The Voices of Silence was a work published by André Malraux while the Minister of Information for the French Government under Charles de Gaulle. This appointment, made shortly after the Second World War coincides with Malraux completing his first book on art, The Psychology of Art, published in three volumes (1947–1949). The work was subsequently revised and republished in one volume as The Voices of Silence (Les Voix du Silence), the first part of which has been published separately as The Museum without Walls. Other important works on the theory of art were to follow.
Malraux's life story is interwoven with the current theme; "the first universal world of art".
Malraux (1901 – 1976) was a French novelist, art theorist and Minister of Cultural Affairs. Malraux's novel La Condition Humaine (Man's Fate) (1933) won the Prix Goncourt. He was appointed by President Charles de Gaulle as Minister of Information (1945–46) and subsequently as France's first Minister of Cultural Affairs during de Gaulle's presidency (1959–69).
Malraux's first published work, an article entitled "The Origins of Cubist Poetry", appeared in the magazine Action in 1920. This was followed in 1921 by three semi-surrealist tales, one of which, "Paper Moons", was illustrated by Fernand Léger.
In 1923, aged 22, Malraux, with his wife Clara, left for the French Protectorate of Cambodia.
Angkor Wat - Cambodia
One of the draws of Cambodia for Malraux, was Angkor Wat, a huge 12th century Hindu temple situated in the old capital of the Khmer empire. This was part of a fantasy to emulate Lawrence of Arabia's exploits as an adventurer and archaeologist. Angkor (Yasodharapura) was;
"the world’s largest urban settlement"in the 11th and 12th centuries supported by an elaborate network of canals and roads across mainland Southeast Asia before decaying and falling into the jungle.
Wikipedia says of Ankor Wat that:
The rediscovery of the ruins of Angkor Wat (the Khmers had never fully abandoned the temples of Angkor) in the jungle by the French explorer Henri Mouhot in 1861 had given Cambodia a romantic reputation in France, as the home of the vast, mysterious ruins of the Khmer empire.But, Alison in Cambodia objects:
Stop saying the French discovered Angkor
Alison in Cambodia says:
I suppose I’m a bit of a curmudgeon and therefore get fairly easily annoyed. One of my biggest pet peeves is the old myth about how the French, specifically the explorer and researcher Henri Mouhot, “discovered Angkor” in 1860. This myth is based on an idea that the Cambodians had no knowledge of their past, and therefore helped the French justify their colonial rule in “restoring a nation to its past grandeur” (Dagens 1995:47).
Read Alison in Cambodia as she sets out clearly what "what we do know"!
The Wikipedia page on André Malraux describes an eventful life, and speculation on the authenticity of his own accounts of that life, including the appropriation of a bas-relief from the exquisite Banteay Srei temple:
Upon reaching Cambodia, Malraux, Clara and friend Louis Chevasson undertook an expedition into unexplored areas of the former imperial settlements in search of hidden temples, hoping to find artifacts and items that could be sold to art collectors and museums. At about the same time archaeologists, with the approval of the French government, were removing large numbers of items from Angkor - many of which are now housed in the Guimet Museum in Paris. On his return, Malraux was arrested and charged by French colonial authorities for removing a bas-relief from the exquisite Banteay Srei temple. Malraux, who believed he had acted within the law as it then stood, contested the charges but was unsuccessful.This experience shaped his view of what became a critique of European Colonialism and what he came to believe was a crisis taking place within European culture. The Wikipedia page continues:
Malraux's experiences in Indochina led him to become highly critical of the French colonial authorities there. In 1925, with Paul Monin, a progressive lawyer, he helped to organize the Young Annam League and founded a newspaper L'Indochine to champion Vietnamese independence.The Wikipedia page says that in his Asian novels:
On his return to France, Malraux published The Temptation of the West (1926). The work was in the form of an exchange of letters between a Westerner and an Asian, comparing aspects of the two cultures. This was followed by his first novel The Conquerors (1928), and then by The Royal Way (1930) which reflected some of his Cambodian experiences.
Initially, Malraux's writings on Asia reflected the influence of "Orientalism" presenting the Far East as strange, exotic, decadent, mysterious, sensuous and violent, but Malraux's picture of China grew somewhat more humanized and understanding as Malraux disregarded his Orientalist and Eurocentric viewpoint in favor of one that presented the Chinese as fellow human beings.
The second of Malraux's Asian novels was the semi-autobiographical La Voie Royale which relates the adventures of a Frenchman Claude Vannec who together with his Danish friend Perken head down the royal road of the title into the jungle of Cambodia with the intention of stealing bas-relief sculptures from the ruins of Hindu temples. After many perilous adventures, Vannec and Perken are captured by hostile tribesmen and find an old friend of Perken's Grabot who has already been captured for some time. Grabot, a deserter from the French Foreign Legion has been reduced to nothing as his captors have blinded him and left him tied to a stake starving, a stark picture of human degradation. The three Europeans escape, but Perken is wounded and dies of an infection. Through ostensibly an adventure novel, La Voie Royale is in fact a philosophical novel concerned with existential questions about the meaning of life. The book was a failure at the time as the publishers marketed it as a stirring adventure story set in far-off, exotic Cambodia which confused many readers who instead found a novel pondering deep philosophical questions.
