My Year With Proust - Day 185

"It was perhaps because they were so diverse, the persons whom I used to contemplate in her at this period, that later I developed the habit of becoming myself a different person, according to the particular Albertine to whom my thoughts had turned; a jealous, an indifferent, a voluptuous, a melancholy, a frenzied person, created anew not merely by the accident of the particular memory that had risen to the surface, but in proportion also to the strength of the belief that was lent to the support of one and the same memory by the varying manner in which I appreciated it.  For this was the point to which I invariably had to return, to those beliefs which for most of the time occupy our souls unbeknownst to us, but which for all that are of more importance to our happiness than is the person whom we see, for it is through them that we see him, it is they that impart his momentary grandeur to the person seen.  To be quite accurate, I ought to give a different name to each of the selves who subsequently thought about Albertine; I ought still more to give a different name to each of the Albertines who appeared before me, never the same, like those seas - called by me simply for the sake of convenience "the sea" - that succeeded one another and against which, a nymph likewise, she was silhouetted.  But above all, in the same way as, in telling a story (though to far greater purpose here), people mention what the weather was like on such and such a day, I ought always to give its name to the belief that reigned over my soul and created its atmosphere on any day on which I saw Albertine, the appearance of people, like that of the sea,  being dependent on those clouds, themselves barely visible, which change the colour of everything by their concentration, their mobility, their dissemination, their flight - like that cloud which Elstir had rent one evening by not introducing me to these girls with whom he had stopped to talk, and whose images had suddenly appeared to me more beautiful when they moved away - a cloud that had formed again a few days later when I did get to know them, veiling their brightness, interposing itself frequently between my eyes and them, opaque and soft, like Virgil's Leucothea."

Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove, pp. 1010-1011

Here Proust is reflecting upon the different Albertines that dominated his days, and how he became a different person in response to each.  He paints a detailed and beautiful picture of the different physical forms of Albertine:

"On certain days, thin, with a grey complexion, a sullen air, a violet transparency slanting across her eyes such as we notice sometimes on the sea, she seemed to be feeling the sorrows of exile."

"On other days her face, smoother and glossier, drew one's desires on to its varnished surface and prevented them from going further; unless I caught a sudden glimpse of her from the side, for her matt cheeks, like white wax on the surface, were visibly pink beneath, which was what made one so long to kiss them, to reach that different tint which was so elusive."

"At other times, happiness bathed her cheeks with a clarity so mobile that the skin, grown fluid and vague, gave passage to a sort of subcutaneous gaze, which made it appear to be of another colour but not of another substance than her eyes; sometimes, without thinking, when one looked at her face punctuated with tiny brown marks among which floated what were simply two larger, bluer stains, it was as though one were looking at a goldfinch's egg, or perhaps at an opalescent agate cut and polished in two places only, where, at the heart of the brown stone, there shone like the transparent wings of a skyblue butterfly, her eyes, those features in which the flesh becomes a mirror and gives us the illusion that it allows us, more than through the other parts of the body, to approach the soul."

"But most often, too, she showed more colour, and was then more animated; sometimes in her white face only the tip of her nose was pink, and as delicate as that of a mischievous kitten with which one would have liked to play; sometimes her cheeks were so glossy that one's glance slipped, as over the surface of a miniature, over their pink enamel, which was made to appear still more delicate, more private, by the enclosing though half-opened lid of her black hair; or it might happen that the tint of her cheeks had deepened to the mauvish pink of cyclamen, and sometimes even, when she was flushed or feverish, with a suggestion of unhealthiness which lowered my desire to something more sensual and made her glance expressive of something more perverse and unwholesome, to the deep purple of certain roses, a red that was almost black; and each of these Albertines was different, as is each appearance of the dancer whose colours, form, character, are transmuted according to the endlessly varied play of a projected limelight."

Proust uses Leucothea, a character from Greek and Roman mythology who was transformed into a goddess, as the fitting metaphor of Albertine's transformations.  Of course, in this case it's not the gods, but rather Proust who is carrying out the transformations.  Once again, it speaks to the power of perceptions, which can not only shape our sense of our lover's personality but even her physical appearance. For some reason I fell to thinking about the number of times, I think twenty-nine, that Cezanne painted his wife.  I guess it's not that surprising that I immediately defaulted to Cezanne since we just finished discussing modern art in my Aesthetic Expression class.

Madame Cezanne in a Striped Skirt.

Madame Cezanne with Loosened Hair. This is my favorite.

Madame Cezanne in Blue. 

Madame Cezanne in the Conservatory. 

Madame Cezanne Leaning on a Table. 

Madame Cezanne in a Yellow Chair. 

In Concepts of the Self we always talk about the concept of "air," that indefinable something that defines you.  It's that mysterious thing that your mother sees in a picture of you that leads her to say, "oh, that's so him," whereas to us it just seems like a picture of an anonymous blob.  One wonders why Cezanne painted so many portraits of his wife.  Did she like having her portrait painted (and from the look she is giving in Madame Cezanne with Loosened Hair I would guess no)?  Or was she just a convenient model because she was always around?  Or, was Cezanne actively trying to capture or air, her essence? And, if so,  I wonder if Cezanne felt that he had ever actually captured her "air"?