Paintings in Proust (Eric Karpeles, 2008)

I've been thinking about Proust's signature book lately - maybe attaching too much significance?  But I'm pretty sure it's quite important.  (Previous discussions of the book are here and here.)  (One reason I'm thinking about the book is that during our recent and most enjoyable visit to Portland, I found a basically untouched used set at "Powell's World of Books" - nice to own it, finally.)

Proust helps me see differently.  Other authors have this effect, but not as strongly.

I have no idea how to distill his essential messages, if there are any.  But somehow he applies a combination of open-mindedness and studied preparation to see people, objects in art or nature (sublime or otherwise), everyday objects - with far more depth than most of us do.  We miss so much.

As I get older, I can better see that the "studied preparation" part is crucial.  Being open-minded and receptive is just a threshold - if you don't bring anything of depth to the process of perceiving, you cannot see or appreciate nearly as much.  Seems obvious, right?  ("Studied preparation" - not sure exactly what this involves - but at a minimum it would be steady exposure to sophisticated literature, art, music.)

Proust wrote "Imagine today a writer to whom the idea would occur to treat twenty times under different lights the same theme, and who would have the sensation of creating something profound, subtle, powerful, overwhelming, original, startling like the fifty cathedrals or forty water-lily ponds of Monet." That's how he writes; that's how to see.  (Also an example of how he saw painting and literature as similar arts.)

Technology brings valuable exposure to us, but (as has been lamented for a couple hundred years now) makes it more difficult to find (or, more accurately, to choose to find) the time, quiet, and/or serendipity to generate useful, original, thought or in-depth perception.  We exchange this possibility for a diet of spoon-fed mediocrity, while stalwartly rationalizing the sad trade-off via absurd assertions that a person can focus on multiple distractions at the same time without affecting cognition, depth of thought or receptivity to sensations and ideas.  Oh well.

I bought the version at left Sept 2012 - at Powell's, Portland OR.

The premise of this book:  Proust wove dozens of references to art works throughout the novel, along with lengthy passages dealing with the fictional painter, Elstir.  Karpeles had a fine idea - he went through all ~3300 pages and came up with a list of art references, then included reproductions in this book along with text excerpts from the passage in which the art reference appeared.  (Heavy stock paper, nice quality reproductions.)  This approach really works, on at least three levels:

1.  Enjoying the art even if you didn't read or are one of those who don't particularly like Remembrance of Things Past.

2.  Providing a memory refresh on the novel independent of the art references - which is valuable, it is not easy to hang onto the story line given its length and complexity.

3.  Reflecting on the way Proust used art to illustrate points in the novel; perhaps picking up the ability to do the same; the irreplaceable way in which art can accomplish this.

Odette as a figure from a Botticelli painting.  I like so many of the paintings . . . perhaps especially The Mother (Pieter de Hooch) (see the part toward the back where the small child looks out the door); and Portrait of an Old Man and a Young Boy (Domenico Ghirlandaio) (from the Louvre).

Delightful, valuable.  Will buy it.