シテ・ファルギエール回想(７)
Ecape from the Labyrinth – An Examination of the Spiritual Journey in Diogo de Macedo's 14, Cité Falguière
Introduction: Escape from the Labyrinth of Suffering
The Portuguese first-generation modernist sculptor Diogo de Macedo (1889–1959), who chronicled his spiritual journey during his Paris years in the memoir 14, Cité Falguière, offers a poignant record of an artist's soul struggling to liberate itself from the falsehoods of the old era and to acquire a new ethic of creation. The "escape from the labyrinth" that Diogo de Macedo depicts in this book was not a magnificent revolution but rather a difficult process accompanied by constant self-doubt and loss of direction.
The book symbolizes the existential crisis faced by artists at the dawn of the 20th century, and its expression is profoundly symbolic and introspective. Having become aware of the falsehood of academism, Diogo de Macedo mockingly describes himself as a "pitiful young man" wandering in search of an exit. His anguish is not merely a personal conflict; it unfolds against the backdrop of a major turning point in European art history—the twilight of 19th-century academism and the dawn of 20th-century modernism. His identity was violently torn between the traditional education he received in Porto and the avant-garde atmosphere of Paris, the capital of art. In this paper, I analyze the powerful series of metaphors ("labyrinth," "tuberculosis patient," "wandering Jew," "pillar of Cockaigne") that Diogo de Macedo employs in his memoir, and I clarify how he overcame his spiritual crisis, established himself as a "cursed artist," and reached his unique ethical view of "service." This is both a record of one artist's spiritual growth and a universal story of how modern art attained its honesty and autonomy.
I: The Paradox of Creation – Daedalus as the Labyrinth
When Diogo de Macedo likened his predicament to a "labyrinth," a powerful resonance with Greek mythology, rooted deep in Western culture, is at work. It is the Labyrinth (Labyrinthos) said to have been constructed by the master craftsman Daedalus on the orders of King Minos of Crete. This labyrinth was built to imprison the bull-headed human monster Minotaur; once entered, it was said to be a complex and bizarre structure from which one could never escape. Macedo's superimposition of himself onto this mythological image is extremely suggestive.
Daedalus was not merely an architect but the first and greatest "craftsman" and "inventor" in mythology. He is said to have invented the axe and the level, and even to have created automata mimicking humans—a symbolic figure of technology and creativity. Diogo de Macedo himself was also a "skilled worker" who perfected academic sculptural techniques in Portugal and whose talent was recognized. He mastered the methods of academism as "handling the trowel or fireworks of symbols to deceive the world," and within that world, he walked the path to success. Yet when he found himself in Paris, the center of modernism, he realized that those very techniques had become a prison confining him.
For him, academism was precisely the labyrinth built by Daedalus. It was a structure meant to confine the external enemy (the Minotaur) while simultaneously becoming a trap that imprisoned its own creator. After completing the labyrinth, Daedalus and his son Icarus were ironically confined within it themselves. This myth sharply illuminates the paradox inherent in the act of creation: the system or technique created to produce something, once established, can rob the creator of freedom and become a cage that seals off new possibilities. Diogo de Macedo depended on the "perfection of the academic institution of beauty," and the more he polished his technique within it, the farther he drifted from true artistic expression.
What he called "the deceptive maze of difficulties and impossibilities" is none other than this paradox of creation and confinement. It is a deceptive structure in which the more one advances, the more the exit vanishes, and the more effort one expends, the deeper one sinks into despair. Escape from this labyrinth cannot be achieved simply by seeking another path. It demands the destruction of the very rules that constitute the labyrinth and a flight into an entirely new dimension. Just as Daedalus escaped into the sky on wings fixed with wax, Diogo de Macedo too had to search, in agonizing torment, for "wings" that would free him from the gravity of academism and allow him to soar into unknown realms of expression. When he confesses, "Even if I try to say 'ta-ta,' my tongue gets tangled," it reveals that the existing artistic language no longer functioned as an effective means to express his inner impulses and visions. He had something to convey, yet possessed no words with which to say it. This loss of expressive means was a fatal blow that shook the very reason for the artist's existence.
II: Between Despair and Hope – The Metaphor of the Tuberculosis Patient
The depth of Diogo de Macedo's spiritual pain is crystallized in the poignant self-recognition: "like a tuberculosis patient abandoned by doctors, always being deceived." In the early 20th century, tuberculosis was an incurable disease synonymous with death. At the same time, especially in the Romantic context, it was associated with artistic sensitivity and spiritual depth as the "disease of genius" or "romantic disease." The physical weakening caused by the illness was believed to sharpen the spirit and enable it to grasp truths of the world invisible to ordinary people.
