After Paul Valéry

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Indeed, in the art of the latter half of the twentieth century, mystery has been lost. Today artists want instantaneous and total recognition — immediate payment for something that takes place in the realm of the spirit. In this respect the figure of Kafka is outstanding: he printed nothing during his lifetime, and in his will instructed his executor to burn all he had written; in mentality he belonged, morally speaking, to the past. That was why he suffered so much, being out of tune with his time.
What passes for art today is for the most part fiction, for it is a fallacy to suppose that method can become the meaning and aim of art. Nonetheless, most modern artists spend their time self-indulgently demonstrating method.
The whole question of avant-garde is peculiar to the twentieth century, to the time when art has steadily been losing its spirituality. The situation is worst in the visual arts, which today are almost totally devoid of spirituality. The accepted view is that this situation reflects the despiritualised state of society. And of course, on the level of simple observation of the tragedy, I agree: that is what it does reflect. But art must transcend as well as observe; its role is to bring spiritual vision to bear on reality: as did Dostoievsky, the first to have given inspired utterance to the incipient disease of the age.
The whole concept of avant-garde in art is meaningless. I can see what it means as applied to sport, for instance. But to apply it to art would be to accept the idea of progress in art; and though progress has an obvious place in technology — more perfect machines, capable of carrying out their functions better and more accurately — how can anyone be more advanced in art? How could Thomas Mann be said to be better than Shakespeare?
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Andrey Tarkovsky, “Sculpting in Time: Reflections on the Cinema”. Translated by Kitty Hunter-Blair. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1986. Reprint 2017, pp. 96-97 (emphasis in original).