FORM AND HALLUCINATION
649
Yet it is precisely art's testing of its forms that awakens the
wrath of realists of all stamps. In Ru&<>ia, as everyone knows; the
prime foe of official art and literature is "Formalism," ,that
is,
work in the experimental styles, from Futurism through Action
Painting. American editorialists often wonder why the Ru&<>ians
raise so much fuss about an art "empty of content." What harm
could come to the Soviet State if a few childish minds, "escaping
from reality," were allowed to forge incomprehensible meta–
phors or to exhibit canvasses covered with red and yellow squares
or splashes and dribbles of paint? Communism must feel very
feeble if it finds itself menaced by an atonal score. Reasoning
like this fails to take into account that, historically, "formal" :art,
in
undermining accepted forms, has been a powerful agent in
dissolving also the social stereotypes maintained by them. The
Soviet propaganda chiefs have correctly estimated the threat of
"vanguard" art to whatever suspends disbelief in the Party image
of life.
In the democracies, aesthetic revolts are always the order
of the day. Yet "formal" art lives pinned down by the drum-fire
of the press. Angry Young Men are welcome, nay institutionally
indispensable, so long as they rage within the recogniZed modes.
Indignation" however, that finds expre&<>ion in stale technical
devices may as well save its steam. "More respectable novels are
being produ'ced now than in any previous period," states a report
on the literary situation in Britain! Quickly, the author finds
himself discussing the relation of form to truth. "Twenty years
ago writers as different from each other as Joyce and Aldous
Huxley, Isherwood and Virginia Woolf were all making exPeri–
~ents
with the treatinent 'of time: For them the straightforward
chronological narrative of the conventional novel was a faisi–
hcatibn
~f '
real experience. In our minds we do not move
f~~ard
So '
mechanically: 'we ' ieap from- point to -
point,sOme~ult sud~
denly backwards,' bring together
m:om~~~' _ ~d~y sepaiated ,'~n
+;
Giloricl
Gersh,
The
New - Lead,,~
March
28, 1960'. '