. . . Malraux used Asia as a stick to beat Europe with, as he argued that after World War I, the ideal of progress, of a Europe getting better and better for the general advancement of humanity was dead. As such, Malraux now argued that European civilization was faced with a Nietzschean void, a twilight world without God or progress, in which the old values had proven worthless and a sense of spirituality that had once existed was gone.
This crisis, in the face of this Nietzschean void, brought on an idea, an idea that he had some significant influence in promulgating, namely, that, in this twentieth century there was the possibility, for the first time, of a universal world of art, inclusive of all the world's cultures and civilizations. The Wikipedia page continues:
An agnostic, but an intensely spiritual man, Malraux maintained what was needed was an "aesthetic spirituality" in which love of art and civilization would allow one to appreciate le sacré in life, a sensibility that was both tragic and awe-inspiring as one surveyed all of the cultural treasures of the world, a mystical sense of humanity's place in a universe that was as astonishingly beautiful as it was mysterious.So, was he a Romantic, as well as a Frenchman and 'citizen of the world'? And, were these attitudes and ideas a form of Romanticism, invoking the religion of a universal art?
Malraux argued that as death is inevitable and in a world devoid of meaning, which thus was "absurd", only art could offer meaning in an "absurd" world. Malraux argued that art transcended time as art allowed one to connect with the past, and the very act of appreciating art was itself an act of art as the love of art was part of a continuation of endless artistic metamorphosis that constantly creating something new.
Malraux argued that as different types of art went in and out of style, the revival of a style was a metamorphosis as art could never be appreciated in exactly the same way as it was in the past. As art was timeless, it conquered time and death as artworks lived on after the death of the artist.
The American literary critic Jean-Pierre Hérubel wrote that Malraux never entirely worked out a coherent philosophy as his mystical Weltanschauung (world view) was based more upon emotion than logic.
In Malraux's viewpoint, of all the professions, the artist was the most important as artists were the explorers and voyagers of the human spirit as artistic creation was the highest form of human achievement for only art could illustrate humanity's relationship with the universe as Malraux wrote "there is something far greater than history and it is the persistence of genius".
Hérubel argued that it is fruitless to attempt to criticize Malraux for his lack of methodological consistency as Malraux cultivated a poetical sensibility, a certain lyrical style that appealed more to the heart than to the brain.
Malraux was a proud Frenchman, but he also saw himself as a citizen of the world, a man who loved the cultural achievements of all of the civilizations across the globe. At the same time, Malraux criticized those intellectuals who wanted to retreat into the ivory tower, instead arguing that it was the duty of intellectuals to participate and fight (both metaphorically and literally) in the great political causes of the day, that the only truly great causes were the ones that one was willing to die for.
Romanticism has an anti-human trait, and Malraux, and accepting all of his traits, was always for humanity, at least his "idea' of humanity.
Another adventure . . . another war . . .
On 22 February 1934, Malraux together with Édouard Corniglion-Molinier embarked on a much publicized expedition to find the lost capital of the Queen of Sheba mentioned in the Old Testament. Saudi Arabia and Yemen were both remote, dangerous places that few Westerners visited at the time, and what made the expedition especially dangerous was while Malraux was searching for the lost cities of Sheba, King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia invaded Yemen, and the ensuing Saudi-Yemeni war greatly complicated Malraux's search. After several weeks of flying over the deserts in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, Malraux returned to France to announce that ruins he found up in the mountains of Yemen were the capital of the Queen of Sheba. Through Malraux's claim is not generally accepted by archaeologists, the expedition bolstered Malraux's fame and provided the material for several of his later essays.
. . . and yes, a Saudi-Yemeni war . . . and more fame!
Anti-fascist Popular Front activism on Malraux's part included a finely tuned propaganda effort.
During the 1930s, Malraux was active in the anti-fascist Popular Front in France. At the beginning of the Spanish Civil War he joined the Republican forces in Spain, serving in and helping to organize the small Spanish Republican Air Force.The Republic circulated photos of Malraux standing next to some Potez 540 bombers suggesting that France was on their side, at a time when France and the United Kingdom had declared official neutrality.
But Malraux's commitment to the Republicans was personal, like that of many other foreign volunteers, and there was never any suggestion that he was there at the behest of the French Government. Malraux himself was not a pilot, and never claimed to be one, but his leadership qualities seem to have been recognized because he was made Squadron Leader of the 'España' squadron. Acutely aware of the Republicans' inferior armaments, of which outdated aircraft were just one example, he toured the United States to raise funds for the cause. In 1938 he published L'Espoir (Man's Hope), a novel influenced by his Spanish war experiences.A man of letters before a "man of action"?
