Hopeful Twilight

The first half-century of Andre Malraux's life has been a full one. A frail little Parisian with bulging eyes and fluttering hands, he has divided his energies between art, Marxism, revolution, literature, archeology, exploration and war, is now chief political adviser to General Charles de Gaulle. Among Malraux's writings are two first-rate novels (Man's Fate, Man's Hope) and an equally fine study of art history. Splendidly illustrated translations of the first two volumes of his Psychology of Art were published in the U.S. in 1949. Last week came Volume 3, The Twilight of the Absolute (Pantheon: $12.50).

Critic Malraux is not always clear about what he means by "the absolute," but generally it comes down to a matter of religion; he believes Christianity is in a twilight stage. For him, a "little pseudo-Gothic church on Broadway, tucked away amongst the skyscrapers, is symbolic of the age. On the whole face of the globe the civilization that has conquered it has failed to build a temple or a tomb."

Taken together, Malraux's three volumes constitute a rambling, rapt, repetitive essay touching on almost every known period and style of art from Celtic coins to Wei Buddhas. Slushy and bone-clean by turns, it abounds in brilliant insights, bends them to the service of a single theme: the all-inclusiveness of the 20th Century's art heritage and the importance of using it well.

Great art of the past, Malraux points out, is largely religious, almost always the product of homogeneous, self-assured cultures. It follows that since contemporary civilization is irreligious, divided and painfully unsure of itself, contemporary artists can achieve greatness only by such brand-new means as making art itself a sort of religion, using the art of happier times as source material, and finding self-assurance in the spirit of historical investigation.

Malraux is not whistling in the twilight. Modern art, he is convinced, accomplishes all those things. What's more, it "has liberated painting, which is now triumphantly a law unto itself. And which, indirectly and unwittingly albeit, has replaced tradition--in other words a culture studiously self-conscious--by a culture that is unselfconscious; setting up against a system of imperatives a system of research and exploration. In this quest the artist (and perhaps modern man in general) knows only his starting point, his methods and his bearings--no more than these--and follows in the steps of the great sea-venturers."

Malraux believes that nobody is really in a position to understand modern art: "A fish is badly placed for judging what the aquarium looks like from the outside." Actually, Malraux approaches the whole history of art from the inside, gets his best insights by studying the beliefs and aspirations that have formed it. For that reason, his book offers few easy generalities, makes difficult reading. But when the easy chatter of the popularizers has faded away, students may still be puzzling out Malraux.

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