Camille Pissarro oder Von der Kühnheit zu malen
Die Biografie über den »Vater des Impressionismus« | Mit zahlreichen farbigen Abbildungen
Anka Muhlstein ist eine Biografin, deren Werk sich mit den Feinheiten historischer Persönlichkeiten und Epochen befasst. Ihr Schreibstil zeichnet sich durch akribische Recherche und eine fesselnde Erzählweise aus, die die Vergangenheit für zeitgenössische Leser lebendig werden lässt. Sie erforscht die Motivationen und Komplexitäten ihrer Subjekte und bietet nuancierte Porträts, die ihre Bedeutung beleuchten. Muhlsteins Hingabe an historische Genauigkeit und ihre fesselnde Prosa machen sie zu einer herausragenden Stimme in der biografischen Literatur.






Die Biografie über den »Vater des Impressionismus« | Mit zahlreichen farbigen Abbildungen
Exploring the life of Camille Pissarro, the book delves into how his Jewish heritage influenced his artistic journey. As a pivotal figure in Impressionism, Pissarro maintained close ties with renowned artists like Monet and Van Gogh while grappling with feelings of alienation due to his Caribbean origins and Jewish background. Despite his atheism and avoidance of political themes in his art, his lineage shaped his perspective. Anka Muhlstein presents a detailed and personal portrayal, enriched by Pissarro's artwork and correspondence, highlighting his commitment to artistic freedom.
The second part of an infamous memoir about life in the time of Napoleon by a rebellious literary celebrity. In 1800, Fran�ois-Ren� de Chateaubriand sailed from the cliffs of Dover to the headlands of Calais. He was thirty-one, and had been living as a political refugee in England for most of a decade, at times in such extreme poverty he subsisted on nothing but hot water and two-penny rolls.Over the next fifteen years, his life changed utterly. He published Atala, Ren�, and The Genius of Christianity to acclaim and epoch-making scandal. He strolled the streets of Jerusalem and mapped the ruins of Carthage. He served Napoleon in Rome, then resigned in protest after the Duc d'Enghien's execution, putting his own life at tremendous risk. For these were also the years of Bonaparte's secret police, censorship, and warmongering--all of which Chateaubriand would come to oppose.Memoirs from Beyond the Grave, 1800-1815--the second volume in Alex Andriesse's new and complete translation of this epic French classic--is a chronicle of triumphs and sorrows, narrating not only the author's life during a tumultuous period in European history but the "parallel life" of Napoleon, from his birth on Corsica to his death on Saint Helena. In these pages, Chateaubriand continues to paint his distinctive self-portrait, in which the whole history of France swirls around the sitter like a mist of dreams.
Written over the course of four decades, François-René de Chateaubriand’s epic autobiography has drawn the admiration of Baudelaire, Flaubert, Proust, Barthes, and Sebald. Here, in the first books of his massive Memoirs, spanning the years 1768 to 1800, Chateaubriand looks back on the already bygone world of his youth. He recounts the history of his aristocratic family and the first rumblings of the French Revolution. He recalls playing games on the beaches of Saint-Malo, wandering in the woods near his father’s castle in Combourg, hunting with King Louis XVI at Versailles, witnessing the first heads carried on pikes through the streets of Paris, meeting with George Washington in Philadelphia, and falling hopelessly in love with a young woman named Charlotte in the small Suffolk town of Bungay. The volume ends with Chateaubriand’s return to France after seven years of exile in England. In this new edition (the first unabridged English translation of any portion of the Memoirs to be published in more than a century), Chateaubriand emerges as a writer of great wit and clarity, a self deprecating egotist whose meditations on the meaning of history, memory, and morality are leavened with a mixture of high whimsy and memorable gloom.
A scintillating glimpse into the lives of acclaimed writers and artists and their inspiring, often surprising convergences, from the author of Monsieur Proust's Library With the wit and penetration well known to readers of Anka Muhlstein’s previous books, The Pen and the Brush revisits the delights of the French novel. This time she focuses on late 19th- and 20th-century writers--Balzac, Zola, Proust, Huysmans, and Maupassant--through the lens of their passionate involvement with the fine arts. She delves into the crucial role that painters play as characters in their novels, which she pairs with an exploration of the profound influence that painting exercised on the novelists' techniques, offering an intimate view of the intertwined worlds of painters and writers at the time. Muhlstein's deftly chosen vignettes bring to life a portrait of the nineteenth century's tight-knit artistic community, where Cézanne and Zola befriended each other as boys and Balzac yearned for the approval of Delacroix. She leads the reader on a journey of spontaneous discovery as she explores how a great painting can open a mind and spark creative fire.
Roman
Zola, Balzac, Proust und die Malerei
Balzac wollte schreiben, wie ein Maler malt, Zola dienten Gemälde von Manet oder Degas als Ausgangspunkt für seine Romane: In ihrem neuen Buch beleuchtet Anka Muhlstein den Stellenwert von bildender Kunst im französischen Romanschaffen des 19. und frühen 20. Jahrhunderts: Balzac, Zola, Proust, Huysmans und Maupassant. Mit der ihr eigenen Leichtigkeit und Sachkenntnis erörtert Anka Muhlstein künstlerische Themen und Motive in den Werken einiger der berühmtesten französischen Schriftsteller, setzt neue Akzente in deren Werdegang und bietet interessante Erkenntnisse über die Verwandtschaft zwischen bildender Kunst und Literatur. Seit der Eröffnung des Louvre waren Bilder das Thema in Frankreich. Enge Freundschaften zwischen Schriftstellern und bildenden Künstlern, wie die zwischen Zola und Cézanne oder Manet, oder intensive Einflüsse, wie der von Delacroix auf Balzac, waren keine Seltenheit. Und in vielen Romanen spielen fiktive Künstler, wie Prousts Elstir, eine zentrale Rolle. .
In Prousts Werk lesen alle: Bedienstete und ihre Herrschaft, Kinder und Eltern, Künstler, Ärzte, Gesellschaftsmenschen. Aber auch Proust selbst war ein großer Leser, stand im Ruf, alles gelesen und nichts davon vergessen zu haben. In seiner »Suche auf der verlorenen Zeit« werden Schriftsteller und Literatur auf vielfältige Weise Teil dieses großen Romans, wird die Literatur gewissermaßen zu einem Hauptprotagonisten. Proust definiert seine Figuren über ihre Lektüren und ihren literarischen Geschmack: »Um seine Figuren zu charakterisieren, drückt Proust ihnen ein Buch in die Hand«, schreibt Anka Muhlstein. Anka Muhlstein zeigt in ihrem kleinen Proust-Buch die zentrale Bedeutung von Literatur für Leben und Werk von Marcel Proust auf und entschlüsselt auf unterhaltsame Art Anspielungen, Motive, Zitate, Handlungs- und Charakterzüge. Entstanden ist so eine fundierte Einführung in Prousts großen Roman und zugleich ein amüsantes Vademecum für jeden, der Bücher liebt.
The book presents a vivid portrayal of Balzac as an insatiable epicurean, characterized by his voracious appetite for life, wealth, women, and fame. It delves into the complexities of his personality, revealing the driving forces behind his literary genius and personal pursuits. Through this lens, the narrative explores the themes of desire and ambition that define Balzac's existence and creative output.