Outline: Ch.2

Chapter 2: Outline



During his sojourn in Balbec, Marcel’s vision of the world is profoundly affected by the paintings of Elstir. In a most general way, it can be said that Elstir’s paintings show Marcel a new way of seeing the world. However it is difficult to untangle the way in which this comes about. The first problem is that there is not one way, but two, and these two are opposed so as to create a paradox within the theory of aesthetics that emerges from the relationship between Marcel, and Elstir and his art.
In the Balbec episode, the power of art is first represented as being able to bypass [word choice ?] the subjectivity of the viewer. The viewer no longer sees things through their habitual and conceptual veil, but instead acquires a capacity of direct perception, which Marcel later describes as seeing things “in the order of our perceptions”. Before looking further at this however, it is important to get a better sense of the veil of subjectivity. [I might instead include an explanation of the ‘veil of subjectivity’ in the introduction] Early on, in Du côté de chez Swann, Marcel describes this very separation between his awareness and the phenomenal world:
And my thinking was it not also like another creche at the bottom of which I sensed that I stayed enclosed, even to look [when looking?] at what was happening outside? When I saw an exterior object, the consciousness that I saw it stayed between me and it, bordering it with a thin spiritual edge that prevented me from ever directly touching its material(ity ??); it volatized in some way before I could catch [wc??] contact with it, like an incandescent body that we approach with a wet object does not touch its humidity because it is always preceded by a zone of evaporation.

Thinking, for Marcel, is the standard way of relating both to the outside world and to himself. However, his manner of thinking creates a conceptual barrier between himself and the objects of the exterior world. This barrier is what I haved called the veil of subjectivity. Through the course of the Recherche Marcel discorvers that the only means of escaping it is through art. It is because of this that art gains its special importance, and its raison d’être. This view of the purpose of art is strikingly similar to that outlined by Henri Bergson in his Le comique de caractère:
What is the object of art? If reality came and directly struck our senses and our consciousness, if we could enter into immediate communication with things and with ourselves, I strongly believe that art would be useless, or rather that we would all be artists, for our souls would vibrate in continous unisson with nature. […] Between nature and us, what do I say? Between us and our own consciousness, a viel is interposed, a thick veil for the common people amongst us, and a light veil, almost transparent, for the artist and the poet. What fact has woven this veil? Was it by malice or by friendship? We had to live, and life requires that we apprehend things in the relationship that they have with our needs.

For Bergson, we fail to see the world directly because we see things only as they relate to our needs. Art allows us to see beyond our utilitarian concerns, beyond our subjective sense of the cause and effect relationships between ourselves and the world, and to instead apprehend the world simply, directly.
Though the transformation effected by art does in some sense efface subjectivity, it does not do so completely, and this is where the paradox arises. There is of course still consciousness [citation?], and though art does remove the veil of subjectivity, the new sense of vision does not always arise spontaneously [does it ever?]. Instead, it often creates a new way of seeing things. In these instances, art, while eroding an old set of relationships between subject and object, in fact replaces them with a new set. This is what Marcel expriences when he sees the real vista that was the inspiration for one of Elstir’s marines. It is also what Bergson talks of, when speaking of Rousseau, he says that art can introduce us to a new emotion (p.1009). This way of seeing through art is different from the one which was first outlined. We are not talking of seeing things “in the order of our perceptions”, but of seeing them within a different context, which is to say we see them as defined by a different set of relationships. The paradox then lies between these two different ways in which art can transform our vision of the world. In the first case, art has a very disarming quality; its representation of the world appears to efface the subjective constraints of the lens through which we typically see. There ceases to be a lens, we are no longer talking of a way of seeing; instead, it is a direct vision, unmediated by any processes of subjectivity [concerns of the subjective self?]. (This would suggest that Marcel conceives of a difference between awareness and subjectivity, but this avenue will be explored later.) In the second case, which we might compare to the creation of a new emotion (as in Bergon’s Rousseau), the first lens is exchanged for another. In this sense it is quite correct to talk of a new way of seeing. At what point this new way of seeing becomes itself an aspect of the viewer’s subjectivity, of her subjective constraints is an important question, but it will be addressed later.

