Le personnage d’Odette. Proust et la peinture

Abstract

Within a large analysis, which studied the painting references in the A la Recherche du Temps Perdu
by Marcel Proust, we have found an important issue about the analysis of the character of Odette through the
painting references concerning her. If some of literature has studied for years which real persons are hided in
the fictitious characters in the Recherche (Painter, 1966), we have studied which characters of the art history
and which artists have been used by Proust to describe his feminine characters. The usage of art by Proust is
functional to the narration, it is not limited to the pure description, but it has often a role of moral elevation of
the character concerned in the artistic similitude. Then we must not be surprised if the artist who has been often
associated to Odette is the Botticelli of the Venere and even of the Madonna Del Magnificat. The art has been
used to give a valid certificate of morality to the beauty of Odette. Just when Swann sees her resemblance with
Sephora, la figlia di Jetro, Botticelli’s character, he begins to feel something for Odette. Proust, through the eyes
of Charles Swann, holds Odette of a moral purity that only art can give to her