Dear Derek,

With respect I cannot respond fairly to Malraux's argument if you keep certain key points of his argument under wraps.  Please explain a little more fully:  "this aspect of his thinking has often been misunderstood.  Merleau-Ponty, for example,"   I am very interested in Merleau Ponty's work.  In my view he understood the immediacy of consciousness in terms of our intimate relationship with our physical body and the social world in a way that was way ahead of his time in my view.  However, that aside, the point at which I am coming from is that self-expression arises from our self-will, without which our will is merely robotic. 

Every sentient rational action is either voluntary or we are forced against our will. 

External influences can persuade our self-will to act in certain ways, or we can be forced to act against our will when we have no other alternative, (ie through physical or political oppression or mind-bending drugs,)  but our self-will is essentially that which explains sentient rational beings, which is my point here. Without our self-will or desire no one's going anywhere.  The act of perceiving these works either as tomb artifacts or contemporary art must coherently arise from the desire of our self-will, the execution or satisfaction of which is one of self- expression.  I don't really see how it can be coherently explained otherwise.   

Best wishes.
Dilys