Lecture series: Look, listen, read. Marcel Proust and the unity of the arts

Coinciding with the exhibition Proust and the Arts, the museum is organising a lecture series that aims to delve into some of the most important aspects of the novel In Search of Lost Time (1913-1927) in terms of its relationship with the arts (painting, literature, music and theatre). Directed by the exhibition’s curator, Fernando Checa, the series takes as its reference the title of the late work by the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss Look, listen, read (1993), which opens with an allusion to Marcel Proust and analyses creative figures such as the painter Nicolas Poussin, the composer Jean-Philippe Rameau and the philosopher Denis Diderot.

The unity of the arts, an aspiration of Western art since the Middle Ages – for example the Gothic cathedrals so beloved by Proust or the avant-garde movements of the last century (the Bauhaus, Russian Constructivism, Dutch Neo-plasticism) – was one of Proust’s key interests, leading him to continually reflect in his writings on painting, music, theatre and literature, giving rise to a notably aesthetic configuration of both reality itself as well as, above all, its perception.

The series includes four lectures and a round table.

Director: Fernando Checa
Coordination: Esther Navarro.