Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to In Search of Lost Time
by Eric Karpeles
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Description
Paintings in Proust is a companion guide to a monumental twentieth century work of art. Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time, one of the most expansive literary creations ever composed, is a vast novel teeming with visual references. Author Eric Karpeles has combined his experiences as painter and writer to create a lavishly illustrated book that illuminates the winding corridors of Proust's singular, labyrinthine masterpiece. For newcomers to Proust's work, Paintings in Proust functions show more as a complementary guidebook, providing a firmer ground from which to undertake the task of plunging into a novel famously known for its complexity and its length. At the same time, Paintings in Proust offers further nourishment to the seasoned Proustian reader, whose plate is already extravagantly full. Paintings in Proust animates the experience of reading by revealing and clarifying much that might otherwise remain obscure. Illustrating a treasure trove of visual references, Paintings in Proust provides access and insight in its presentation of paired groupings of texts and pictures, arranged sequentially, as they appear in volume after volume of In Search of Lost Time. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
This is one of the best companion books to read and keep by your side as you journey through Proust's magnificent In Search of Lost Time. The author opens with an introductory essay that explains how he has "attempted to reassemble in a single volume the fleeting paintings weaving in and out of a moving narrative, to offer for the first time to the reader of In Search of Lost Time 'a comprehensive and continuous picture'."
To this end he combines color plates for all of the art referenced in the novel along with lucid contextual commentary and relevant quotations from the novel. When a specific work of art is not mentioned he has chosen a representative piece to complement the passage from the novel. The presentation of art works from show more artists as disparate as Manet and Michelangelo, Delacroix and Degas, and many others is a feast for the reader's eyes.
The result of his comprehensive work is a successful melding of art with literature that will please both those who are encountering Proust for the first time and those who know and love his literary masterpiece. show less
To this end he combines color plates for all of the art referenced in the novel along with lucid contextual commentary and relevant quotations from the novel. When a specific work of art is not mentioned he has chosen a representative piece to complement the passage from the novel. The presentation of art works from show more artists as disparate as Manet and Michelangelo, Delacroix and Degas, and many others is a feast for the reader's eyes.
The result of his comprehensive work is a successful melding of art with literature that will please both those who are encountering Proust for the first time and those who know and love his literary masterpiece. show less
Very clever idea. Indispensable, now, really. If Proust said someone resembled the third guy to Jesus' left in a work by Giotto, I just nodded and moved on, now, here he is. Beautifully printed. ...also acts as an interesting summary of the work, since an introductory sentence and the relevant quote are included, - [you almost never see the rare comma dash] from the graphic arts point of view.
A beautiful book in its own right and a marvelous companion to Proust's novel, especially for those of us with a minimal knowledge of paintings and painters.
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Author Information
5+ Works 519 Members
Work Relationships
Reference guide/companion to
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 2008
- People/Characters
- Marcel Proust
- First words
- Like the labyrinthine galleries of the Louvre frequented by the young Marcel Proust and his friends, In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu) houses a vast repository of paintings.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)But — as Elstir found with Chardin — you can make a new version of what you love only by first renouncing it.
Classifications
- Genres
- Art & Design, Nonfiction, Literature Studies and Criticism, Fiction and Literature
- DDC/MDS
- 843.912 — Literature & rhetoric French Literature French fiction 1900- 20th Century 1900-1945
- LCC
- PQ2631 .R63 .A82565 — Language and Literature French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese literatures French literature Modern literature 1900-1960
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 469
- Popularity
- 64,684
- Reviews
- 4
- Rating
- (4.39)
- Languages
- English, French, German
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 6
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 2
