English Translation of George Sand’s les Maitres Mosaistes/the Master Mosaic Makers

Description

George Sand (1804-1876) was a major writer of the Romantic era in France who produced a series of important and varied works: feminist, regional and pastoral novels, books for children, texts of utopian vision and social concern. This work is an unjustly neglected, elegantly written product of her first sojourn in Italy with the poet Alfred de Musset. A fictional reconstruction of an important aspect of the artists life in late Renaissance Venice, it is also a rich and valuable representation of Sands aesthetic concepts. The precision and artistry of mosaic making suggest an apt metaphor for the complex pattern of words and images in a text. The novel is based on an historical account of the Zuccato brothers, the actual artists and artisans who are preserving and creating mosaics in the Basilica of Saint Marks. It expresses the authors utopian dream for the creative person whose sense of craft and community would constitute real genius. After a very romantic rite of passage from spiritual death to rebirth, as the brothers endure a humiliating trial and prison experience, the artisan brothers succeed in affirming their worth as artists while they serve a common religious ideal. This translation would be useful for students and scholars interested in nineteenth-century literature, French Romanticism and aesthetics. It makes available to the general reader one of the finest examples of the great French novelists lesser-known works.