REPLIES
TO 13 QUESTIONS
163
a heresy aiming to found
itself
on reason doesn't become separated
from those that preceded it, still remains. But what is new is that
fiction (hence literary talent) has now become the means whereby
the heresy expresses itself. In his attempt to substitute ethics for re–
ligion, the structure of which has become greatly weakened, Rous–
seau at the same time also substitutes it for politics. But in place of
the system of values that he attacks he has another-that of the
individual-and his political system, which is democracy. In the
middle of the nineteenth century, all this changes. Baudelaire does
not become the successor of Hugo as Hugo succeeded Rousseau.
In the seventeenth century, the arts had converged toward a com–
mon aesthetic, but painters, poets and musicians rarely knew one
another. Later, although the arts diverged from each other, artists
did come to know one another, and no one else. In their closed
society, art took the place of ethics. It was man's
raison d'etre,
at
one and the same time his justification and the means of expressing
a quasi permanent accusation against the world. In the seventeenth
century, the player of ninepins Malherbe, though indifferent toward
the State and the Church, did not revolt against them. Baudelaire
(except occasionally) is likewise indifferent, but he is not subservient.
Since the Liberation the
thebaide
has triumphed. But it is some–
what surprised at its victory, uncomfortable at not finding an enemy
with a church instead of a
thebaide.
That is why it has been using
every means, even the most elementary ones, to rid itself of its soli–
tude. The whole problem of modern culture is to find out how it
can do this.
Needless to say, I do not think for one moment that we are
going to return to a communion of cathedrals with Rimbaud or
Picasso cast in the role of woodcarver of Chartres. The triumphant
left has in no sense "replaced" the right which it has vanquished:
what it has done is to impose "another function" of art.
I do not believe in a new Middle Ages in art. Not in America
any more than in Russia, and not in Russia any more than in
America. Soviet culture, in Russia, to all indications is a rationalistic
one.
Speaking of rationalism, in the last century it has often manifested
itself in judging or explaining works of art as resulting from the artist's
social or physical condition.