Malraux's participation in events such as the Spanish Civil War has tended to distract attention from his important literary achievement. Malraux saw himself first and foremost as a writer and thinker (and not a "man of action" as biographers so often portray him) but his extremely eventful life – a far cry from the stereotype of the French intellectual confined to his study or a Left Bank café – has tended to obscure this fact. As a result, his literary works, including his important works on the theory of art, have received less attention than one might expect, especially in Anglophone countries.
At the beginning of the Second World War, Malraux joined the French Army. He was captured in 1940 during the Battle of France but escaped and later joined the French Resistance. In 1944, he was captured by the Gestapo. He later commanded the Brigade Alsace-Lorraine in defence of Strasbourg and in the attack on Stuttgart.
Shortly after the war, General Charles de Gaulle appointed Malraux as his Minister for Information (1945–1946). When de Gaulle returned to the French presidency in 1958, Malraux became France's first Minister of Cultural Affairs, a post he held from 1958 to 1969. On 7 February 1962, Malraux was the target of an assassination attempt by the Organisation armée secrète (OAS) who set off a bomb to his apartment building that failed to kill its intended target, but did leave a four-year girl living in the adjoining apartment blinded by the shrapnel. Ironically, Malraux was a lukewarm supporter of de Gaulle's decision to grant independence to Algeria, but the OAS was not aware of this, and had decided to assassinate Malraux as a high-profile minister.
Among many initiatives, Malraux launched an innovative (and subsequently widely imitated) program to clean the blackened façades of notable French buildings, revealing the natural stone underneath. He also created a number of maisons de la culture in provincial cities and worked to preserve France's national heritage by promoting industrial archaeology.
The Maison de la Culture Project
The first House of Culture in France was founded on the initiative of Paul Vaillant-Couturier in 1935 in Paris, 22 rue de Navarin, as the headquarters of the Association of writers and revolutionary artists, with Louis Aragon as secretary general. It was then situated in 1936 on the Rue d'Anjou and was part of "The Association of Houses of Culture" in the political context of the Popular Front against fascism. It's main purpose was creating accessibility and putting art within the reach of the people, across the whole country and in all its forms (for example the cinema, with "Cine-freedom").
In 1937, Albert Camus became director of the Maison de la Culture in Algiers. The term was also used by André Malraux and Gaëtan Picon , militants of the League of intellectuals against fascism.
The decisive action of André Malraux
As Minister of Cultural Affairs in 1959, Malraux relaunched this notion, presenting it at the Cannes Film Festival in 1959, through the film clubs that were to take place there. Later, on the following November, he announced to the deputies that a house of culture, department by department, should see the light of day before three years had passed, so that "any child of sixteen, poor as it might be, can have a real contact with its national heritage along with the glory of the spirit of humanity ".
By March 1961, the Commission de l'équipement culturel et du patrimoine artistique du IVe plan saw the opening of twenty Maison de Culture over four years. Malraux was the cornerstone of a policy, to create "modern cathedrals", to realise the goal of "making accessible the major works of humanity to the greatest number of the French", as mentioned in a decree of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs.
The concept behind the plan to create these Maisons de la Culture across as many French departments as possible was, essentially, a policy of cultural decentralization, partially begun under the Popular Front and the Fourth Republic , along with the Malreaux's concept of the mobilization of culture via "aesthetic shock". The idea was to create across France, reception structures for the dissemination of culture throughout the country, not only in Paris, and including a scholarly culture, with the widest public access and involvement.
This mission was entrusted to Pierre Moinot who, in March 1961, as part of the five-year plan for culture, described the Maisons de la Culture as multidisciplinary venues for the encounter between citizens and art to create a familiarity, a shock, a passion, a means for everyone to consider their own condition. The works of culture being, in essence, for the good of all, and our mirror, it is important that everyone can appreciate and contemplate this wealth of culture. Key to this mission is Malraux's idea of an "intimate encounter" through an unmediated and direct confrontation with the work, without the "pitfall and impoverishment of simplifying popularization".
Every Maison de la Culture was designed to accommodate theatrical performances as well as ballets and art exhibitions. They were to create a venue for all the arts, including literature and film. And, faithful to Malraux's conception, they were to exclude all cultural mediation, favouring the audience experience as an encounter with the works as a direct communication (or mis-communication).
The project was heavily criticized. First, the Maisons de la Cultures were planned and implemented without any real discussions with the local authorities, who, nevertheless had to co-finance half of the equipment costs. In addition, the first Maison de la Cultures involved compromising the design in terms of versatility in order that they be opened more quickly. Thus, the Maison de la Culture of Le Havre opens in a museum, that of Caen in a theater, and that of Bourges and Thonon in convention centers, and the Theater of the East Paris , in a cinema.
