Paintings in Proust by Eric Karpeles

From the Publisher

This lavishly illustrated and comprehensive guide celebrates the close relationship between the visual and literary arts in Proust’s masterpiece.

With over two hundred beautifully reproduced paintings, drawings and engravings, and accompanying texts drawn from the Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright translation, this book is an essential addition to the libraries of Proustians worldwide and a handsome volume in its own right.

Eric Karpeles has identified and located all of the paintings to which the book makes exact reference. Where only a painter’s name is mentioned, he has chosen a representative work to illustrate the impression that Proust sought to evoke. Botticelli’s angels, Manet’s courtesans, Mantegna’s warriors, and Carpaccio’s saints are here, as well as Monet’s water lilies and Piranesi’s engravings of Rome, while Karpeles’s insightful essay and contextual commentary explain their significance to Proust.

Extensive notes and a comprehensive index of all painters and paintings mentioned in the novel provide an invaluable resource for the reader navigating In Search of Lost Time for the first time or the fifth.

Daily Telegraph

Fortunately you do not need to have read a page of Proust to appreciate this beautiful book.

Irish Times

An intelligent and passionate introduction from a painter who deeply understands Proust, a collection of sumptuous reproductions of paintings from the Middle Ages to the early 20th century, and a window into Proust's sharp, eccentric wit.

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