Thus, the "tuberculosis patient" metaphor used by Macedo is torn between two faces: the inevitable fate of death and beautified artistic sensitivity. What he entrusted to this analogy was not merely a sense of despair with no exit. Embedded within it is a painful sense of election: that he himself is one of the "cursed artists" who gain special insight through suffering. He lamented his artistic life dying from the "disease" of academism, yet perhaps felt that this very suffering was the ordeal that forged him into a true artist. Like a terminal patient declared beyond hope of cure who nevertheless clings to a thread of hope, he felt he was continually deceived by the illusion of artistic salvation. Yet at the same time, he never ceased "believing in reason nevertheless, believing in the sincerity of his own efforts, and seeking the truth." This torn consciousness—between despair and hope, self-deception and sincerity—is the very core of the spiritual pain Diogo de Macedo experienced inside the labyrinth. The phrase "abandoned by doctors" signifies severance from old authorities; simultaneously, it is a declaration announcing the birth of the solitary artist who must walk forward relying solely on his own inner voice, dependent on no one.
III: Endless Quest – The Wandering Jew and the Pillar of Cockaigne
Having perceived the falsehood of academism, Diogo de Macedo likens himself to a "wandering Jew." This is a cursed being doomed to "wander the world forever" in pursuit of glory, expressing the eternal destiny of those who seek spiritual truth. When he discerned that "those who win the game of glory lose," he accurately captured the artistic dead end brought about by success in academism. The "game of glory" is the competition surrounding secular evaluations such as salon admissions or government commissions. To win this game, one must produce works that cater to the tastes of judges and the public, adhering to known styles and themes. Victory—i.e., success in academism—meant the artist distancing himself from his own truth and settling into the comfortable world of repetition and imitation. In this sense, the "winner" "loses" as an artist; that is, he loses his creative life.
As a metaphor for this unrewarded effort, Diogo de Macedo cites the "pillar of Cockaigne." This is the European festival game in which prizes hung at the top of a pillar coated with oil to make it slippery are contested. Challengers repeatedly slip and fall yet still struggle desperately toward the summit. Their appearance is both heroic and somehow comical and pitiful. For Diogo de Macedo, the Parisian art world was none other than this oil-smeared pillar. The prize called "glory" shining at the top held irresistible appeal for young artists, but he quickly recognized the futility of the competition. The technique for climbing the pillar—i.e., academic manners—had nothing to do with the essence of art; it was merely a "deceptive maze." In this comical and desperate competition, he faced the profound question of how to find his own path without losing his artistic integrity.
IV: Transformation of the Spirit and the "Noon of Life"
Diogo de Macedo's spiritual wandering led him to a Nietzschean transformation of the spirit. It was an indispensable ordeal to move from the "camel" burdened with the weight of academism, to the "lion" that destroys existing values, and finally to the "child" who lives in the play of new creation. In this process, he reached the realization: "the more I see, the more blind I become; the more I know, the more doubtful I become." The deeper one understands the world of falsehood, the less truth becomes visible, and from "knowledge" within the world of falsehood, still more doubt is born. He wished to escape the domination of reason—the most powerful tool of control in the world of falsehood—and fought falsehood with instinctive spiritual impulses.
At the end of this struggle, he arrives at the "noon of life." This is not depicted as a positive peak of career or maturity but as a decisive turning point accompanied by pressing anxiety and terror. He fears that the "twelve chimes of noon" will be "confused with the midnight of uncertainty, and perhaps the midnight of despair." Having awakened from self-deception and confronted the severity of true art, his future was extremely opaque. In this unstable moment, he recognizes the emptiness of the past. He asks himself what use were the youthful values of "duels for honor, sermons from others, useless pride." And there the turning point comes: "Still some light remains in my eyes, and my sensitivity has been sharpened in the collision between desire and disillusionment." Here is expressed a mature artistic view: the artist's sensitivity is not mere talent but is polished through the intense conflict between ideal (desire) and reality (disillusionment).
V: Philosophy of Rebirth – The "Cursed Artist" and "Service"
Even though the "ashes of dead fire" in which past passions had burned out filled his heart and eyes, Diogo de Macedo did not become completely blind. Rather, from within those ashes, he discovers a new philosophy. He declares, "Loneliness still nurtures my dreams!" and reinterprets the "isolation" severed from the world as a positive environment for creative activity. While acknowledging himself as a "cursed artist," he confesses, "I become increasingly humble before art." For him, to be "cursed" meant being abandoned by social success and peace; at the same time, it was a privileged state in which, for the first time, he could be liberated from impurities such as commercialism and secular fame and become purely "humble before art."
This self-awareness culminates in the "philosophy of service," the core of his artistic ethics. The powerful aphorism "The strongest is always the one who serves..." is his new profession of faith. Here "to serve" means to serve the transcendent existence of "art" itself, not one's own desires or fame. It is the belief that by making oneself nothing and serving art, one paradoxically gains the strongest spiritual power. He advocates "to love madly, without prejudice, hesitation, calculation, or reason" as the attitude toward art, yet at the same time warns himself "so that sensual love does not become the cause of destroying spiritual worship." This skillfully expresses the tension artists constantly face between worldly passions and the sacred act of creation. This ethic of "art as service" became the guiding principle that ran through his entire subsequent career.
VI: 14 Cité Falguière – The Community of the Solitary
When Diogo de Macedo's spiritual wandering became tied to a concrete "place," his art entered a new stage. That place is the cheap atelier at "14 Cité Falguière" in the impasse of Montparnasse, which also became the title of the memoir. Here, artists of many different nationalities and backgrounds—Amedeo Modigliani, Constantin Brancusi, Chaim Soutine, and others—gathered, sharing poverty and passion for creation; it was one of the most important artistic hubs in Paris at the beginning of the 20th century.