Meeting Elstir
Elstir is first mentioned in something of an aside after Marcel has begun reading The Letters of Madame de Sévigné while riding on the train to Balbec. It is a book his grandmother has given him to read during the voyage, and he has only just begun reading when he stops to contemplate the mistaken readings of others who are tricked by purely formal particularities that relate to the era, and to life in the salon (I, p.653). In contrast to them, he says of his grandmother:
But my grandmother, who had come to [Madame de Sévigné] from within, by the love of her own, for nature, had taught me to love true beauties, that are completely other. They soon hit me all the more so that Mme de Sévigné is a great artist of the same family as a painter that I would meet in Balbec and who had such a profound influence on my vision of things, Elstir. I came to realize at Balbec that it is in the same manner as him that she presents things to us, in the order of our perceptions, instead of first explaining them by their cause .

This brief paragraph outlines a complex connection between the true beauties [what are these true beauties ?] realized in art and their capacity to effect a transformation of the viewer’s perception, thus allowing them to see the world as it is. The transformation is of the first type discussed, where subjectivity is effaced and the world is perceived directly. The passage begins with an enigmatic notion of coming “from within”. What is this the inside to? What is the corresponding outside to the binary that has been implied? There are two possibilties. In close proximity in the sentence, there is the demonstrative pronoun “this” (celle-ci; replaced by the square-bracketed ‘Madame de Sévigné above). “Within” could then be somehow inside of Madame de Sévigné, which in the context should be understood as the book entitled Les lettres de Madame de Sévigné. In this sense, the “inside” is the interior truth of the art in question. The second possibility is that Marcel’s grandmother has come to Madame de Sévigné from within herself. We might understand this as arising from her consciousness, or alternately as from within an inner, personal aspect of mind, not determined by outside social forces [what is this?]. In this sense, the grandmother’s reading is clearly opposed to those of the faulty readers whose mistakes set up the conjunctive “but” that begins the sentence. The possibility that a part of the transformation of vision (effected by art) arises from within the viewer raises a paradox. How are we to understand a view of art as capable of removing the contraints of the viewer’s subjectivity, and yet as also depedent on the participation of the viewer (“from within”) in order that their own subjectivity be efaced? [At present, I have no idea, nor is that a very good statement of the problem.] As there is some truth in both possibilities, it is more important that we keep both in mind than that we make a choice amongst them. The next clause, “par l’amour pour les siens”, gives us no more answers than the first. Love has been added to the enigma, hinting at more possible explanations, but “les siens” lacks a clear antecedent. The first real clue comes in the next clause, “for nature”. The concept of nature establishes two important binaries. First, nature is often opposed to society, which as an institution sitting atop nature, interferes with its “natural” workings. [should I say something about the question begging nature of this characterization?] Within this first opposition is found the second: having both created this unnatural society and chosen to inhabit it, humans also come to be viewed as individually unnatural. Thus, the grandmother’s wisdom, in teaching Marcel to see the true beauties, can be opposed to both the mistakes committed by society, and to the misapprehensions of other individuals. That this should be so is reflected in the various disembodied quotations of the mistaken readers. These quotations show both individual instances of misapprehension, and also a general pattern of so doing within society at large. Through art, she gains a priveleged access to nature
This separation between misperception and a true perception [citation?] of the phenomenal world (nature) forms the basis for the aesthetic theory that is developed through the course of Marcel’s encounters with Elstir and his art. The heart of the matter is the appreciation of “true beauties” and the capacity of vision that this appreciation bestows. Though this is clearly stated when Marcel says that his grandmother taught him to “love true beauties, that are completely other”, its meaning remains a mystery. For one, we have still not (as the reader of Marcel’s story) encountered any “true beauties” [check this], and second, the explanatory, “that are completely other”, though suggestive is in no way definite. It implies an opposition, but to what? Two ideas we have already encountered come to mind: other than social (not socially constructed) and other than self. At the very least, what is “completely other” is by its complete alterity also completely different. If the reference point is assumed to be the experiences (memories) of the perceiver, then to be completely different is to be entirely new. True beauties, therefore, have as a condition that they be unfamiliar. However, one can also choose a different reference point. The “other” may simply be an opposition to our normal ways of seeing. Using Bergson’s terminology, it would mean a sense of vision beyond the utilitarian calculus that determines our day to day life.
Whichever the case, the important common element is the sense of unfamiliarity. It is this unfamiliarity that gives rise to the new capacity of vision that Marcel speaks of when he talks of the “painter that I would meet in Balbec and who had such a profound influence on my vision of things, Elstir.” (I. p.653) The placement of Elstir’s name in this sentence is important as its syntax mirrors that of the sentence on true beauties (“…true beauties, that are completely other”). In the first case, there is a tension between the apparent self-evident clarity (?) of true beauties and the qualifying [wc?] “completely other” that follows. These true beauties now become as mysterious as the appended phrase that one hopes might explain them. In the same way that the explanatory, “that are completely other” was set of from its sentence, separated by a comma and dangling on the end, Elstir’s name is also separated from the rest of the sentence. Though a small point, these breaks in the natural metonymic connections of reading have important logical consequences.

