Word and Image: Putting Proust’s Pictures in Perspective

Marcel Proust’s A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, one of the most profoundly visual works in Western literature, houses a vast repository of paintings. How does the novelist, in his frequent reference to both famous and obscure works of art, manage to evoke emotion, character, history? How do the verbal and the visual interact and illuminate one another? Painter and writer ERIC KARPELES will highlight many of the great works woven into the rich tapestry of Proust’s text, spanning the history of art from the trecento to the twentieth century, from Giotto to cubism. 

Also sponsored by the Dean for the Arts/Bernstein Arts Fund