At
this
point, one cannot help noticing how much more forceful
than
this
attempt to discover the signs of a new classicism is Malraux's
description of the demoniacal, and his response to it. It is hard indeed
to see any community of style between Piero della Francesca and
Goya, Cezanne and the Greeks. Or, if such a community exists, then
where is the borderline between the demonic and the classical?
Not even in the domain of forms can Malraux forget the question
that haunts
him.
He needs a norm for his action, an indication about
the future, a principle of "structure and vigor." Driven as he is by
the demon of the act, it is to the classical that he aspires. The world
of forms appears to him agitated by the same Furies as the world
of action. Yet he is determined to find in the artistic consciousness of
our time the signs of a classical urge.
If
they could be clearly dis–
cerned, such signs would be far more convincing to Malraux than
intellectual speculations, or the gamble of action. Questioned by him,
however, art echoes his question. David's harp could ease the frenzied
Saul. In the whole pageantry of
art,
Andre
Malraux finds the as–
surance that his demon will stay with him, and keep him wide awake.
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