[ ideas: nature ; learn to love true/real beauties ; true/real beauty ; true/real beauties that are completely other ; connection between art and vision, paintings of Elstir bestow particular sense of vision of things ; in the order of our perceptions, what does this mean? ; in the order of our perceptions versus cause]

Citations to Use
1. “L’individualité des choses et des êtres nous échappe toutes les fois qu’il ne nous est pas matériellement utile de l’apercevoir.” [Ibid. p.460]

[The individuality of things and of beings escapes us all the times that it is not materially uselful to us to perceive them.]

I may insert this citation earlier, during the introduction, but I’m not yet sure. Alternately, it my be useful as I finish talking about the passage above, with Marcel’s grandmother and Madame de Sévigné. I have not yet talked about the end of that paragraph where seeing things in “the order of our perceptions” is opposed to seeing them first by their cause. There is I think a similarty between the idea of seeing things by their cause and Bergson’s view that we typically only see things with reference to our material needs. The important point that this Bergson citation brings out is that things do not just all become “one” when our vision is transformed by art. That is, our loss of subjectivity does no inhibit our ability to see things, and to pick them out as different from one another. It is in fact quite the opposite. In attending to the phenomenal world in a new, more profound way, beyond our material concerns, we actually see the world better.


2. “Les levers de soleil sont un accompagnement des longs voyages en chemin de fer […] avoir une vue totale et un tableau continu.” (p.654-5)

I don’t know about using this quote in this chapter as it doesn’t easily fit into the ideas on aesthetics and perception. However, I find it interesting, and possibly of use for two reasons. First, it brings into play the recurring themes of consciousness and of the soft divide between waking life (reality) and dreams. But more importantly, it also relates it to painting and to art. Marcel says that he sensed that “this color was not inertia or caprice, but necesssity and life.” He also talks of “rentoiler” the “intermittent and opposite” fragments of the morning scene so as to have “a complete view and a continous painting/canvas (tableau)”. There is in this a desire to achieve some sort of natural totality [unity?], and an implication that it is through painting, and by extension through art, that such a view can be achieved. In this sense, this passage begins to introduce ideas that will become explicit later on, when Marcel speaks of “seeing things nature as it it, poetically”, and of the “powerful unity” of Elstir’s painting.
3. (I, p.834): At the moment that I entered, the creator [Elstir] in the process of finishing (achever), with the brush that he was holding in his hand, the form of the sun at its setting.
• Strong emphasis on the physical and the present of Elstir’s creation and realisation
• p.835 “ce clair-obsur” describing the atelir of Elstir

I think it makes sense to start with his description of Elstir at work. The is a strong emphasis on the physicaly act of creation, of bringing the world into being. I might make something of the fact that Elstir is painting “the form of the sun at sunset” at the “moment” when Marcel first enters. This is interesting for its parallel with the tableau like scene of sunrise that Marcel saw as he was on the train to Balbec. Together, sunset and sunrise, bring back the theme of sleep and awake, of passing back and forth between dreams and reality. [Though this seems like a stretch to me, I am beginning to like it very much.] What do I make of the ‘clair-obscur’? If ever there was an oxymoron, this is it. In some ways, this is the juxtaposition of night and day, of reality and dreams. Does this imply, that in the atelier of Elstir the two come together? [I know I’m off in the deep forests of literary interpretation, but this could turn into something reasonable] Marcel say “je circulais dans ce clair-obscur,…” The verb circuler also seems to be an important choice (if I follow this line of thought), as it recalls the movement back and forth movement between dreams and reality.

