Spinozablue: An Eclectic Journal of the Arts

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As men­tioned ear­lier, Stephen O’Shea’s excel­lent Sea of Faith adds a nice angle to its his­tory. He focuses on the inter­ac­tion of faith, pol­i­tics, empires and art in the Mediter­ranean from the advent of Islam to the bat­tle of Malta in 1565. He also trav­els to many of the lands in ques­tion and con­trasts cur­rent day with the past. This helps us think of the long view, and I imag­ine it helped him write his his­tory more effectively.

In recent years, I’ve become enam­ored with a sim­i­lar approach. Vis­it­ing his­tor­i­cal sites ampli­fies the sto­ries I’ve read. See­ing the homes of beloved authors pro­vides a touch­stone for fur­ther read­ing. A few years ago, for exam­ple, I vis­ited The Mount, one of Edith Wharton’s homes, in Lenox, Mass. Here are two pho­tos of her man­sion from the foundation’s web­site, show­ing before and after restoration:

See­ing her home, walk­ing through the room she did her writ­ing in, or the room Henry James stayed in, hear­ing about life in that day and time from the tour guide, brings to life her nov­els in a new way. Along with the writ­ing process itself, one can imag­ine the present scene trans­posed into those nov­els and short sto­ries. Edith Whar­ton based her novel Ethan Frome on an inci­dent she wit­nessed in the town of Lenox. Stay­ing there made me feel closer to the char­ac­ters, as strange as that may seem.

When I was in France last May, it was a rev­e­la­tion to see where Van Gogh lived and worked in Arles – the famous café, the asy­lum, the scene of sev­eral of his paint­ings. These pil­grim­ages tie us to the works, artists and times in ways that go beyond words on the page or images on can­vas. Will be adding more pho­tos from my own trav­els in the future.

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