Derek Allan | The Australian National University (original) (raw)

Books by Derek Allan

André Malraux et l art: Une révolution intellectuelle, 2021

Cette étude présente une explication systématique des éléments clés de la théorie de l’art d’Andr... more Cette étude présente une explication systématique des éléments clés de la théorie de l’art d’André Malraux. Se basant sur des œuvres telles que Les Voix du silence, Le Surnaturel, L’Irréel et L’Intemporel, elle aborde des sujets cruciaux comme la nature de la création artistique, la psychologie de notre réaction à l’art, la naissance de la notion d’« art » et sa transformation après Manet, la naissance et la mort de l’idée de beauté, la question cruellement négligée de la relation entre l’art et le passage du temps, l’émergence de notre « premier monde de l’art universel », le rôle contemporain du musée d’art et du Musée Imaginaire, et la question épineuse du lien entre l’art et l’histoire.

"A well-known feature of great works of art is their power to “live on” long after the moment of ... more "A well-known feature of great works of art is their power to “live on” long after the moment of their creation – to remain vital and alive long after the culture in which they were born has passed into history. This power to transcend time is common to works as various as the plays of Shakespeare, the Victory of Samothrace, and many works from early cultures such as Egypt and Buddhist India which we often encounter today in major art museums.

What is the nature of this power and how does it operate? The Renaissance decided that works of art are timeless, “immortal” – immune from historical change – and this idea has exerted a profound influence on Western thought. But do we still believe it? Does it match our experience of art today which includes so many works from the past that spent long periods in oblivion and have clearly not been immune from historical change?

This book examines the seemingly miraculous power of art to transcend time – an issue widely neglected in contemporary aesthetics. Tracing the history of the question from the Renaissance onwards, and discussing thinkers as various as David Hume, Hegel, Marx, Walter Benjamin, Sartre, and Theodore Adorno, the book argues that art transcends time through a process of metamorphosis – a thesis first developed by the French art theorist, André Malraux. The implications of this idea pose major challenges for traditional thinking about the nature of art. "

Recent comments on "Art and Time" in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy:

"Derek Allan’s accomplished and insightful book tackles a philosophical problem that has been neglected in contemporary aesthetics: the relationship between art and time… One admirable feature of Allan’s book is that it is well versed in art history and the history of aesthetics… Art and Time is a well-researched, elegantly written, and lucidly argued book. It explores a problem that has been neglected within contemporary aesthetics, offering a suggestive theoretical response to the problem of art’s relationship to time... [It makes] a welcome contribution to broadening the often parochial, ahistorical character of contemporary aesthetic debates."

André Malraux was a major figure in French intellectual life in the twentieth century. A key comp... more André Malraux was a major figure in French intellectual life in the twentieth century. A key component of his thought is his theory of art which presents a series of fundamental challenges to traditional explanations of the nature and purpose of art developed by post-Enlightenment aesthetics. For Malraux, art – whether visual art, literature or music – is much more than a locus of beauty or a source of “aesthetic pleasure”; it is one of the ways humanity defends itself against its fundamental sense of meaninglessness – one of the ways the “human adventure” is affirmed.

Here for the first time is a comprehensive, step by step exposition, supported by illustrations, of Malraux’s theory of art as presented in major works such as "The Voices of Silence" and "The Metamorphosis of the Gods". Suitable for both newcomers to Malraux and more advanced students, the study also examines critical responses to these works by figures such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Maurice Blanchot, Pierre Bourdieu, and E. H. Gombrich, and compares Malraux’s thinking with aspects of contemporary Anglo-American aesthetics. The study reveals that an account of art which Gombrich once dismissed as “sophisticated double-talk” is in reality a thoroughly coherent and highly enlightening system of thought, with revolutionary implications for the way we think about art.

30 illustrations, 23 in colour.

Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009

Papers by Derek Allan

Dialogues littéraires et philosophiques, 2020.

