Why did Marcel Proust visit Venice and churches in France around 1900?

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Portrait of French author Marcel Proust, seated with his hand resting thoughtfully against his chin, wearing a dark suit and looking directly at the camera. — Marcel Proust French author Marcel Proust wrote what is considered one of the supreme achievements of modern fiction, the seven-part autobiographical novel *À la recherche du temps perdu* (1913–27; *In Search of Lost Time*).

Marcel Proust’s travels to Venice and various churches in France around 1900 were motivated by his discovery of the art criticism of the English writer John Ruskin in 1899.1

Inspired by Ruskin’s work, Proust embarked on a quest to find a new revelation in the beauty of nature and in Gothic architecture, which he came to view as a symbol of humanity confronting eternity. This pursuit led him to visit Venice with his mother in May 1900 and to study the churches of France. These experiences were deeply formative for his development as a writer; he subsequently translated Ruskin’s The Bible of Amiens and Sesame and Lilies, and it was in the prefaces to these translations that the distinct voice of his mature prose first emerged.1