Mme Verdurin came across to me to show me Elstir's flowers. If the act of going out to dinner, to which I had grown so indifferent, by taking the form, which revivified it, of a journey along the coast followed by an ascent in a carriage to a point six hundred feet above the sea, had produced in me a sort of intoxication, this feeling had not been dispelled at la Raspeliere. "Just look at this, now," said the Mistress, showing me some huge and splendid by Elstir, whose unctuous scarlet and rich whiteness stood out, however, with almost too creamy a relief from the flower-stand on which they were arranged. "Do you suppose he would still have the touch to achieve it? Don't you call that striking? And what marvelous texture! One longs to feel it. I can't tell you what fun it was to watch him painting them. One could feel that he was interested in trying to get just that effect." And the Mistress's gaze rested musingly on this present from the artist which epitomised not merely his great talent by their long friendship which survived only in these mementoes of it that he had bequeathed to her; behind the flowers that long ago he had picked for her, she seemed to see the shapely hand that had painted them, in the course of a morning, in their freshness, so that, they on the table, it leaning against the back of a chair in the dining-room, had been able to meet face to face at the Mistress's lunch-party, the still living roses and their almost lifelike portrait. "Almost" only, for Elstir was unable to look at a flower without first transplanting it to that inner garden in which we are obliged always to remain. He had shown in this water-color the appearance of the roses which he had seen, and which, but for him, no one would ever have known; so that one might say that they were a new variety with which this painter, like a skillful horticulturist, had enriched the rose family. "From the day he left the little nucleus, he was finished. It seems my dinners made him waste his time, that I hindered the development of his genius," she said in a tone of irony. "As if the society of a woman like myself could fail to be beneficial to an artist!" she exclaimed with a burst of pride.
Marcel Proust, Cities of the Plain, pp. 974-975
Mme Verdurin is reflecting, somewhat bitterly, on the relationship that she once had with the artist Elstir. We saw last time that he had eventually fled from the presence of her social web, it seems partially because Mme Verdurin had said horrible things about the woman he loved (and eventually married), but also maybe simply because he wanted freedom. Mme Verdurin tells Marcel, "From the day he left the little nucleus, he was finished. It seems my dinners made him waste his time, that I hindered the development of his genius," she said in a tone of irony. "As if the society of a woman like myself could fail to be beneficial to an artist!" she exclaimed with a burst of pride. As we've discussed before, one of my favorite African proverbs is, if you have your hand in someone else's pocket and they move, you have to move. The problem with having a patron is that you become a prisoner to their whims. It's not always a horrible thing, as the increasingly secular world of northern Italian merchants freed Renaissance artists to pursue different and more varied and more unconventional themes. Of course, there's a difference between a patron being fascinating in art, either for its inherent beauty or as an expression of their own faith, and a patron keeping an aspiring artist as some sort of pet for the amusement of her clique, and the latter seemed to be more the case with Mme Verdurin.
However, maybe we're being too hard on Mme Verdurin, and maybe I'm letting my general disgust with her husband to color my perception of her. She does seem generally touched by the paintings that Elstir left for her, and Proust provides a moving description of one such work as well as the role of the artist in its creation. Proust writes, "'Almost' only, for Elstir was unable to look at a flower without first transplanting it to that inner garden in which we are obliged always to remain." Earlier this year I read passages of Proust to my first year students (to their general amazement/horror) as a jumping off point to discuss issues of perception, and whether or not some people, in this case artists, actually see the world differently. This brings us back to Elstir's "inner garden. I'm sure Elstir, like many artists, doubtlessly saw beauty more clearly and richly and truly than the rest of us, and there must have been times when he was frustrated by his own inability to convey that beauty; much like a person who has known God, but is unable to express that transcendent experience.
Finally, what must it be like to be an artist who can give one of their own works of art as a present? Now, part of my amazement is based on the fact that, despite the best of intentions, I'm a fairly crappy gift giver, which may speak to my general weirdness ("seriously, I thought you would like a shatani from Dar Es Salaam; it contains evil spirits and everything . . ."). My ex-wife was/is the best gift giver I've ever known. I would think that if you were an artist, especially a truly gifted artist, giving one of your works would be like giving a part of yourself to a person you loved, which would give the object a vitality and a currency. I'm thinking of the Bill Evans (I've been listening to him non-stop lately) piece Waltz for Debbie, which he wrote for his niece.
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