The Unknown Masterpiece (3 page)

THE UNKNOWN MASTERPIECE

TO A LORD
1845.

On a cold December morning of the year 1612, a young man whose clothes looked threadbare was walking back and forth in front of a house in the rue des Grands-Augustins, in Paris. After pacing this street for some time as irresolutely as a lover shy about keeping a tryst with his first mistress, however obliging she may be, he finally crossed the threshold and inquired if Maître François Porbus was at home. Receiving an affirmative answer from an old woman sweeping the entrance hall, the young man slowly mounted the spiral staircase, stopping on each step like a new courtier uncertain of the king’s reception. At the top, he stood on the landing another moment, hesitating to lift the grotesque knocker which embellished the door of the studio where Henri IV’s court painter, to whom Marie de Médicis now preferred Rubens, was doubtless at work. The young man was experiencing that profound emotion which has stirred the hearts of all great artists when, in the prime of youth and their love of art, they approach a man of genius or stand in the presence of a masterpiece. There is a first bloom in all human feelings, the result of a noble enthusiasm which gradually fades till happiness is no more than a memory, glory a lie. Among such fragile sentiments, none so resembles love as the youthful passion of an artist first suffering that delicious torture which will be his destiny of glory and of woe, a passion brimming with boldness and fear, vague hopes and inevitable frustrations. The youth who, short of cash but long on talent, fails to tremble upon first encountering a master, must always lack at least one heartstring, some sensitivity in his brushstroke, a certain poetic expressiveness. There may be conceited boasters prematurely convinced that the future is theirs, but only fools believe them. In this regard, the young stranger seemed to possess true merit, if talent is to be measured by that initial shyness and that indefinable humility which a man destined for glory is likely to lose in the exercise of his art, as a pretty woman loses hers in the stratagems of coquetry. The habit of triumph diminishes doubt, and humility may be a kind of doubt.

Beset by poverty and amazed at this moment by his own presumption, the poor neophyte would never have entered the studio of the painter, to whom we owe the admirable portrait of Henri IV, had it not been for an extraordinary favor granted by chance. An old man was coming up the stairs behind him; from the strangeness of this person’s garments, the splendor of his lace neckwear, and the awe-inspiring confidence of his gait, the youth assumed him to be either the painter’s friend or his patron. He moved aside on the landing and studied the man attentively as he passed, hoping to recognize an artist’s good nature or an art lover’s obliging disposition; but perceived instead something diabolical in the man, that je ne sais quoi so attractive to artists. Imagine a bulging forehead sloping down to a tiny squashed turned-up nose like Rabelais’s or Socrates’; smiling wrinkled lips, a short chin held high and adorned with a gray beard trimmed to a point; sea-green eyes apparently dimmed by age, yet which, by the pupils’ contrast with the pearly whites they floated in, must have cast compelling glances in the throes of anger or enthusiasm. Moreover the entire countenance was singularly wizened by the debilities of age and still more by those thoughts which exhaust body and soul alike. No lashes remained on the eyelids, and above the deep sockets only tufts of eyebrows were to be seen. Set such a head upon a weak and puny body, swathe it in extravagant curlicues of immaculate lace, drape a heavy gold chain over the black doublet beneath, and you will have an imperfect image of this personage to whom the dim light of the staircase lent a further tinge of the fantastic: as if a canvas by Rembrandt were walking, silent and unframed, through the tenebrous atmosphere that great painter has made his own. The old creature gave the youth a glance of great sagacity, knocked three times on the door, and said to the sickly looking man of about forty who came to open it: “Good day, maître.”

