The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 26 July 2021
by Eric Karpeles
Marcel Proust wrote a vast novel encompassing memory and experience into what amounted to an enormous portrait of the end of belle epoque European life. It is intensely observed and often intensely visual. There are scores of references to the visual arts (as well as the musical and literary arts, of course). One of his most significant peripheral characters is the painter Elstir, an amalgam of the many painters he knew and those he aspired to know. None of Elstir's paintings really exist, but they're vividly portrayed in the book. One can easily feel like one has actually seen one. Meanwhile, Proust also refers to countless real artworks that he would have seen, or at least researched in his consultations with art dealers, library researches, and his artistic travels, not least including many hours at the Louvre (and who can blame him?). A visual sensibility is essential to the enjoyment of reading Proust (plus patience and a certain smidgen of insanity).
To save the diligent reader from hours of internet searches for images referenced by Marcel Proust, artist and author Eric Karpeles has compiled this lavishly illustrated volume in which he cites pertinent paragraphs in Proust side by side with beautifully reproduced (if small) images of the art in question. From Boticelli and Da Vinci to Whistler and Monet, Proust's beloved Vermeers and Carpaccios, there are hundreds of works to which he turned for inspiration and metaphorical illustration. As the subtitle suggests, this is a valuable companion to Proust's In Search of Lost Time. If you've already read that and aren't quite ready for your second reading, the quoted texts alongside their images are a good way to relive the experience of plowing through that work and evoking the rich texture of Proust's imagery.