As France celebrates 150 years of Impressionism, it's fitting to ask why these artists were rejected for decades. The great Paris patroness of the arts, Mathilde Bonaparte, was key.
Proust was in his early twenties when he offered himself as Mathilde's biographer and wasn't as popular as one might think. This was mostly because of his mother, who was a wealthy Jewish heiress of Germanic ancestry. As a result, many people including Mathilde considered him an outsider and refused to accept him. Nevertheless, this rejection fueled his ambition to be accepted at any cost. At that time, French society was openly anti-Semitic. Years later, in 1894, the Dreyfus Affair created a divide in high society, and things only got worse from there.
I believe Proust only offered to be her note-taker, not biographer, and I believe she was fond of him, telling Proust that had it not been for Napoleon, she'd be selling oranges in Corsica. But I would like to know where she stood in the Dreyfus Affair.
Proust was in his early twenties when he offered himself as Mathilde's biographer and wasn't as popular as one might think. This was mostly because of his mother, who was a wealthy Jewish heiress of Germanic ancestry. As a result, many people including Mathilde considered him an outsider and refused to accept him. Nevertheless, this rejection fueled his ambition to be accepted at any cost. At that time, French society was openly anti-Semitic. Years later, in 1894, the Dreyfus Affair created a divide in high society, and things only got worse from there.
I believe Proust only offered to be her note-taker, not biographer, and I believe she was fond of him, telling Proust that had it not been for Napoleon, she'd be selling oranges in Corsica. But I would like to know where she stood in the Dreyfus Affair.
Who knows!