Living in ‘The Sense of the Past’: Solipsistic Impulses in the Domesticscapes of Edmond de Goncourt and Mario Praz

The Nineteenth century’s private sequel to the earlier, more public Age of Enlightenment was lustrous, well-upholstered rooms packed with artworks and mnemonic traces. The de Goncourt brothers, both of them witty reporters on the Journal, celebrated the solipsistic impulses of the age at 53 Boulevard Montmorency in Auteil, the dwelling of which Edmond de Goncourt provided a detailed inventory in La maison d’un artiste (1881) – a catalogue raisonnée of bibelots, fabrics, patterns and furnishings that claimed to be something of an interior decoration handbook. Edmond de Goncourt rated an “almost human affection for things” higher than a woman’s love. Similar sentiments are to be found in Mario Praz’ La Casa della Vita (1958) and in his own house in Rome. Though both were middle-class intellectuals, art lovers rather than true collectors and hoarders of stylistic souvenirs d’égotisme, they furnished and displayed their home in different ways. Edmond’s home was designed and furnished to convey a cultured man’s artistic idea of himself, even though the collection was destined to be broken up and then reformed as a new ideal, the Académie Goncourt. By contrast, Praz’ home was a flowingly-embroidered account of past events in which the objects’ formal and emotional referencing was paramount. As he wished, the apartment became a museum: a house for living in thus reverted to the original Egyptian meaning of a “Home of Eternal Life”. Though both liked lens’-eye views of interiors, de Goncourt preferred a fixed descriptive focus whereas Praz favoured narrative multivision. De Goncourt’s vantage point was external to the objects themselves, but Praz’s stance was that of the passionate self, lost in the objects and, ultimately, himself. _ Il testo è stato sottoposto a procedura BLIND PEER REVIEW. _ Il Comitato scientifico della rivista è Internazionale. _ La rivista è stata premiata come CELJ 2011 Award for Best New Journal.