Jacques-Émile Blanche, “Portrait of Marcel Proust” (1892), oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay ([Public domain] via Wikimedia)

Jacques-Émile Blanche, “Portrait of Marcel Proust” (1892), oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay ([Public domain] via Wikimedia)

Perhaps the most ironic, darkly comic, and touching death scene in 20th-century literature takes place in front of Vermeer’s painting “A View of the Delft” (1660-1661) in Marcel Proust’s novel In Search of Lost Time (1913-1927).

Bergotte, a terminally ill novelist who has had a decisive influence on…

via Marcel Proust’s Dream of Art