Porbus, bowing respectfully, admitted the youth as well, supposing he had been brought by the old man, and paid little heed to him, for the neophyte remained under the spell that must beguile any born painter at the sight of his first real studio, in which are revealed some of the art’s material operations. A skylight illuminated the master’s studio; falling directly on the canvas fastened to the easel and as yet marked by only three or four strokes of white paint, daylight failed to penetrate the dark corners of this huge room, though stray reflections in the gloom picked out a silvery gleam on a suit of armor hanging on the wall, suddenly glistened on the carved cornice of a venerable sideboard holding odd pieces of crockery, or spangled points of light upon the coarse texture of some old brocaded draperies lying in broken folds. Plaster lay-figures, limbs and bodies of classical goddesses lovingly polished by the kiss of centuries, littered shelves and console tables. Countless sketches, studies in three colors of crayon, red chalk, or pen-and-ink, covered the walls up to the ceiling. Boxes of paint in powder and tubes, jars of oil and turpentine, and a series of overturned stools left only a narrow path by which to reach the aureole cast by the skylight around Porbus’s pale face and the strange visitor’s ivory cranium. The youth’s attention was soon entirely absorbed by a picture which, in that age of disorder and upheavals, had already become famous and was often visited by several of those fanatics to whom we owe the preservation of the sacred fire in evil times. This lovely canvas portrayed a Mary of Egypt undressing in order to pay her passage to Jerusalem. Marie de Médicis, for whom it was painted, would sell this masterpiece in the days of her destitution.

“I like your saint,” the old man said to Porbus, “and I’d give you ten gold écus for her over and above what the queen’s paying, but the devil take me if I’ll bid against her!”

“You think it’s good?”

The old man sniffed. “Good?... Yes and no. Your lady is assembled nicely enough, but she’s not alive. You people think you’ve done it all once you’ve drawn a body correctly and put everything where it belongs, according to the laws of anatomy! You fill in your outline with flesh tones mixed in advance on your palette, carefully keeping one side darker than the other, and because you glance now and then at a naked woman standing on a table, you think you’re copying nature—you call yourselves painters and suppose you’ve stolen God’s secrets! ...Brrr! A man’s not a great poet just because he knows a little grammar and doesn’t violate usage! Look at your saint, Porbus! At first glance she seems quite admirable, but look again and you can see she’s pasted on the canvas—you could never walk around her. She’s a flat silhouette, a cutout who could never turn around or change position. There’s no air between that arm and the background; no space, no depth, yet the thing’s in perfect perspective and the shading correctly observed; for all your praiseworthy efforts, I could never believe this splendid body was animated by the breath of life. If I were to put my hand on that breast, firm and round as it is, it would feel as cold as marble! No, my friend, blood has never flowed under that ivory skin, the veins don’t weave their mesh of crimson dew beneath those transparent temples and that fragrant bosom. Right here there’s something like a pulse, but over here it’s motionless: life is at grips with death in every pore. Here it’s a woman, there a statue, and everywhere else a corpse. Your creation’s unfinished. You’ve managed to put only part of your soul into your precious work. Prometheus’s torch has gone out more than once in your hands, and lots of places in your picture are untouched by the divine fire.”

“But why has this happened, maître?” Porbus asked the old man deferentially, while the youth with difficulty repressed a strong desire to strike him.

“Ah, there we have it!” the ancient creature exclaimed. “You’ve wavered between two systems—between drawing and color, between the meticulous phlegm and stern resolve of the old German masters and the dazzling ardor and happy abundance of the Italians. You’ve tried to imitate Holbein and Titian, or Dürer and Veronese, at the same time. It was certainly a magnificent ambition, but what’s happened? You’ve achieved neither the severe charm of the Germans’ dry outlines nor the deceptive illusions of the southerners’ chiaroscuro. Over here, like molten bronze cracking the mold, your rich high colors à la Titian have exploded the austere Dürer contours you poured them into. While here, the lineaments have resisted and throttled the splendid excesses of the Venetian’s palette. Your figure’s neither perfectly drawn nor perfectly painted, and everywhere betrays the traces of this unfortunate vacillation. If you didn’t feel your inspiration was strong enough to fuse these rival styles, you should have confined yourself to one or the other, to achieve that unity which simulates one of the conditions of life. Your truth is all in the interior parts—your contours are false, they fail to encircle the limbs or suggest there is something behind them... Now here there’s truth,” the old man said, pointing to the saint’s throat, “and here,” he continued, indicating the place on the canvas where the shoulder ended. “But here”—returning to the center of her bosom—“everything’s wrong. Let’s not analyze it; it would only drive you to despair.” The old man sat down on a stool, rested his chin on his hands, and fell silent.

