HT: On Being

HT: Quaerentia

The View of Delft rightly deserves admiration, and none apparently recognised that more than Proust, who not only died with Vermeer's name on his lips, but who named the View as the painting beloved by Bergotte, a character from in À la recherche du temps perdu who best seems to hold Proust's own views on art. 

Bergotte is worried after reading a newspaper article admiring the "petit pan de mur jaune", for he cannot remember it, and accordingly goes to see the View of Delft at an exhibition, where he tragically dies.

A friend recently asked where I believe Proust's piece of wall to be. While it may well be possible that the piece of wall does not exist (but is merely part of an impression Proust desired to create), I think it more likely that it is to be seen to the right of the painting, where the drawbridge creates the illusion of a sloping red roof against the yellow wall in the background. In other words, I am convinced the newspaper article was wrong, and Bergotte, who knew the painting by heart, was right originally to fail to remember little piece of yellow wall described by the newspaper as "a beauty that was sufficient in itself". Of course, there are astonishing microcosmos in Vermeer and in the View of Delft in particular that warrant the praise of the newspaper. I do not think we can blame Proust's newspaper writer when his heart was so clearly in the right place.

[For more European paintings, let me unequivocally recommend the Web Gallery of Art, an ambitious venture making reproductions of 12th-18th European painting and sculpture available online.]

The most obvious interpretation of the painting, the flat interpretation, is that here Love, Marriage and Desire are together. The Louvre website observes: “Cette allégorie propose une idéale réconciliation entre union légitime et plaisir.”

However, there is a subtle irony for which I hold Prud’hon entirely responsible. The half-smiles on each face, and the posed ‘family portraiture’ style of the painting suggest that as soon as Prud’hon puts down his brush, the youngster will flee, and Hymen and Venus will depart for their separate lives.

Of course, that is scarcely how life should be. One is reminded of that epigrammatic quote from Dr Zhivago:

Love is not weakness. It is strong. Only the sacrament of marriage can contain it.

— Boris Pasternak

It is worth remembering that while art can portray Beauty, it has a much harder time at Truth. But as long as we are not looking to art to instruct us, but rather to enlighten us, we will emerge unscathed from its pleasures.

I mention this because there was some comment about a few of the Orthodox hymns to which I linked yesterday, some of which were not in accordance with Scripture. As long as we are looking for them to provide us with beauty, not truth, I think it right to praise God for them.

Incidentally, I note that police have recovered one of Edvard Munch’s paintings Scream; it will be returned to the Munch Museum in Oslo whence it was stolen. (The other Scream was also stolen from the Oslo National Gallery and was also recovered.)