Les critiques inscrivent souvent "Les Liaisons dangereuses" dans la tradition du roman libertin. ... more Les critiques inscrivent souvent "Les Liaisons dangereuses" dans la tradition du roman libertin. Ils considèrent qu’il surpasse ses prédécesseurs mais affirment qu’il est le point culminant de cette tradition établie et non le début de quelque chose de nouveau, ce que Malraux réfute. En relevant des similitudes avec le roman libertin, il soutient que le roman de Laclos entretient un lien bien plus significatif avec le roman du futur, comptant parmi ses descendants Julien Sorel et même Raskolnikov.
https://classiques-garnier.com/dialogues-litteraires-et-philosophiques-2020-8-une-creation-sans-precedent.html

Apollo, an International Art Magazine (April 2020), 2020

A brief discussion of André Malraux's concept of the "musée imaginaire" (Imaginary Museum or Muse... more A brief discussion of André Malraux's concept of the "musée imaginaire" (Imaginary Museum or Museum without Walls) and a comment on the neglect of Malraux's theory of art. In the blog Apollo, an International Art Magazine (April 2020).

Link at: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/andre-malraux-museum-without-walls/

Examines the birth of the notion of beauty in Western art (together with the birth of the notion ... more Examines the birth of the notion of beauty in Western art (together with the birth of the notion of "art") and its subsequent death. Also briefly discusses certain implications for modern aesthetics.

From the Renaissance onwards, the Western tradition singled out the term beauty for a unique and ... more From the Renaissance onwards, the Western tradition singled out the term beauty for a unique and highly prestigious role. As Christian belief began its gradual decline, Renaissance art invented a rival transcendence in the form of an exalted world of nobility, harmony and beauty – the world exemplified by the works of painters such as Raphael, Titian and Poussin. Beauty in this sense quickly became the ruling ideal of Western art, subsequently underpinning the explanations of the nature and function of art (the aesthetics) developed by Enlightenment thinkers such as Hume and Kant – explanations that continue to be influential among contemporary philosophers of art. Today, however, there are fundamental questions to be asked: Is beauty still the ruling ideal of art? If not, what becomes of traditional, post-Enlightenment aesthetics which continues to shape much modern thinking about art?

ABSTRACT – One of the most remarkable contributions that André Malraux has made to the theory of ... more ABSTRACT – One of the most remarkable contributions that André Malraux has made to the theory of art is his explanation of the relationship between art and time - his argument that art transcends time through a process of metamorphosis. This proposition, which replaces the traditional belief that art resists time because it is eternal or immortal, poses a major challenge to traditional aesthetics. This article examines the notion of metamorphosis and the challenge it represents.

This essay examines certain assumptions underlying Anglo-American " analytic " aesthetics, and mo... more This essay examines certain assumptions underlying Anglo-American " analytic " aesthetics, and more specifically the areas of that discipline that concern themselves with the nature and significance of art. The issues considered here are seldom discussed by analytic philosophers of art themselves – a matter to be regretted, as I will argue – but they are, nevertheless, of a quite fundamental kind and tell us much about the nature of the discipline, the presuppositions on which it is based, and, as I shall argue in the concluding stages, certain factors that isolate it from the world of art as we now know it. The dilemma I address here also affects the other major school of thought in modern aesthetics – the " Continental " school – but in that context it assumes a somewhat different form which would require separate consideration. To keep discussion within manageable proportions, the focus here is placed principally on the analytic school, a limitation that is perhaps less serious than it might seem given that this approach to the philosophy of art is currently quite influential not only in Anglophone countries but elsewhere as well. The dilemma in question concerns the relationship between art (understood in the general sense of the term) and the passing of time, and to avoid possible confusion, it is important to begin by clarifying what is at stake. The issue here has nothing to do with the function of time within works of art – for example, the ways in which the passing of time might be represented in film or the novel, or the role of tempo in music. Those questions are doubtless valid and important and, as one might expect, philosophers of art discuss them periodically, some employing the term " temporal arts " to identify art forms such as music or poetry in which time seems to play a prominent role. The present discussion, however, concerns the external relationship between art and time, that is, the effects of the passing of time – of history in the broadest sense of the term – on those objects, whether created in our own times or in the distant past, that we today call " works of art ". Given that from the moment of their creation, and whether the creator wills it or no, works of art are, like all other objects, immersed in the world of change – changing values, changing beliefs, changing ways of life – how are they affected, if at all? The question is not, of course, about physical change. Objects such as sculptures and paintings are as vulnerable to damage as any others, and if

Can novels, plays and poetry tell us something important and true about who we are, about others,... more Can novels, plays and poetry tell us something important and true about who we are, about others, and about life generally? The question seems to be of interest not only to writers on literary theory and aesthetics, but to people generally. This paper considers the issues involved..

