【Paintings in Proust】 Crepuscule in Opal, Trouville, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, 1865 (p.121)

惠斯勒的畫作多次出現在小說之中，而透過大多數學者研究的結果，有關小說中畫家埃爾斯蒂爾 (Elstir) 角色設定的原型，總是和惠斯勒脫不了關係。
我想在欣賞畫作的同時，或許關於埃爾斯蒂爾這個角色，心裡頭也會浮現一個更完整而具體的輪廓吧！




【TEXT】
Sometimes the ocean filled almost the whole of my window, raised as it was by a band of sky edged at the top only by a line that was of the same blue as the sea, so that I supposed it to be still sea, and the change in colour due only to some effect of lighting. Another day the sea was painted only in the lower part of the window, all the rest of which was filled with so many clouds, packed one against another in horizontal bands, that its panes seemed, by some premeditation or predilection on the of the artist, to be presenting a ‘Cloud Study’ while the fronts of the various bookcases showing similar clouds but in another part of the horizon and differently coloured by the light, appeared to be offering as it were the repetition—dear to certain contemporary masters—of one and the same effect caught at different hours but able now in the immobility of art to be seen altogether in a single room, drawn in pastel and mounted Linder glass. And sometimes to a sky and sea uniformly grey a touch of pink would be added with an exquisite delicacy, while a little butterfly that had gone to sleep at the loot of the window seemed to be appending with its wings at the corner of this ‘Harmony in Grey and Pink’ in the Whistler manner the favourite signature of the Chelsea master. Then even the pink would vanish; there was nothing now left to look at. (Within a Budding Grove)

有時，大洋幾乎占滿了我的整面窗戶，上方是一抹天空，只有一條線，與海一樣的藍，因此我以為那還是大海，只在光照作用下，才顯出不同的顏色。
另一日，大海只在窗子的下部描繪出來，窗子其餘的部分佈滿了浮雲。水準方向上，一朵一朵的雲你推我搡，結果好像出於藝術家的預謀或專長，那窗玻璃正在介紹「雲朵研究」。與此同時，書櫥的各塊玻璃上顯示出相似的雲朵，但這是在另一部分地平線上的雲朵，而且被光線染上了不同的色彩，似乎向你提供同一題材的反覆。這是某些當代畫家十分珍愛的反覆，總是取自不同的時刻。而現在，由於藝術的固定作用，可以在一個房間裡一覽無餘，呈彩粉畫形式，並且壓在玻璃板下面。
有時，在海天一色的灰色上，細膩精巧地加上一點粉紅。這時，在窗子下方安睡的一隻小蝴蝶，就像將雙翼落在這幅有惠斯勒風味的、題為《灰與粉紅色的和諧》的畫下方。這是切爾西大師親自簽名的作品。這粉紅色漸漸消失，再沒有任何東西可以注目。
(p.406 追憶似水年華 II 在少女們身旁 聯經版 1992)