As ruínas de um tempo

o Salão e os Impressionistas

Abstract

This paper examines Guy de Maupassant’s novel Strong as death, in which the french writer narrates the life of the famous artist Olivier Bertin, painter of the portraits of the most beautiful women in Paris, who live a romance with Anne de Guilleroy, married to Mr. de Guilleroy. From the return of young Anette, the living portrait of the mother during her youth, the author reflects on the passage of time and its influence on passions, love and art. When reality contradicts the wishes of the main characters of the novel, who have aged over the years, they become nostalgic and begin to evade time, populating their own fantasies with images of an ancient beauty and happiness that were experienced in the past. In this way, the “loss of self” of the characters in the novel is analyzed, who recognize the loss of a part of their existence from which they cannot disconnect their libido, that is, a representation of themselves in the past that is kept idealized, whose relationship love was lost as an object of love.