Footprints of Pursuing Beauty: From the Seine to Normandy

Author: Zhao Xiaoqin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-11-01
Features: Goncourt believed that a literary artist needed to remain single. In Traces of the Hunt for Beauty, three out of the five literary artists are single. Flaubert was not only single but also demanded solitude and isolation for himself, believing that only in this way could he transcend worldly fame and clamor. The original site of Flaubert's house was a monastery, which also served as his lifelong hermitage for writing. Even in modern times, Mr. Cheng Baoyi, an Asian member of the French Academy, remained shut away in a monastery for nearly a year, completing a monumental work. Is being single necessary for engaging in artistic creation? At least in Traces of the Hunt for Beauty, both Monet and Zola were not single and had more than one wife and family. Yet they transcended the times and life events they were entangled in, first achieving works through their unique lives. Let me ask you, dear readers, who among you is not creating with their own lives? Returning to the "hunt for beauty," it is not always the same five literary artists. Yet there is a connection among them: Maupassant regarded Flaubert and Turgenev as spiritual mentors, admiring them deeply, and defined Monet as a "person who hunts for beauty." Left at a young age, Zola received the protection of Cézanne as a brother, and through Cézanne, he joined the Impressionist painters, whose creative career can be said to have begun with "Impressionism." This book is not a critique of artistic works. The author would rather explore the lives and creations of the five literary artists with the readers, beginning steps in aesthetics.