ANDRE MALRAUX
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expressing himself equally well in painting, literature or music; even the ad–
vocates of art as an expression of the individual accept this so long as it is not
stated explicitly . Madame Delamare would not have inspired Flaubert to
produce a picture, however brilliant a draughtsman he might have been . All
Victor Hugo's skill would not have led him to paint the equivalent of
Booz.
One might wonder what Madame Delamare's death would have produced
from Gericault. Not because Gericault was a better artist than Flaubert, but
because neither the design nor the subject have any existence in themselves:
only outlines of works exist. Gericault would have drawn his creative in–
spiration from a dialogue with the museum, not with the library: with the
world of art, not the world of writing . Could that be what a painter is, first
and foremost? Art begins when life ceases to be a model and becomes raw
material, and that raw material includes the very life of the artist himself.
If the
presence
of works of art is guaranteed by a creative
fact
which is
not subject to analytical thinking, if
Le Rouge et Ie Noir
does not derive its
presence from its genius, but its genius from its
presence,
to what then does
it owe its presence? No doubt from the interaction which takes place be–
rween happenings or surroundings and the world of writing-a dialogue
akin to Stendhal's-from creation itself. What is this world? The age in
which we live believes itself to be the first to have some intuition of its
nature.
The coordination of language, as of forms, appears subject to the
coordination of life, though we find it to be secretly related to the harmony
of music. Yet the coordination of art is not subject to time : the only human
coordination that is stronger than death.
The literature that exists for us as a presence is in our imaginary Pleiade,
not in our life memory . Heirs to the Olympus of unshakable masterpieces,
variable literary successions carry like a current the work attracted by the un–
steady magnetism of forthcoming creations . . . that metamorphosis is the
ultimate law, because everything that is present falls into the past just as
surely as it tends towards death. This would be taken for granted if meta–
morphosis with its padded footsteps were not imperceptibly at work . A work
of art, whether famous or ignored, does not gain access to metamorphosis on
the death of the artist. Death seldom coincides with demise. But however
late metamorphosis occurs, herding the transient residents of the present, it
turns the defendant into a judge as inexorably as fate itself.
And starts again.. ..
Posterity no longer believes in honors lists, metamorphosis still believes
in cooptions. The Imaginary Museum and the Bibliotheque de la Pleiade
appear immobile; so does the firmament .
