“Art is a revolt against fate.”

— André Malraux

Part IV, Chapter VII
Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence] (1951)

Original

L'art est un anti-destin.

Les voix du silence [Voices of Silence] (1951)

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André Malraux 37

French novelist, art theorist and politician 1901–1976

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“then the voice in my head said

WHETHER YOU LOVE WHAT YOU LOVE

OR LIVE IN DIVIDED CEASELESS
REVOLT AGAINST IT

WHAT YOU LOVE IS YOUR FATE”

Frank Bidart (1939) American poet

Source: In the Western Night: Collected Poems, 1965-1990

“I did exhibitions with the Surrealists [in Paris, c. 1929] because their attitude revolted against 'art' and their attitude toward life itself was wise, as was Dada's.”

Hans Arp (1886–1966) Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist

Source: 1960s, Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essaies, souvenirs (1966), p. 406

“In these two statements, perhaps, is the rigorous fate of art.”

Yasunari Kawabata (1899–1972) Japanese author, Nobel Prize winner

Japan, the Beautiful and Myself (1969)
Context: "If you meet a Buddha, kill him. If you meet a patriarch of the law, kill him."
This is a well-known Zen motto. If Buddhism is divided generally into the sects that believe in salvation by faith and those that believe in salvation by one's own efforts, then of course there must be such violent utterances in Zen, which insists upon salvation by one's own efforts. On the other side, the side of salvation by faith, Shinran, the founder of the Shin sect, once said: "The good shall be reborn in paradise, and how much more shall it be so with the bad." This view of things has something in common with Ikkyu's world of the Buddha and world of the devil, and yet at heart the two have their different inclinations. Shinran also said: "I shall not take a single disciple."
"If you meet a Buddha, kill him. If you meet a patriarch of the law, kill him." "I shall not take a single disciple." In these two statements, perhaps, is the rigorous fate of art.

“To me art is a form of manifest revolt, total and complete. It's a political attitude which doesn't need to found a political party.”

Jean Tinguely (1925–1991) Swiss painter and sculptor

Quote from an interview on the Belgian radio, 1982; As cited in: Andersson, Patrik Lars. Euro-pop: the mechanical bride stripped bare in Stockholm, even. (2001). p. 50.
Quotes, 1980's
Context: With Dada I.... have in common a certain mistrust toward power. We don't like authority, we don't like power, To me art is a form of manifest revolt, total and complete. It's a political attitude which doesn't need to found a political party. It's not a matter of taking power; when you are against it, you can't take it. We're against all forms of force which aggregate and crystallize an authority that oppresses people. Obviously this is not a characteristic of my art alone - it's much more general, a basic political attitude. It's a clear intention, more necessary today than ever, to oppose all forms of force emanating from a managing, centralizing political power.

“Two pictures painted in the year 1907 can conveniently be taken as the starting point of twentieth-century art. They are Matisse's Blue Nude and Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon; and both these cardinal, revolutionary pictures represent the nude. The reason is that the revolt of twentieth-century painters was not against academicism: that had been achieved by the impressionists. It was a revolt against the doctrine, with which the impressionists implicitly agreed, that the painter should be no more than a sensitive and well-informed camera. And the very elements of symbolism and abstraction that made the nude an unsuitable subject for the impressionists commended it to their successors. When art was once more concerned with concepts rather than sensations, the nude was the first concept that came to mind.”

Kenneth Clark (1903–1983) Art historian, broadcaster and museum director

Source: The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1951), Ch. IX: The Nude As an End in Itself

“Hoddan angrily suspected fate and chance of plain conspiracy against him.”

Murray Leinster book The Pirates of Zan

Source: The Pirates of Zan (1959), Chapter 4

“The idea that you write to express yourself seems to me revolting. The idea that you write to glorify or to make glorious the art of expressiveness seems to me spot on.”

Geoffrey Hill (1932–2016) English poet and professor

Interview, Telegraph Review, 2013

“With the world began a war that will only end with the world, and not before: that of man against nature, mind against matter, freedom against fate. History is nothing but the story of this endless struggle.”

Jules Michelet (1798–1874) French historian

[Introduction à l'histoire universelle, Michelet, Jules, Hachette, 1843, 9]
Introduction to Universal History , 1831, 1831

“It's a complex fate, being an American, and one of the responsibilities it entails is fighting against a superstitious valuation of Europe.”

Henry James (1843–1916) American novelist, short story author, and literary critic

Letter to Charles Eliot Norton (4 February 1872).

“My sins, my wild loves, and Fate herself
have all conspired against me.”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Erros meus, má fortuna, amor ardente
Em minha perdição se conjuraram.
Selected Sonnets: A Bilingual Edition (2008), ed. William Baer, p. 99
Lyric poetry, Não pode tirar-me as esperanças, Erros meus, má fortuna, amor ardente

“Art is a revolt against fate.”

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André Malraux 37

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