Visit to an Art Museum

Proust has the novelist Bergotte visit a gallery to see a painting by Vermeer.  While viewing the painting, the old writer drops dead.

Marcel Proust himself was a huge fan of Vermeer.  Painting, music, and architecture as well as writing permeates Proust's great novel, A La Recherche du Temps Perdu.  

This article discusses Proust and painting.  Marcel Proust Dreams of Art
The  painting of Proust himself will be familiar to readers of this blog.

This is a terrific article on Proust which I highly recommend.  It touches a lot of bases and gives the casual (if there is such a thing) reader of Proust a commanding explanation of Proust's relationship to painting and how it informs his art. 

I don't post very often because I don't find most of the recent references to Proust to be really about Proust or they don't have anything new to say.

If you find something of interest that I have missed, please comment on this blog. 

Proust's Overcoat

I have been at a writing conference in San Francisco and was able to pay a visit to the City Lights Bookstore, a place I have craved to see since I was a freshman in college and was introduced to the poetry of Ferlinghetti and some of the "Beat" writers.  I even became a lifetime member of a short-lived coffee house called "The Outside."  


City Lights lived up to my expectations--how often does THAT happen?  My significant other, my son and I all bought books.  Guess what one of my selections was?  Proust's Overcoat.  Written by Italian journalist and writer Lorenza Foschini and translated by Eric Karpeles of Paintings In Proust authorship,


I read Proust's Overcoat on the long flight home, and found it enchanting.  It is the story of one man's obsession with Proust and his effort to salvage Proust's writing and possessions after his death.    Obsession can be a good thing.   


Some nights I do read a few pages of Cities of the Plain and am enjoying it.  The Verdurin's dinner parties are somehow livelier than the Guermantes, don't you think?  And the little band of girls continues to  intrigue us as the narrator spends another summer at Balbec. 


Do pick up a copy of Proust's Overcoat.  Unlike his masterpiece, this book is 128 pages, some of them photos.  You won't still be reading it six months from now.  Hmmm.  Is that a good thing or a bad thing? 


Odette

Paintings in Proust

A blogger with interesting thoughts about painting in Proust. I often try to figure out who "Elstir" was. He had to be one of the painters contemporary to Proust, just as Saens-Saens was likely a stand in for Vintieul. I think I have found the "petite phrase" in one of the violin/piano concertos.

http://proustreader.wordpress.com/2009/09/05/paintings-in-proust/

It would be so nice to have time to pursue all these tracks, but daily responsibilities tie me down. Maybe take an Elstir/Vintieul week and just pursue the threads? Lovely.

I wonder if the blogger knows about the book, Paintings in Proust by Eric Karpeles"?

The other Odette

Painting in Proust

Today the New York Times Sunday edition had a long article on Painting in Proust by Eric Karpeles. This book looks like a keeper, and if the American economy ever digs itself out of the toilet, I will certainly buy a copy.

In Proust's great masterpiece, he "names more than 100 painters and mentions or describes dozens or works." Who can ever forgot the scenes in Elstir's studio at Balbec?

What a delightful time one would have paging through the paintings that inspired Proust.

The article show a 1922 drawing by Paul Helleu of Proust on his deathbed. He looks so young and calm, as if he just lay down for a nap.

Here is the Amazon link should you decide to buy the book. Oh, why not! Give yourself a Christmas present. It's not THAT expensive.

http://www.amazon.com/Paintings-Proust-Visual-Companion-Search/dp/0500238545/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225674031&sr=1-1