For Diogo de Macedo, Cité Falguière was not merely a residence or workspace. It was the spiritual "homeland" he had long sought and the concrete community in which to practice his "philosophy of service." Here he transformed from a solitary competitor chasing the false glory of academism into a member of the "community of the solitary," who share common ideals. They were all "cursed artists" alienated from the mainstream of society, each wandering their own "labyrinth." Yet they did not feel shame for their loneliness and poverty; rather, they shared it as proof of artistic integrity and respected one another's works.
Life in this community exerted a decisive influence on Diogo de Macedo. In particular, Brancusi's sculptural philosophy, which devoted a lifetime to drawing out the life force of materials to the utmost limit, must have served as an important guide for Macedo in discovering the direction of his own art. Modigliani's portraits, which continued to depict the sadness and dignity deep within the human soul, and Soutine's paintings, which expressed the chaos and life force of the world with rough brushstrokes, undoubtedly provided major stimulation for him to break free from the refined stylistic beauty of academism and acquire a more direct and expressive formative language. Cité Falguière was the place where he confirmed that art is not a commodity or decoration but life itself, and where he proved that his "philosophy of service" is not conceptual self-satisfaction but a living ethic nurtured in concrete relationships with others.
VII: Return to Matter – Bodily Nature as a Sculptor
Life at Cité Falguière returned Macedo from conceptual anguish to concrete bodily practice as a sculptor. Unlike painting, sculpture is an art that demands direct struggle with the three-dimensional, resisting matter of materials. The acts of kneading clay, chiseling stone, and carving wood are extremely physical labors, and the artist's thoughts and emotions are imprinted directly into the material through the movements of his hands. This dialogue with matter became the decisive key that liberated Diogo de Macedo from the conceptual endless circling of the "labyrinth."
What he had learned in academism was the "technique" for reproducing the human body with ideal proportions and smooth surfaces. Yet through exchanges with Brancusi and other modernist sculptors, he realized that the essence of sculpture lies not in mere reproduction of form but in drawing out the inherent life and power that the material itself possesses. It is a process in which the artist does not dominate the material but rather listens to its voice and "discovers" the form hidden within it. This process of discovery was none other than the concrete practice of the "service to art" he sought.
This return to matter also brought great change to his spirit. The split between "reason" and "instinct" that had long tormented him gradually integrated through the bodily labor of sculpture. In struggling with matter, his thinking became more intuitive and his emotions gained concrete form. He was no longer suffering in the labyrinth of inexpressible concepts; he could find the reason for his existence in the joy of creating with his own hands and the sure response that matter provided. This recovery of bodily nature regenerated him as a true sculptor and became the source that gave his subsequent works powerful vitality and spiritual depth.
Conclusion: At the End of the Nietzschean Transformation
Diogo de Macedo's 14, Cité Falguière can be read as a universal allegory depicting the arduous path by which the spirit of modern art established itself, transcending the memoir of a single artist. The spiritual journey he experienced vividly recalls the "three stages of transformation of the spirit" described by Friedrich Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra: the stage of the "camel" bearing the burdens of existing values and duties, the stage of the "lion" that casts off those burdens and fights for freedom, and the stage of the "child" liberated from the past and living in the innocent play of creation.
Diogo de Macedo arrived in Paris as a "camel" burdened with the weight of academism's tradition. Unable to endure that burden, he recognized himself as an existence imprisoned in the "labyrinth." Yet in that despair, he transformed into a "lion" that thrusts "no" against the existing value system. He denounced the falsehood of academism, accepted the isolation of the "cursed artist," and attempted to create new values with his own power. Then, within the community of Cité Falguière, he finally reached the stage of the "child" who lives in the pure joy of creation. The philosophy of "service to art" he attained is none other than the spirit of this "child's" play. It is a self-contained mode of creation that finds joy within the act itself, not for external evaluation or purposes.
Interestingly, Diogo de Macedo's philosophy of "service" came to be practiced in a new form in the latter half of his artistic career. In 1944, he returned to Portugal and became director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (MNAC). He chose to stand on the side of the very "institution" whose hypocrisy he had once fiercely denounced. However, this did not mean abandonment of his philosophy. Rather, it showed that his concept of "service" had expanded from personal creative activity to the entire Portuguese art world. He used his own experience and knowledge to support younger artists and to enrich Portugal's artistic culture. In the "labyrinth" where he himself had suffered, he became a guide raising a torch so that young artists would not lose their way.
This final transformation gives his story a profound circular structure. The journey that began from Daedalus's labyrinth reaches one completion when he himself becomes the manager of a new "labyrinth." Yet the place he manages is no longer a prison that confines artists but a sanctuary that protects and nurtures them. Diogo de Macedo's life can be said to have embodied, in his own person, the most important ethic of modern art: that art is both the individual's self-expression and service to others and to the future.
This report was written by Ryoji Nakazato
