THE WORLD OF PROUST
as seen by Paul Nadar
Edited by Anne-Marie
Bernard, translated by Susan Wise
MIT Press (2004) $38 hardcover, $21.95 paper
by
DEBORAH GARWOOD
Proust insisted
that "A La Recherche du Temps Perdu" ("In Search of Lost
Time") was a work of art, not an autobiography, and that his characters
were invented rather than drawn from life. He lost credibility on this
point instantly, having written in the first person narrative voice
and let slip the name "Marcel" once or twice. But his insistence
on art was wishful for other reasons.
The family had became prominent at high levels of French government
and diplomacy through Adrien Proust's pioneering work in the field of
epidemiology by the time young Marcel decided upon a literary career.
After Proust had made his debut into salon society, his popularity and
brilliance began to arouse curiosity about his writing. The success
of "Swann's Way" threw his art and his life into high relief;
the author's resistance to queries only inflamed his friends' antagonism.
We don't care about that now. The World of Proust both revives and settles
the matter. It is filled with beautiful photographs of people he knew
who had their portraits taken at Paul Nadar's studio during la Belle
Epoque and even after - from the 1880s to the 1930s. Among them are
several pictures that Proust himself owned and cherished.
Paul Nadar was the portraitist of the late 19th century, having
inherited the studio and archives of his father, the great Gaspard Félix
Tournachon Nadar. Nadar, as Nadar père was known, had photographed
writers and artists living in Paris during the period 1854 - 1870. He
posed the sitter simply, against a plain background. Some say this was
due to the fact that photography was still new and following in the
tradition of engravings, but Nadar's approach to life was neither tentative
nor traditional. He had started out as a caricaturist during years of
bumptious political upheaval and censorship. He dressed in "Republican"
red (as in the guillotine, not the Elephants); he flew over Paris in
a hot air balloon with his tripod and camera; he could, and would have,
trussed up the scene behind his sitters if he'd wanted to. Perhaps its
absence gave those who came to him a feeling of more levity than they
would have had at a typical carte-de-visite studio. At any rate, radical
politics were expressed very differently at the house of Nadar when
Paul took over the studio in 1886 after a 16 year apprenticeship under
his father.
 |
 |
| Paul
Nadar Portrait of Adrien Proust 1886, left, and Portrait
of Madeleine Lemaire 1891 |
Sitters would henceforth
wear fancy clothing, hold props, and pose before decorative or contextual
backgrounds. Marcel Proust at the tender age of 16 looks out at the
camera with his extraordinary eyes, a large white collar and bow-tied
cravat around his neck. Emile Zola peers calmly through his pince-nez,
hair combed back, dressed in a heavy fur-trimmed coat over a close-fitting
vest. His long watch chain drapes conspicuously and one hand is tucked
in a trouser pocket. Comte Robert de Montesquiou strikes a pose with
a walking stick and expensive top hat. Six portraits of "the Voice
of Gold" Sarah Bernhardt, onstage and off, are exquisitely styled
to highlight her languid yet arresting presence. Claude Monet took off
his hat, trimmed his hair, and wore a dark suit for his portrait. Even
in profile his eyes twinkle. Paul Nadar kept the studio going past the
turn of the century, and a soft focus portrait of Jean Cocteau from
1930 (back to the simple background) was perhaps the last one he did
that was related to Proust's circle. Proust died in 1922, Nadar in 1939.
Paul Nadar's widow entrusted the French government with the entire archive
of the Nadar studio in 1950. It has taken since then to catalogue one-fifth
of the 400,000 glass plates and vintage prints. "The World of Proust
as seen by Paul Nadar" is actually based on a 1991 exhibition that
took place in Paris at the Hôtel de Sully, near the Place des
Vosges.
Anne-Marie Bernard, credited as the editor of The World of Proust, is
an authority on the Nadars' oeuvre, and works within the Photographic
Archives Department of the French Ministry of Culture. Bernard sifted
the archives to shake out Proust's characters beginning with the Narrator
himself. Each portrait is given a caption stating who the sitter was
in real life and what relationship he or she bore to which Proust character(s).
Swann is based on one Charles Haas, a dandy whose fame did not exceed
his own lifetime. The Princess and Duchess de Guermantes are composites
of several women, aristocratic and not so. Bergotte is and is not based
on Anatole France, a writer who greatly influenced the young Proust.
Monet inspired Elstir for the most part, and Gabriele Fauré's
music probably served as a model for the Vinteuil sonata that figures
so prominently. Chapters are organized into broad cateories entitled
"Family Intimates;" "Society Life;" "Literature
and the Arts;" "The Ballroom & The Stage;" and "Residences."
The book offers a number of "full frame" or uncropped reproductions
that reveal the scene in front of the camera with all of its staging:
assistants hike up a curtain; flimsy painted flats tilt; sitters hold
in their laps reflective discs to increase the lighting contrast on
their features ever so slightly. No apologies are made for wear and
tear on the negatives, either. Holes, cracks, staining and other imperfections
occasionally appear, which suggests that some new prints were made from
existing glass negatives. In his day, Paul Nadar excelled in the controversial
practice of retouching. A number of "before" as well as "after"
prints were preserved in the archive and have been reproduced in the
book to illustrate this technique. The technicalities of Paul Nadar's
photographic studio will certainly exceed most Proust readers' interest,
but in terms of period detail they're fascinating and will amuse any
artist interested in portraiture, its history, and its artifice. Bernard
wrote two introductory essays discussing the art of photographic portraiture
and retouching. In the back of the book there are notes for the captions,
biographical data, a bibliography, and an index. In terms of organization,
thoroughness, and clarity, it has a feeling of great completeness.
Nevertheless true Proustians may find this book bittersweet. Unveiling
Proust's characters is both a supreme gratification and a desperate
compromise, like telling a secret - a brief sensation of triumph followed
by the sadness that comes with betraying a friend. But of all friends,
he might have understood this little crime against art. The delight
of anticipation (a person he wished to meet, a place he wished to visit)
followed by the terrible disappointment of reality was a subject he
wrote about at length in the novel. Imagination is continually pitted
against the risk of knowing. It's no surprise, really, that the Narrator
would instigate in his readers a desire to know Proust the author and
his characters. That desire is at once gratified and destroyed by "The
World of Proust as seen by Paul Nadar."
