Swann's Way, Combray II, pp.110-121

Proust (or our narrator) meditates here on symbolism and allegory in the Seven Vices of Giotto de Bondone with reference to the pregnant kitchen maid, who Swann compares to Giotto's Charity. This is another example of art in life (a comparison drawn by Swann). She may also be a symbol in the discussion of class, but Proust is writing out the allegory for us here. The images painted by Giotto to display the seven vices are entirely ignorant of what they symbolize, making them pure in the task. The kitchen maid is likewise unaware of being a symbol of charity, or of the lower classes. And much, much more.

On reading, also a form of art in life. Proust tells us a book can be internalized, while the physical world can only be sensed: "When I saw an external object, my consciousness that I was seeing it would remain between me and it..." (p.115), and with regard to people "A real person, profoundly as we may sympathise with him, is in a great measure perceptible only through our senses, that is to say, remains opaque, presents a dead weight which our sensibilities have not the strength to lift." (p.117). And yet he seeks the truth as imposed by the real world, only to be disillusioned (p.119).
This sends me back to the description of the grandmother's assignment of value to art. The more removed from the original, the greater value she gave it. In giving the narrator pictures of famous architecture she sought to "introduce, as it were, several 'thicknesses' of art: instead of photographs...she would inquire of Swann whether some great painter had not depicted them" and sought photos of the art depicting the actual architecture. (pp.53-54)

Reference is made to "the dream of a woman who would enrich me with her love" (p.118) which makes me think of the woman invading his dreams in the very beginning ("Sometimes, too, as Eve was created from a rib of Adam, a woman would be born during my sleep from some misplacing of my thigh." [p.3]), but might actually reference his mother, since we know Proust believed his mother and grandmother to have been great source of support and enrichment in his life.

An ode to Sunday afternoons at Combray.

Cool stuff:

(p.110) Giotto's Charity, by Giotto de Bondone, part of the Seven Vices