4. (p.835) “Naturellement, ce qu’il avait dans son atelier…ne se rapporte pas à cette notion”
• important parts of the passage: A. “métamorphose des choses représentées, analogue à celle qu’en poésie on nomme métaphore”, and then B. “si Dieu le Père avait créé les choses en les nommant, c’est en ôtant leur nom, ou en leur donnant un autre, qu’Elstir les recréait.” And finally, C. “Les noms qui désignent les choses répondent toujours à une notion de l’intelligence, étrangère à nos impressions véritables, et qui nous force à éliminer d’elles tout ce qui ne se rapporte pas à cette notion.”
- also, I might add a short citations from p.840. 1) “L’effort qu’Elstir faisait pour se dépouiller en présence de toute les notions de son intelligence était…”

This passage is going to take a lot of explication, probably two pages, perhaps more. First there is the idea of a metamorphosis of the things represented. This is the transformation of vision. Next comes the most difficult part: this transformation is said to be analogous to what in poetry is called métaphore. What does this mean? An answer to this will perhaps require some sense of what I/we believe metaphor to be, as I don’t think Proust/Marcel gives us any guidelines. It may perhaps be necessary to discuss metaphor in general and specific terms in the introduction. What does this opposition between God’s process of creation, by naming, and Elstir’s ? I think there is a parallel between the two types of transformation (of vision) which I have identified. To take away the name is to eface the subjective constraints and allow direct perception to take place. On the other hand, to rename it is to transform the contraints (as in Bergon’s idea of introducing a new emotion). With part C we there is again a parallel with Bergson, however there is perhaps also a difference. What Bergon characterizes as utility, or for our needs, Marcel relation to “une notione de l’intelligence”. Marcel’s characterization of the typical limits on relating to the phenomenal world seem in this way broader than those envisioned by Bergson.

5. p.834 “je sentais la possibilité de m’élever à une connaissance poétique […] spectacle total de la réalité”
This is one of the more important quotes, and it will come towards the end of middle section where I write about Marcel’s experience in the atelier of Elstir. The important words: “connaissance poétique”, spectacle, “spectacle total”, “spectacle total de la réalité”, réalité. This quote will serve as the conclusion of sorts to this middle section. I brings back the idea of a poetic way of seeing, and also of this being a manner of seeing things in their totality, or untiy.

6. (p.835-6) Comparison between the way he sees the ocean from his window in Balbec, how he hears the street sounds in Paris (from his bed), and how Elstir’s painting reverses sea and land. The important phrase, “…voir la nature telle qu’elle est, poétiquement.” Occurs in the middle of this passage. I’ll use the citation to expand on the notion of seeing poetically.


p.831) “… à recréer leur vie, à s’exagérer son charme, comme devant un portrait”
I’m not sure where to put this one, or if to use it at all, but what interests me is the combination of “to recreate their life” and “to exagerate their charm”

Bergon et Elstir: towards an intro to Chapter 2

Chapter 2 B



During his sojourn in Balbec, Marcel’s vision of the world is profoundly affected by the paintings of Elstir. In a most general way, it can be said that Elstir’s paintings show Marcel a new way of seeing the world. However it is difficult to untangle the way in which this comes about. The first problem is that there is not one way, but two, and these two are so opposed as to create a paradox within the theory of aesthetics that emerges from the relationship between Marcel, and Elstir and his art.
In the Balbec episode, the power of art is first represented as being able to bypass [word choice ?] the subjectivity of the viewer. The viewer no longer sees things through their habitual and conceptual veil, but instead acquires a capacity of direct perception, which Marcel later describes as seeing things “in the order of our perceptions”. Before looking further at this however, it is important to a better sense of the veil of subjectivity. Early on, in Du côté de chez Swann, Marcel describes this very separation between his awareness and the phenomenal world:
Et ma pensée n'était-elle pas aussi comme une autre crèche au fond de laquelle je sentais que je restais enfoncé, même pour regarder ce qui se passait au dehors ? Quand je voyais un objet extérieur, la conscience que je le voyais restait entre moi et lui, le bordait d'un mince liséré spirituel qui m'empêchait de jamais toucher directement sa matière ; elle se volatilisait en quelque sorte avant que je prisse contact avec elle, comme un corps incandescent qu'on approche d'un objet mouillé ne touche pas son humidité parce qu'il se fait toujours précéder d'une zone d'évaporation.

