Eric Karpeles’s lavishly illustrated and comprehensive guide offers a feast for the eyes as it celebrates the close relationship between the visual and literary arts in Proust’s masterpiece. Karpeles has identified and located all of the paintings to which Proust makes exact reference. Where only a painter’s name is mentioned to indicate a certain mood or appearance, 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 stand among Monet’s water lilies and Piranesi’s engravings of Rome, while Karpeles’s insightful essay and lucid contextual commentary explain their significance to Proust. The book closes with extensive notes and a comprehensive index of all painters and paintings mentioned in the novel. With over 200 beautifully reproduced paintings, drawings and engravings, and accompanying texts drawn from the Moncrieff/Kilmartin/Enright translation of In Search of Lost Time, this book is an essential addition to the libraries of Proustians worldwide and a handsome volume in its own right.
