Le musée imaginaire de Marcel Proust

For those who have always been reticent to read In Search of Lost Time, this is the moment to do it! It is possible to read it diagonally, to the rhythm of the paintings that form the history of art. The author of this book, Eric Karpeles, who is also a painter, concocted this method, and to do so he did not rely on his own imagination but rather on the sometimes very precise notes of Proust himself. From Giotto’s Virtues to Bellini’s musician-angels, from Watteau’s study sheets to Manet’s women, all Western art accompanies Albertine and Swann (a great specialist of Vermeer) in their torments. Of course the Italians are very present – Giotto, Carpaccio, Tiziano – but Whistler stands up to them and a few society painters of the Third Republic – Winterhalter, Jules Machard, Pierre-Auguste Cot or Gustave Jacquet –accompany the more established glories.

•  Le musée imaginaire de Marcel Proust by Erich Karpeles, , 2009, 352 p., 32 €, ISBN : 978-2-87811-326-6 (Published in English by Thames & Hudson)