Wagner, Botticelli, and Carpaccio Musical and pictorial mediators of eros and death in Proust’s work

This contribution seeks to illustrate the role of Wagner’s music and the paintings of Botticelli and Carpaccio as key mediators in the triangular structure of desire. Using the Mélancolique villégiature de Madame de Breyves, a famous text from the volume Les Plaisirs et les Jours, and a few key passages from the Recherche, particularly in the volumes Un amour de Swann and Albertine disparue, we aim to analyze the transformation of an object of desire into a highly sacred pictorial and musical interior doll.