Thinking, for Marcel, is the standard way of relating both to the outside world and to himself. However, his thinking creates a conceptual barrier between himself and the objects of the exterior world. This barrier is the veil of subjectivity. As Marcel discovers through the course of the Recherche, the only means of escaping it is through Art. It is through this fact that Art gains its special importance, and in fact its raison d’être. This view of the purpose of Art is strikingly similar to that outlined by Henri Bergson in his Le comique de caractère:
“Que est l’objet de l’art? Si la réalité venait frapper directement nos sens et notre conscience, si nous pouvions entrer en communication immédiate avec les choses et avec nous-mêmes, je crois bien que l’art serait inutile, ou plutôt que nous serions touts artistes, car notre âme vibrerait alors continuellement à l’unisson de la nature. […] Entre la nature et nous, que dis-je? Entre nous et notre propre conscience, un voile s’interpose, voile épais pour le commun des hommes, voile léger, presque transparent, pour l’artiste et le poète. Quelle fée a tissé ce voile? Fut-ce par malice ou par amitié? Il fallait vivre, et la vie exige que nous appréhendions les choses dans le rapport qu’elles ont à nos besoins.” [p.485-9]

For Bergson, we fail to see the world directly because we see things only as they relate to our needs. Art allows us to see beyond our utilitarian concerns, beyond our subjective sense of the cause and effect relationships between ourselves the world, and instead to simply apprehend the world simply, directly.
Though the transformation effected by art does in some sense efface subjectivity, it does not do so completely, and this is where the paradox arises. There is of course still consciousness, and though art does remove the veil of subjectivity, the new sense of vision does not always arise spontaneously [does it ever?]. Intead, it often creates a new way of seeing things. In these instances, art, while eroding an old set of relationships between subject and object, in fact replaces them with a new set. This is what Marcel expriences when he sees the real vista that formed the basis for one of Elstir’s marines. It is also what Bergson talks of, when speaking of Rousseau, he says that art can introduce us to a new emotion (p.1009).
“L’individualité des choses et des êtres nous échappe toutes les fois qu’il ne nous est pas matériellement utile de l’apercevoir.” [Ibid. p.460]

Quotes - Music

(I, p.525): Sonata de Vinteuil

(I, p.811-12): music, l’alcool et les femmes

Notes/Quotes – Art and Perception generally

(I, p.440): “Car quand c’est dans l’espoir d’une découverte précieuse que nous désirons recevoir certaines impressions de nature ou d’art, nous avons quelque scrupule à laisser notre âme accueillir à leur place des impressions moindres qui pourraient nous tromper sur la valeur exacte du Beau.”

(I, p.441): “…mais mon coeur battait quand je pensais, comme à la réalisation d’un voyage, que je les verrais enfin baigner effectivement dans l’atmosphere et l’ensoleillement de la voix dorée. Un Carpaccio à Venise, la Berma dan Phèdre, chefs-d’oeuvre d’art pictural ou dramatique que le prestige qui s’attachait à eux rendait en moi si vivants, c’est-à-dire si indivisibles, que, si j’avais été voir des Carpaccios dans une salle du Louvre ou la Berma dans quelque pièce dont je n’aurais jamais entendu parler, je n’aurais plus éprouvé le même étonnement délicieux d’avoir enfin les yeux ouverts devant l’objet inconcevable et unique de tand de milliers de mes rêves.”
• comparison to a voyage, important reccuring theme
• I’ll need to make sense of this idea of the prestige of an objet d’art bringing it to life
o And why are they “so indivisible”?
o There is an obvious importance placed on context, or surroundings—the Carpaccion is less beautiful in the Louvre than in Venise, etc.

