Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) was a composer and pianist, the son of a Polish mother and French father who lived most of his short and sickly life in France. He composed primarily for piano and when healthy was an avid member of a Parisian group of lively artists and aristocrats. The writer George Sand (1804-1876) was infamous in her time for wearing men’s clothes and her numerous love affairs, many with famous artists like Musset and Chopin. The writer changer her name to George Sand from Amandine Lucie Aurore Dupin, Baronne Dudevant. The decade-long affair between Sand and Chopin reveals a great deal more than just the love of two people and the joys and challenged of real love. For in looking at these aspects of their affair, we see a great deal uncovered about their views on love, life, and art.
There is no denying the love between Chopin and Sand was real. However, the similarities appear to end there in terms of personality and worldview. Sand was a married woman at the time she met Chopin. She was no stranger to love or physical union. In debt, a heavy smoker, and a social butterfly, Sand took umbrage to the use of the term physical love, believing “…for ‘lofty spirits’ there was no such thing as a purely fleshly love”(Winegarten 212). Unfeminine and mentally and physically strong, Sand did play the pursuer when she first met her “Le Chopinet.” However, she was taken aback by the views and personality of the shy, withdrawn, physically frail and sickly Chopin. While acknowledging his talent was genius, she could not understand his apparent inability to view sexuality in its proper light. For a woman whose early works would plea for sexual freedom for men and women alike, the views of Chopin’s on love and physical love were assaulting to her sensibilities “She had received the impression that, although Chopin wanted her, he was holding back partly because he did not wish to ‘sully’ their love...