The Hidden Masterpiece | Page 4

contrasting
with the pearl-white balls on which they floated, cast at times magnetic
glances of anger or enthusiasm. The face in other respects was
singularly withered and worn by the weariness of old age, and still
more, it would seem, by the action of thoughts which had undermined
both soul and body. The eyes had lost their lashes, and the eyebrows
were scarcely traced along the projecting arches where they belonged.
Imagine such a head upon a lean and feeble body, surround it with lace
of dazzling whiteness worked in meshes like a fish-slice, festoon the
black velvet doublet of the old man with a heavy gold chain, and you
will have a faint idea of the exterior of this strange individual, to whose
appearance the dusky light of the landing lent fantastic coloring. You
might have thought that a canvas of Rembrandt without its frame had
walked silently up the stairway, bringing with it the dark atmosphere
which was the sign-manual of the great master. The old man cast a look
upon the youth which was full of sagacity; then he rapped three times
upon the door, and said, when it was opened by a man in feeble health,

apparently about forty years of age, "Good- morning, maitre."
Porbus bowed respectfully, and made way for his guest, allowing the
youth to pass in at the same time, under the impression that he came
with the old man, and taking no further notice of him; all the less
perhaps because the neophyte stood still beneath the spell which holds
a heaven-born painter as he sees for the first time an atelier filled with
the materials and instruments of his art. Daylight came from a casement
in the roof and fell, focussed as it were, upon a canvas which rested on
an easel in the middle of the room, and which bore, as yet, only three or
four chalk lines. The light thus concentrated did not reach the dark
angles of the vast atelier; but a few wandering reflections gleamed
through the russet shadows on the silvered breastplate of a horseman's
cuirass of the fourteenth century as it hung from the wall, or sent sharp
lines of light upon the carved and polished cornice of a dresser which
held specimens of rare pottery and porcelains, or touched with
sparkling points the rough-grained texture of ancient gold-brocaded
curtains, flung in broad folds about the room to serve the painter as
models for his drapery. Anatomical casts in plaster, fragments and
torsos of antique goddesses amorously polished by the kisses of
centuries, jostled each other upon shelves and brackets. Innumerable
sketches, studies in the three crayons, in ink, and in red chalk covered
the walls from floor to ceiling; color-boxes, bottles of oil and turpentine,
easels and stools upset or standing at right angles, left but a narrow
pathway to the circle of light thrown from the window in the roof,
which fell full on the pale face of Porbus and on the ivory skull of his
singular visitor.
The attention of the young man was taken exclusively by a picture
destined to become famous after those days of tumult and revolution,
and which even then was precious in the sight of certain opinionated
individuals to whom we owe the preservation of the divine afflatus
through the dark days when the life of art was in jeopardy. This noble
picture represents the Mary of Egypt as she prepares to pay for her
passage by the ship. It is a masterpiece, painted for Marie de Medicis,
and afterwards sold by her in the days of her distress.

"I like your saint," said the old man to Porbus, "and I will give you ten
golden crowns over and above the queen's offer; but as to entering into
competition with her--the devil!"
"You do like her, then?"
"As for that," said the old man, "yes, and no. The good woman is well
set-up, but--she is not living. You young men think you have done all
when you have drawn the form correctly, and put everything in place
according to the laws of anatomy. You color the features with flesh-
tones, mixed beforehand on your palette,--taking very good care to
shade one side of the face darker than the other; and because you draw
now and then from a nude woman standing on a table, you think you
can copy nature; you fancy yourselves painters, and imagine that you
have got at the secret of God's creations! Pr-r-r-r!--To be a great poet it
is not enough to know the rules of syntax and write faultless grammar.
Look at your saint, Porbus. At first sight she is admirable; but at the
very next glance we perceive that she is glued to the canvas, and that
we cannot walk round her.