Mme Berma’ art/genius is only clear to Marcel in the classic pieces that he knows be heart (p.442)

- theater not as a place to go for pleasure, but for “truths that belong to world more real than the one which he lives” (p.442)

-(I, p.531): connection between genius and posterity

- (I, p.626): memory and imagination

Elstir notes (quotes)

We first hear of Elsir well before Marcel sees his paintings.
• (I, p.653): “Mais ma grand’mère, qui était venue à celle-ci par le dedans, par l’amour pour les siens, pour la nature, m’avait appris à en aimer les vraies beautés, qui sont tout autres. Elles devaient bientôt me frapper d’autant plus que Mme de Sévigné est une grande artiste de la même famille qu’un peintre que j’allais rencontrer à Balbec et qui eut une influence si pronfonde sur ma vision des choses, Elstir. Je me rendis compte à Balbec que c’est de la même façon que lui qu’elle nous présente les choses, dans l’ordre de nos perceptions, au lieu de les expliquer d’abord par leur cause.
o (look on 654-5 for other interesting passages)

(I, p.802): “…le tableau que j’y trouvais dans la fenêtre.”
• What he sees through the window in his room, he sees like a painting. In particular, it is the ocean that is important.

(I, p.827- )
• p.828: “Elstir ne resta pas longtemps à causer avec nous.”
o “causer”: important word choice, besides chatting, it has its obvious meaning “to cause” (bring about, engender, etc.)
• on the beach he sees a young girl, walking in front of a “person autoritaire” who resembles the portrait of Jeffries by Hogarth
• p.834 “je sentais la possibilité de m’élever à une connaissance poétique

(I, p.834): At the moment that I entered, the creator [Elstir] in the process of finishing (achever), with the brush that he was holding in his hand, the form of the sun at its setting.
• Strong emphasis on the physical and the present of Elstir’s creation and realisation
• P.835 “ce clair-obsur” describing the atelir of Elstir

p.835 “Naturellement, ce qu’il avait dans son atelier…ne se rapporte pas à cette notion”
• along with the passage about the marine painting itself, this is likely to be the most important passage

p.836-7: the painting itself
• the passage is set up in part by the passage before on p.835 where Marcel talks of waking up in the morning and confusing parts of the ocean for coastal land, parts of the sky and ocean, etc

p.843: talking about dreams with Elstir, who tells him that one must get to know one’s dreams completely in order that one might be cured of them.
• This is very interesting, and may make a useful connection between art and contingent, subjective reality. If we think of subjective reality as a dream, then one must get to know oneself completely, entirely, in order to surpass/escape oneself.
Reccurring “chevrefeuilles”
• 3rd time on p.847

p.852 “la beauté de la vie” and loss of signification, art, Elstir

p.854 Carquethuit is mentioned again

Elstir is first mentioned

The special status accorded to art in the Recherche is most clearly elucidated in the passages that focus on painting, and in particular on Elstir, the painter whom Marcel meets in Balbec. Elstir is first mentioned in something of an aside after Marcel has begun reading The Letters of Madame de Sévigné while riding on the train to Balbec. It is a book his grandmother has given him to read during the voyage, and he has only just begun reading when he stops to contemplate the mistaken readings of others who are tricked by purely formal particularities that relate to the era, and to life in the salon (I, p.653). In contrast to them, he says of his grandmother:

Mais ma grand’mère, qui était venue à celle-ci par le dedans, par l’amour pour les siens, pour la nature, m’avait appris à en aimer les vraies beautés, qui sont tout autres. Elles devaient bientôt me frapper d’autant plus que Mme de Sévigné est une grande artiste de la même famille qu’un peintre que j’allais rencontrer à Balbec et qui eut une influence si pronfonde sur ma vision des choses, Elstir. Je me rendis compte à Balbec que c’est de la même façon que lui qu’elle nous présente les choses, dans l’ordre de nos perceptions, au lieu de les expliquer d’abord par leur cause. (I, p.653)

