Marcel PROUST - Painting, John Ruskin, Giotto and William Turner.

Marcel Proust (1871.1922)

Autograph letter signed to Georges de Lauris.

Five pages ½ in-12° on mourning paper.

[Versailles, shortly before October 20, 1906]

Kolb, volume VI, pages 241-242.

“I don’t know how I had the strength to copy this page for you, I drew it from the desire to have you read it. »

Very nice letter on painting quoting John Ruskin on Giotto and Turner.

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“My dear Georges, I barely have the strength to tell you that I feel that you have not received my letters and that I am annoyed. No, don't come at this time. I will write to you soon to tell you why. I asked Ruskin (of his work, not of his mind alone, it is a quotation, it is not a pastiche) what he thought of Mr. Berenson.

Here is his response (Mornings in Florence VI, 118) “It seems,” say laborious Englishmen, “that I was wrong in attributing to Giotto the painting of the Uffizi which is by Lorenzo Monaco. This can be true, without everything I told you about the predella losing any of its value and this should in no way shake, if you are reasonable, your confidence in everything I can tell you about Giotto . There is a way of knowing about painting which is the work of artists, another which is the work of antique dealers and art dealers. This second way is based on a precise knowledge of the canvas and the habits of the process and does not imply any skill relating to the aesthetic qualities strictly speaking.

There are few good experts in the big cities of Europe whose opinion has more value than mine on questions of authenticity . They will tell you if a painting can be attributed to so and so but as to what the painting itself is worth they have no idea. This is how I once mistook watercolors by Varley and Cousin for watercolors in the first style of Turner ; the experts have therefore demonstrated more competence than me regarding the authenticity of these watercolors. That's understood, but that doesn't mean they don't know as well as I do what Turner and his work are worth. Likewise, you can blame me in questions of attribution, even more uncertain, of Giotto's first students, and for the authenticity of a work of this time. But – I tell you with more sadness than pride – know that I am quite simply the only person who can tell you its real value. You realize that every time I tell you to look at a painting, it is worth it, and every time I talk to you about the original genius of a master, it is indeed this originality that I discerned very precisely, even though I would make all the possible errors of attribution of these works. When I took a Cousin for a Turner, it was a piece of sky treated with an eminently “Turneresque” delicacy that the expert had not even suspected! but which another artist than Turner had one day managed to equal. While the expert only focused on the quality of the Whatman paper that Cousin used and not Turner. »

All this does not prevent me from wanting to know Berenson. I don't know how I had the strength to copy this page for you, I drew it from the desire to have you read it. As soon as the oil treatment has shown its effect, write to me. Kind regards to you Marcel. »