honoré de balzac the unknown masterpiece

Well, try to make a cast of your mistress’s hand, and set up the thing before you. “Otherwise a sculptor might make a plaster cast of a living woman and save himself all further trouble. You are not a servile copyist, but a poet!” cried the old man sharply, cutting Porbus short with an imperious gesture.

“The aim of art is not to copy nature, but to express it. Remarkably, “The Unknown Masterpiece” pulls it off.įrenhofer’s philosophy of art doesn’t simply succeed in making the story work it’s been studied ever since by actual painters!Īnd that’s quite a trick on de Balzac’s part. That’s a ton of pressure for an author to take on when writing a story. He must talk about painting in ways that capture our attention, our imagination and our mind. He must speak very well about the nature of art. It’s a philosophical consideration pulled through a plot.Īnd for it to work, the character of Frenhofer must be very smart. Making the artistic philosophy espoused by one of the characters truly brilliantīut my own particular emotional response aside, let’s note that this is very much a story of ideas. He came to a stand once more on the landing at the head of the stairs, and again he hesitated before raising his hand to the grotesque knocker on the door of the studio, where doubtless the painter was at work-Master Porbus, sometime painter in ordinary to Henri IV till Mary de' Medici took Rubens into favor.The Unknown Masterpiece by Honoré de Balzac, 1832

Receiving a reply in the affirmative, the young man went slowly up the staircase, like a gentleman but newly come to court, and doubtful as to his reception by the king. He went up and down the street before this house with the irresolution of a gallant who dares not venture into the presence of the mistress whom he loves for the first time, easy of access though she may be but after a sufficiently long interval of hesitation, he at last crossed the threshold and inquired of an old woman, who was sweeping out a large room on the ground floor, whether Master Porbus was within. On a cold December morning in the year 1612, a young man, whose clothing was somewhat of the thinnest, was walking to and fro before a gateway in the Rue des Grands-Augustins in Paris.

Honoré de balzac the unknown masterpiece