{But my grandmother, who had come to this (one) by way of the inside [or “from within”], by the love of her own, for nature, had taught me to appreciate (like/love) the true beauties, that are completely other. They soon hit me all the more so that Mme de Sévigné is a great artist of the same family as a painter that I would meet in Balbec et who had such a profound influence on my vision of things, Elstir. I came to realize at Balbec that it is in the same manner as him that she presents things to us, in the order of our perceptions, instead of first explaining them by their cause. [my own translation]}

This brief paragraph outlines a complex connection between the true beauties realized in art and their capacity to effect a transformation of the viewer’s perception, thus allowing them to see the world as it is. The passage begins with an enigmatic notion of coming “by way of the inside”. What is this the inside to? What is the corresponding outside to the binary that has been implied? We might infer gramatically, by the simple proximity of the preceding “this” and the phrase “by way of the inside”, that we are to understand Marcel’s grandmother as coming by way of the inside of “this”. However, this is not definite, and more importantly, we have no clear antecendent for “this”. Going back further in the sentence, the “inside” could be the inside Grandma, perhaps understood as her consciousness, or as some inner, personal apsect of mind, not determined by outside, social forces. In this sense, the grandmother’s reading is clearly opposed to those of the faulty readers whose mistakes set up the conjunctive “but” with which the sentence begins. Alternately, we might understand the “inside” to be the interior truth of the art in question. For now, it is more important to keep in mind these multiple possibilities than to make a choice amongst them. The next clause, “par l’amour pour les siens”, gives us no more answers than the first. Love has been added to the enigma, hinting at more possible explanations, but “les siens” also lacks an antecendent. The first real clue comes in the next clause, “for nature”. The concept of nature establishes two important binaries. First, nature is traditionally opposed to society, which as an institution is felt to sit on top of nature, and to interfere with its “natural” workings. Within this first opposition is found the second: having both created this unnatural society and choosen to inhabit it, humans also come to be viewed as individually unnatural. Thus, the grandmother’s wisdom, in teaching Marcel to see the true beauties, can be opposed to both the mistakes committed by society, and to the misapprenshions of other individuals. That this should be so is reflected in the various disembodied qutotations of the mistaken readers. These quotations show both individual instances of misaprehension, and also a general pattern of so doing within society at large.


nature ; learn to love true/real beauties ; true/real beauty ; true/real beauties that are completely other ; connection between art and vision, paintings of Elstir bestow particular sense of vision of things ; in the order of our perceptions, what does this mean? ; in the order of our perceptions versus cause

Bergotte and the new writer, reflexivity

On Bergotte

“Dans les livres de Bergotte , que je relisais souvent, ses phrases étaient aussi claires devant mes yeux que mes propres idées, les meubles dans ma chambre et les voitures dans la rue. Toutes choses s’y voyaient aisément, sinon telles qu’on les avait toujours vues, du moins t’elles qu’on avait l’habitude de les voir maintenant. Or un nouvel écrivain avait commencé à publier des oeuvres où les rapports entre les choses étaient si différents de ceux qui les liaient pour moi que je ne comprenais presque rien de ce qu’il écrivait. Il disait par exemple: “Les tuyaux d’arrosage admiraient le bel entretien des routes”.”

There is an interesting levelling of the relative clarity of different objects and subjects. Typically, we feel most at ease with our own ideas, whereas those of another, communicated to us through the text of a book seem removed, both because they lack the presence of their creator, and for the simple reason that language does not always mean what we want it to mean. [It could be interesting to bring in some elements from Stanley Cavell’s Must we mean what we say ? here.] The physical world on the other hand, though separate from us, is clear to us by virtue of its obviousness. Things are simply there and appear to present themselves as they are (though we might instead say, as we already understand them to be. Here I think of Marcel at the beginning of Swann, “perhaps the the immobility of things…”). Most simply, for Marcel it is his familiarity with the phrases of Bergotte, it is his memory of them that has integrated them into his sense of self to the extent that they are indistinguishable from his own ideas. The crucial word, “habitude” comes in the next sentence. It is the fact that Bergottes ideas have become part of Marcel’s habitual way of seeing the world that deprives them of the power they once had.

