Until 8 June, the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid presents the exhibition Proust and the arts, on the importance of art in the work of one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, Marcel Proust (Auteuil, 1871-Paris, 1922), recognized not only in literature but also in philosophy and theory of art.
The aesthetic ideas that Proust develops in his work, the artistic, monumental and landscape environments that surrounded him and that he recreates in his books, as well as the contemporary or past artists who served as his stimulus are some of the aspects that articulate the exhibition’s journey. The aim is to highlight this link and the interrelation between art and its figure, its life and its work.
To understand Proust, it is important to know the Paris in which he lived, that is, the cosmopolitan and rich capital of the Third Republic, its great transformation after the urban reforms of Baron Haussmann, with the appearance of electricity, cars, shows, restaurants and cafes. Proust was passionate not only about the arts, but also about this modernity that was so booming at the end of the 19th century. The image of modernity created by the impressionist painters, through their representation of the streets and other environments of Paris, is at the base of the Proustian aesthetic: all this would mark his biography as well as his writings.
In addition to paintings by Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, Anton van Dyck, Jean-Antoine Watteau, Joseph M. W. Turner, Henri Fantin-Latour, James McNeill Whistler, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet or Pierre-Auguste Renoir, among others, a sculpture by Émile Antoine Bourdelle and the aforementioned designs by Fortuny and other creators of the time, the exhibition includes a selection of books by Proust from the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Bibliothèque de l’Athénée de Madrid, and other loans from the Musée du Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay and the Carnavalet in Paris, the Mauritshuis in The Hague, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