“Maître,” Porbus told him, “I did study that breast from the model; but, alas for us, certain effects which are true in nature cease to be lifelike on canvas...”

“It’s not the mission of art to copy nature, but to express it! Remember, artists aren’t mere imitators, they’re poets!” the old man exclaimed, interrupting Porbus with a despotic gesture. “Otherwise a sculptor would be set free from all his labors by taking a cast of his model! Well, just try casting your mistress’s hand and setting it down in front of you: you’ll see a horrible corpse utterly unlike the original, and you’ll be forced to rely on the chisel of a man who, without copying it exactly, can represent its movement and its life. It’s our task to seize the physiognomy, the spirit, the soul of our models, whether objects or living beings. Effects! Effects! But they’re just the accidents of life, not life itself. A hand—to continue with my example—a hand isn’t just attached to an arm, and that arm to a body; no, it expresses and continues an idea that must be seized and rendered. Neither painter, nor poet, nor sculptor can separate effect from cause, they’re invincibly united! That’s your real struggle! Many painters succeed instinctively, without ever knowing this theme of art. You draw a woman, but you don’t see her! That’s not the way to penetrate nature’s secrets. With no thought on your part, your hand reproduces the model you’ve copied in your life-drawing class. You don’t delve deeply enough into the intimacies of form. You don’t pursue them with sufficient love and perseverance in all their disguises and evasions. Beauty is something difficult and austere which can’t be captured that way: you must bide your time, lie in wait, seize it, and hug it close with all your might in order to make it yield. Form’s a Proteus much more elusive and resourceful than the one in the myth—only after a long struggle can you compel it to reveal its true aspect. Artists like you are satisfied with the first likeness it yields, or at most the second or third; that’s not the way this victory is won! The victorious painter is never deceived by all those subterfuges, he perseveres until nature’s forced to show herself stark naked, in her true spirit. That was Raphael’s way,” the old man said, removing his black velvet cap to express his respect for this monarch of art. “His supremacy’s due to that intimate sense which apparently seeks to break Form. In Raphael’s figures, Form is what it is in all of us: an intermediary for the communication of ideas and sensations, a vast poetry! Each figure is a world, a portrait whose model has appeared in a sublime vision, colored by light, drawn by an inner voice, examined by a celestial hand which has revealed the sources of expression in an entire existence. You people make lovely gowns of flesh for your women, elegant draperies of hair, but where’s the blood which creates peace or passion, which causes particular effects? Your saint’s a brunette, yet
this
, my poor Porbus, this belongs to a blonde! And so your figures are tinted phantoms you parade before our eyes, and you call that painting, you call that art! Because you’ve made something that looks more like a woman than a house, you think you’ve achieved your goal, and because you no longer need to scribble under your figures
currus venustus
or
pulcher homo
, like the earliest painters, you now suppose you’re wonderful artists! Ha, ha! Not so fast, my brave friends: forests of pencils and acres of canvas must be used up before you’re there. Of course, of course! A woman tilts her head this way, she holds her skirt like that, her eyes melt with a look of submissive sweetness, the shadow of her lashes trembles just so on her cheeks! That’s it—and that’s not it. What’s lacking? A trifle that’s nothing at all, yet a nothing that’s everything. You’ve got the appearance of life, but you don’t express its overflowing abundance, that je ne sais quoi which might even be the soul, floating like a cloud over the envelope of flesh. You know, that bloom of life that Titian and Raphael caught. Starting from where you’ve left off, some excellent painting may be done; but you exhaust yourself too soon. The crowd admires, and the true connoisseur smiles. Oh Mabuse, Oh my master!” added this singular creature, “what a thief you are, taking life with you when you left us!— All the same,” he interrupted himself, “your painting’s worth more than the daubs of that imposter Rubens with his mountains of Flemish meat sprinkled with vermilion, his waves of auburn hair, and his clashing colors. At least here you have color, and feeling, and drawing, the three essentials of art!”

“But that saint is sublime, my dear sir!” the youth exclaimed loudly, emerging from his deep reverie. “Those two figures, Mary and the boatman, have a delicacy of purpose quite beyond the Italian painters—I can’t think of a single one who could have invented the boatman’s hesitation.”