There is a clear reflexivity to the story of the new writer whose books establish relationships among things that are so different from what he knows that Marcel can scarcely comprehend. There is some sense in which this is the book that we are reading, now, as we attempt to navigate the complex associations that make up the Recherche. [I’m not entirely sure what to make of this at present.]


“Seulement je sentais que ce n’était pas la phrase qu était mal faite, mais moi pas assez fort et agile pour aller jusqu’au bout. Je represnais mon élan, m’aidais des pieds et des main pour arriver à l’endroit d’où je verrais les rapports nouveaux entre les choses. Chaque fois, parvenue à peu près à la moitié de la phrase, je retombais comme plus tard au regiment, dans l'exercice appele portique.”

“…pour aller jusqu’au bout.” To what end? The end that is implied is I think similar to the underlying unity present in Elstir’s painting. Why “portique”?

“Pour reussir a etre ainsi reconnus, le peintre original, l'artiste original procedent a la facon des oculistes. Le traitement par leur peinture, par leur prose, n'est pas toujours agreable. Quand il est termine, le praticien nous dit: Maintenant regardez. Et voici que le monde (qui n'a pas ete cree une fois, mais aussi souvent qu'un artiste original est survenu) nous apparait entierement different de l'ancien, mais parfaitement clair.”

“oculistes” (opthalmologist; doctor of the eyes). Again, the recurring connection between art and vision: art fixes our ability to see, provides a capacity of vision that is unencumbered by the maladies of our habitual ways of doing and seeing. The medical metaphor is important also as it introduces the connection between art, science, and a sense of progress that Proust discusses later in the same passage.

“Des femmes passent dans la rue, differentes de celles d'autrefois, puisque ce sont des Renoir, ces Renoir ou nous nous refusions jadis a voir des femmes. Les voitures aussi sont des Renoir, et l'eau, et le ciel: nous avons envie de nous promener dans la foret pareille a celle qui le premier jour nous semblait tout excepte une foret, et par exemple une tapisserie aux nuances nombreuses mais ou manquaient justement les nuances propres aux forets. Tel est l'univers nouveau et perissable qui vient d'etre cree. Il durera jusqu'a la prochaine catastrophe geologique que dechaineront un nouveau peintre ou un nouvel ecrivain originaux.”

The perspective that is gained in comtemplating art, in this case Renoir, becomes an entirely new way of seeing. There is an interesting dual sense, as on the one hand it seems that “Renoir” is being projected onto the outside world, embodying its forms, and on the other hand, this new world emanates from Renoir, it is the creation of his art.

The forest metaphor is curious. It has an inherent tension, as we want to walk in the forest that we don’t (yet) recognize to be a forest. [???]

Celui qui avait remplace pour moi Bergotte me lassait non par l'incoherence mais par la nouveaute, parfaitement coherente, de rapports que je n'avais pas l'habitude de suivre. Le point, toujours le meme, ou je me sentait retomber, indiquait l'identite de chaque tour de force a faire. Du reste, quand une fois sur mille je pouvais suivre l'ecrivain jusqu'au bout de sa phrase, ce que je voyais etait toujours d'une drolerie, d'une verite, d'un charme, pareils a ceux que j'avais trouves jadis dans la lecture de Bergotte, mais plus delicieux. Je songeais qu'il n'y avait pas tant d'annees qu'un meme renouvellement du monde, pareil a celui que j'attendais de son successeur, c'etait Bergotte qui me l'avait apporte. Et j'arrivais a me demander s'il y avait quelque verite en cette distinction que nous faisons toujours entre l'art, qui n'est pas plus avance qu'au temps d'Homere, et la science aux progres continus. Peut-etre l'art ressemblait-il au contraire en cela a la science; chaque nouvel ecrivain original me semblait en progres sur celui qui l'avait precede; et qui me disait que dans vingt ans, quand je saurais accompagner sans fatigue le nouveau d'aujourd'hui, un autre ne surviendrait pas devant qui l'actuel filerait rejoindre Bergotte?”


How do these new experiences go from incomprehensible to coherent? How does what is initially unintelligible become “perfectly coherent”? Comparison between art and science.