Literary and Aesthetic Mirrori My argument here is that Proust appropriated those two illustrations and transformed them into illuminations, in the sense that Ruskin gave to that term in Modern Painters. The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something, and tell what it saw in a plain way. Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy, and religion,—all in one. Ruskin V, On the eve of the millennium, he abandoned the draft of his novel Jean Santeuil which was not published until over thirty years after his death in favour of a project on Ruskin and cathedrals.
The decisive impact reading Ruskin had on him is evident in a letter he wrote to Marie Nordlinger, the English-speaking friend who would later help him with his translations:. Proust , Ruskin VIII, It is the purest example in Italy of the great school of architecture in which the ruling principle is the incrustation of brick with more precious materials. Ruskin X, As in architecture, where marble is used as a coating to conceal the layer of brick beneath it, textual incrustation is the superimposition of one text over another.
The same term is also used to refer to ornamentation on the surface of the wall and is thus applicable to quotations in literature which are signalled by punctuation or highlighted by acknowledgement of the source.
We learn that his grandmother gives him reproductions of an artwork depicting particular places rather than simple photographs of them because she wants to add an aesthetic layer to the scenes Proust I, She presents him with a view of Chartres cathedral painted by Corot and one of Vesuvius painted by Turner.
Ruskin relates reciprocal interference to the way we use colour and considers it to be a general principle. Of all the fairest Cities of the Earth None is so fair as Florence.
