Marcelin Pleynet's Venetian Chronicle: Chance and Truth

In his new book 'Chronique vénitienne' (Venetian Chronicle), published by Gallimard, Marcelin Pleynet recounts his near-death experience from a stroke (AVC) that plunged him into a coma for a fraction of a second, from which he emerged transformed. The chronicle, begun in Venice in autumn 2007, explores the threshold between life and death, and the resurrection that followed. Pleynet reflects on who the truly 'living' are, finding them in the great artists and thinkers of the past—Titian, Bellini, Giorgione, Tintoretto, Monteverdi, Vivaldi, Hölderlin, Mozart, Nietzsche, Rimbaud, Lautréamont, Cézanne, Pound, Giacometti—whom he considers more alive than many living. The book opens with a tribute to Arthur Rimbaud and his sister Isabelle, rehabilitating her role as the first to understand his work. Pleynet also devotes a new essay to Cézanne, arguing that to truly see Cézanne one must discard the myths created by Zola and others. He cites Picasso's remark to Zervos: 'It is not what the artist does that counts, but what he is.' For Pleynet, Cézanne's painting is a 'vast narrative' rooted in his being, giving new meaning to his famous declaration: 'I owe you the truth in painting and I will tell it to you.'