Day 0055

I finished listening to The Red and the Black. What a terrific read, I'm so glad to have been made aware of it. It's not the kind of thing I would ever have thought I would enjoy a few years ago, when I was reading more or less exclusively non-fiction, eager only to learn facts and scorning anything that was made up.

Now I see that there are just as many facts in novels, they are just presented differently. There are human truths, psychological insights that ring true across the ages. When you read a character who seems real, who acts in fictitious situations in a believable and consistent way, well then you are being shown a mirror to your own nature in which, should you choose to look, you can see your own traits and dispositions and desires and flaws.

A novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. Stendhal - The Red and the Black

There was so much about love that rang true with my own experiences. I wish I had read it when I was younger. There is much to be learned for the young man! Machiavellian scheming and manipulations both on the part of the lover and the loved, their actions and reactions so perfectly captured.

I went back to the Louvre with reinvigorated spirits. Having been immersed in French literature of the 19th Century, I decided to have a look at some of the art. I rediscovered Corot. Lovely seeing the influence of Constable going through him and being advanced all the way into a prefiguration of the impressionists. Lovely clear, simplified, bold and thoughtful work.

I keep having that thought about whether there is anything left to say in literature or to portray in art or not. It's all been done so incredibly well before. The more you explore, the more works you read or the more art you look at, the less you feel that there is anything left to express. Do we really need any more? It is a moot point of course, because we have the urge, the need, to create, whether or not the things we create need to be created.

I forgot about the drawing today until it was late and I'm too tired to think properly. It's a complex composition and I couldn't really focus on it. Another Parmigianino ink drawing that I saw at the exhibition. I'll finish it and add the ink wash tomorrow.