Many philosophers of art hold the view that art is essentially representation. This paper argues ... more Many philosophers of art hold the view that art is essentially representation. This paper argues that is never presentation - even when it "represents".

How does art transcend time? What special power enables it to overcome temporal distance and spea... more How does art transcend time? What special power enables it to overcome temporal distance and speak to us not just as evidence of times gone by but as a living presence? The Renaissance concluded that great art is impervious to time – “timeless”, “immortal”, “eternal” – a belief endorsed by Enlightenment aesthetics. Later thinkers such as Hegel, Marx and Taine stressed the historical embeddedness of art, a view also espoused by certain modern theorists such as Sartre, Benjamin and Adorno. The conflict between these two positions has left us without a persuasive account of art’s capacity to transcend time. André Malraux offers an entirely new account of this unique power of art. For Malraux, art is neither exempt from history (timeless) nor wholly immersed in it. Art transcends time through metamorphosis, a process of continual transformation in significance in which history plays an essential, but not exclusive, part.

Literature Aesthetics, Nov 23, 2011

Modern criticsoften regard Goya’setchings andblack paintingsas satirical observationsonthesociala... more Modern criticsoften regard Goya’setchings andblack paintingsas satirical observationsonthesocialandpoliticalconditionsofthetime.Inastudyof Goya ﬁrst published in 1950,whichseldom receivesthe attention itmerits, the French author and art theorist André Malraux contends that these works have a signiﬁcance of a much deeper kind. The etchings and black paintings, Malraux argues, represent a fundamental challenge to the European artistic tradition that began with the Renaissance, an essentially humanist tradition founded on the pursuit of a transcendent world of nobility, harmony and beauty—an ideal world outside of which, as Malraux writes, ‘man did not fully merit the name man’. Following the illness that left him deaf for life—an encounter with ‘the irremediable’, to borrow Malraux’s term—Goya developed an art of a fundamentally different kind—an art, Malraux writes, ruled by ‘the unity of the prison house’, which replaced transcendence with a pervasive ‘feeling of dependence’ and from which all trace of humanism has been erased. Foreshadowing modern art’s abandonment of the Renaissance ideal, and created semi-clandestinely, the etchings and black paintings are an early announcement of the death of beauty in Western art.

One might naturally suppose that philosophers of art would take a strong interest in the idea of ... more One might naturally suppose that philosophers of art would take a strong interest in the idea of creation in the context of art. In fact, this has often not been the case. In analytic aesthetics, the issue tends to dwell on the sidelines and in continental aesthetics a shadow has sometimes been cast over the topic by the notion of the “death of the author” and by the claim, as Roland Barthes put it, that the author is only ever able to “imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original”. This paper explains the understanding of artistic creation developed by the French art theorist André Malraux in his well-known book The Voices of Silence. Malraux argues that the true artist is involved in a creative act in the full sense of the term – creation ex nihilo – despite the debt he or she often owes to other artists. The paper also comments briefly on possible reasons why traditional post-Enlightenment aesthetics has said so little about the topic in question.

Rodion Raskolnikov, the central figure in Dostoyevsky’s "Crime and Punishment", is one of the bes... more Rodion Raskolnikov, the central figure in Dostoyevsky’s "Crime and Punishment", is one of the best-known characters in the world of the novel but one who continues to pose major interpretive problems. Why exactly does he murder the old pawnbroker and her sister? Why, throughout the novel, does he continue to believe that he has committed no crime? And why, despite this belief, does he suffer a form of psychological breakdown and eventually give himself up to the police? This article, which traces Raskolnikov’s literary ancestry to "Les Liaisons dangereuses" and "Le Père Goriot", argues that Raskolnikov, a prototype of the modern “virtuous assassin” described by Albert Camus in "L’Homme révolté", commits murder to implement a “magnificent” idea that will establish his worth as a human being. His ultimate collapse results not, as sometimes suggested, from guilt or remorse, or a belief that he has deluded himself about his motives, but from the state of irremediable solitude into which his act plunges him.

The paper highlights analytic aesthetics’ unacknowledged assumption that art is timeless, a view ... more The paper highlights analytic aesthetics’ unacknowledged assumption that art is timeless, a view it inherited from Enlightenment thinker such as Hume and Kant, who in turn inherited it from the Renaissance. This view, I contend, is no longer tenable because it is at obvious variance with our experience of the art of the past. Analytic aesthetics avoids examining this key problem because it confines its attention to issues such as the nature of aesthetic pleasure, whether the appreciation of art should be disinterested and so on, which can be partitioned off from historical change and encased in a world where time stands permanently still and where, just as importantly, the question of art’s capacity to transcend time is never raised.

Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (OUP)

The engineer Kirillov, an important character in Dostoievskii’s Demons, has provoked considerable... more The engineer Kirillov, an important character in Dostoievskii’s Demons, has provoked considerable critical disagreement. In a well-known section of Le Mythe de Sisyphe, Albert Camus describes him as a figure who expresses the theme of ‘logical suicide’ with ‘the most admirable range and depth’. Other commentators have not always been so sanguine, some dismissing Kirillov as a madman in the grip of a mad theory. While dissenting from Camus’s analysis in certain respects, this article offers an interpretation consistent with his basic argument. Kirillov’s decision to commit suicide is based on a simple, if implacable, logic which convinces him that as long as he kills himself for the right reason, his death will be an act of redemption for all humanity. Kirillov is a wholly ‘metaphysical’ character – one of the earliest in modern fiction – whose ambition to become the ‘man-god’ is explored by Dostoievskii to its ultimate, desolate conclusion. (The article can be read in the Journal of European Studies at http://jes.sagepub.com/content/44/2?etoc)

André Malraux et l art: Une révolution intellectuelle, 2021

Recent comments on "Art and Time" in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy:

30 illustrations, 23 in colour.

Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009

Dialogues littéraires et philosophiques, 2020.

Apollo, an International Art Magazine (April 2020), 2020

Link at: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/andre-malraux-museum-without-walls/

Literature Aesthetics, Nov 23, 2011

Encyclopedia of Aesthetics (OUP)

(To read paper, click on link above)

Choderlos de Laclos’s novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, first published in 1782, is regarded as one... more Choderlos de Laclos’s novel Les Liaisons dangereuses, first published in 1782, is regarded as one of the outstanding works of French literature. This article concerns a well-known commentary by the twentieth-century writer André Malraux which, though often mentioned by critics, has seldom been studied in detail. The article argues that while Malraux endorses the favourable modern assessments of Les Liaisons dangereuses, his analysis diverges in important respects from prevailing critical opinion. In particular, he regards the work as the commencement of an important new stage in the French novel rather than, as often argued, the culmination of the existing libertine tradition.

"Art, Time and Metamorphosis" (Click on link above) How does art – visual art, literature, or ... more "Art, Time and Metamorphosis" (Click on link above)

How does art – visual art, literature, or music – endure over time? What special capacity does it possess that enables it to “live on” when so much else is overtaken by time?

The Renaissance responded by claiming that great art is “eternal”, “timeless”, “immortal” – impervious to time – and this idea became a cornerstone of European thinking about art, exerting a decisive influence on Enlightenment aesthetics, and still lingering on in various forms today. But this claim was challenged in a fundamental way by thinkers such as Hegel, Marx, and Taine who stressed the historical embeddedness of art. For these three figures, as for a series of more recent theorists such as Sartre, Benjamin, Adorno and others, art is inseparable from processes of historical change. Locating its essential qualities in an “eternal” realm removed from the flow of history would be an idealist illusion.

The conflict between these two views has resulted in an impasse: today we appear to lack any acceptable explanation of one of art’s key features – its capacity to transcend time. In the course of the twentieth century, however, the French theorist André Malraux proposed an entirely new explanation of this capacity – the theory of metamorphosis. For Malraux, art is neither exempt from history (eternal) nor wholly embedded in it. It survives – transcends time – through a process of transformation (metamorphosis) in which history plays an essential part. As Malraux writes, “the great work of art belongs to history, but it does not belong to history alone”.

This paper examines the dilemma currently facing the philosophy of art and explains why Malraux’s revolutionary theory of metamorphosis provides a solution. It argues that the concept of metamorphosis, unlike the notion of timelessness, fits the facts of art history as we know them, especially the fact that our modern world of art includes so many works from the distant past that have re-emerged after long periods of oblivion, their revivals accompanied by a transformation in significance. ‘Metamorphosis,’ writes Malraux, ‘is the very life of the work of art in time, one of its specific characteristics.’

(The paper covered issues similar to those discussed in the papers in the "Art and Time" section of my website (see link) and examined in depth in my recent book "Art and Time".)"