162
PARTISAN REVIEW
The interview with Andre Breton published in
Figaro Lit–
teraire,
the lecture by Picasso at the Sorbonne, seem to me to be
symptoms which, at the least, give cause for reflection. It isn't that
they have moved from the left to the right, not at all. Picasso didn't
go to the Sorbonne, the Sorbonne came to him; not any more than
Andre Breton went to
Figaro Litteraire.
The Picasso painting re–
produced at the Sorbonne, and the statements made by Breton in
the
Litteraire,
could have appeared in the most advanced periodicals
of the year 1935, and do not imply the slightest compromise.
The fact is, and this is new, that what used to be called right,
in art, has ceased to exist.
It
might be said that somewhat the same thing is happening in
politics, although it isn't altogether the same. The traditional Right
has scarcely any strength left in depth; the Right which styled itself
Center-from Poincare to certain Radical ministers-no longer
makes its weight felt; and the political Left seems to be victorious
in the same way that the literary left is. I say, "seems to be." But
a powerful wave of polarization has been unleashed throughout Eu–
rope, and despite appearances and tripartisms (and notwithstand–
ing that the notions of right and left as they existed before the War
have been entirely brushed aside), this polarization continues in the
whole of Occidental Europe.
But in art I see no beginnings of polarization. Instead I see
indications of the disappearance of the polarization that began when
the great artists, the first ones unconsciously, their successors con–
sciously, became the accusers.
There are no more «poetes maudits."
The voice of Nietzsche has today lost its most characteristic accent,
because those whom Nietzsche would accuse would be prepared in
advance to admit that he was right, or pretend to do so....
Now, bear in mind that what was called the rupture between
the artist and society (but which was really something very dif–
ferent, namely the necessity on the part of the artist to create his
genius against the values of the world in which he lived), goes back
quite a way. Piero della Francesca, Michelangelo, Racine were still
admired, perhaps less, perhaps more than some, but still admired.
Rembrandt's old age marks the beginning of
l'art maudit.
In literature the revolt begins with Rousseau, with whom ethical
predication becomes a function of literature. The Savoyard Vicar
can be taken as just another heresiarch; but the question whether
