Elstir, exploded view

Elstir, blown up 💥

The painter Elstir 🎨 is one of the three artists who serve as models for the narrator throughout his story, alongside the composer Vinteuil 🎻 and the writer Bergotte 🖋️.

Like most of the characters, Elstir takes on several identities in the novel. He is first referred to as ‘Biche’ and frequents the Verdurin salon in “Swann in Love”. He reappears near Balbec at the Rivebelle restaurant, where the narrator and his new friend Robert de Saint-Loup usually go out in the evenings 🤵🏻‍♂️🤵🏻‍♂️. The two young men write him a letter of admiration, even though they have never seen his works. This encounter is inspired by the one Marcel Proust and Reynaldo Hahn had with Thomas Alexander Harrison at Beg-Meil in 1895.

But it was another American painter, James Whistler (self-portrait above, c. 1872), who provided the novelist with the anagram of the name “Elstir” ♻️. And when the narrator, giving up on spying on the ‘young girls in bloom’ on the seafront promenade, takes the tram to visit Elstir’s studio, we are probably witnessing the only moment in the entire novel where the creative act unfolds before our very eyes. There is no equivalent for Bergotte or for Vinteuil (only for the performers of his work):

“Just as I walked in, the artist was using the brush he held in his hand to put the finishing touches to the shape of the setting sun.” 🌅

— In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, 1919 🌺
Pléiade 1954 (ed. Clarac and Ferré), p. 834

#MarcelProust #JamesWhistler #ThomasHarrison #Balbec #BegMeil #JFF #proustagram #Biche