During the political crisis of 1968, and as a result of these concerns, three cities took advantage of the protests to take over the houses of culture in Caen, Firminy and Thonon.
The Appel of Villeurbanne
Increasingly, the Maisons de la Culture, as well as the whole of Malraux's political vision, were criticized for their elitist conception of art. Thus prompting the Appel of Villeurbanne.
In May 1968, the vast majority of the directors of Maisons de la Culture met at the Théâtre de la Cité de Villeurbanne, then directed by Roger Planchon, to discuss their hopes for a public service culture in France.
"When the events of May broke out, I was about to leave with my wife to take a few days' rest in the South. Jacques Fornier very kindly asked me to stop at the passage in Villeurbanne, where a meeting was planned. The meeting lasted three weeks ... "It was on May 25 that the meeting of directors led to the Villeurbanne Declaration around three essential points: formation, creation and cultural action. This Declaration was signed by thirty-three heads of cultural institutions.
At that time, André Malraux was the Minister of Cultural Affairs of Charles de Gaulle. Following the Declaration, the Ministry entered into negotiations with the signatories in a permanent council. The meeting of Villeurbanne was essentially an opportune intervention in a political context of widespread protest, and just a few weeks after the occupation of the Theater of the Odeon by demonstrators, prompted by a violent disagreement between Jean-Louis Barrault and André Malraux. The negotiations that followed did not ultimately result in a re-jigging of the budget, nor in the application of the other claims of the group. As a result the Maisons de la Culture have been gradually abandoned as a key policy in the cultural sphere.
Even today, the Villeurbanne Declaration remains a founding document for reflection on the principles of a democratic access to culture. The will to go to meet the "non-public", that is to say, the significant proportion of the population who do not go to cultural venues, and work to establish a real cultural action, the integration of children's theater as a theater in its own right, the revaluation of the national budget devoted to culture, etc., all these claims remain valid.
However, the divergences between the various directors of institutions have gradually taken over, leaving the solidarity of the meetings at Villeurbanne in question. Francis Jeanson concludes:
"Looking back, I understand better why some ideas have faded. At that very moment, there were still some rather false understandings, underlying divergences, which finally emerged, and sometimes very quickly."In 1991 the Maisons de la Culture were grouped together with the centres of cultural development centres under the National Scene banner, by Bernard Faivre d'Arcier, pursuing the precepts of multidisciplinarity, decentralization and local action. Thus, by virtue of this continuing desire for cultural versatility and by the opening of "specialized" structures to the other arts, Augustin Girard affirms that the Maison de la Culture project, long considered a failure, has finally become a success, the concept having developed well beyond the original vision.
The involvement of local authorities has also made local civil society aware of the importance of a local cultural policy, initiating the municipalization of culture and decentralization, which took off in the 1970s.
Firminy-Vert, France - City Planning, Le
Corbusier, Industrial heritage and a newly designated UNESCO World Heritage Site
The Maison de la Culture is part of a larger complex of buildings by the Swiss-born French architect, called Firminy Vert, which was built on an artificial hill in a former stone quarry and completed in 1965.
From 1954 - 1965, Firminy-Vert, an urban planning scheme that was conceived as a "model city", was designed and built in the 1950s on the initiative of Eugène Claudius-Petit , mayor of the city and former Minister of Reconstruction. This urban planning project was led by Charles Delfante and completed with the construction of buildings by Le Corbusier. These buildings are gathered together in the Civic Center, including the House of Culture (1965), the stadium, and the parish church where the first stone was laid in 1970, and then after the death of Le Corbusier in 1965, taken on to completion in the twenty first century. The pupil of Le Corbusier André Wogenscky was responsible for the construction of the municipal swimming pool and that of the Unité d'Habitation that were completed in 1967.
Saint-Pierre is a concrete building in the commune of Firminy, France. The last major work of Le Corbusier, it was completed in 2006, forty-one years after his death.
Designed to be a church in the model city of Firminy Vert, the construction of Saint-Pierre was begun in 1971, six years after Le Corbusier's death in 1965. Due to local political conflicts it remained stalled from 1975 to 2003, when the local government declared the delapidated concrete ruin an "architectural heritage" and financed its completion. The building was completed by the French architect, José Oubrerie, one of Le Corbusier's students.
It has been used for many different purposes, as a secondary school and as a shelter. As the secularist French state may not use public funds for religious buildings, Saint-Pierre is now used as a cultural venue. In the World Architecture Survey of 2010, by Vanity Fair magazine, the building was ranked as second in the rankings of the top structures built in the twenty-first century, receiving four votes. American deconstructionist architect Peter Eisenman asserted in his response that this building is the most important structure built since 1980.
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