The Hidden Masterpiece | Page 5

She is a silhouette with only one side, a
semblance cut in outline, an image that can't turn nor change her
position. I feel no air between this arm and the background of the
picture; space and depth are wanting. All is in good perspective; the
atmospheric gradations are carefully observed, and yet in spite of your
conscientious labor I cannot believe that this beautiful body has the
warm breath of life. If I put my hand on that firm, round throat I shall
find it cold as marble. No, no, my friend, blood does not run beneath
that ivory skin; the purple tide of life does not swell those veins, nor
stir those fibres which interlace like net-work below the translucent
amber of the brow and breast. This part palpitates with life, but that
other part is not living; life and death jostle each other in every detail.
Here, you have a woman; there, a statue; here again, a dead body. Your
creation is incomplete. You have breathed only a part of your soul into
the well-beloved work. The torch of Prometheus went out in your
hands over and over again; there are several parts of your painting on
which the celestial flame never shone."
"But why is it so, my dear master?" said Porbus humbly, while the

young man could hardly restrain a strong desire to strike the critic.
"Ah! that is the question," said the little old man. "You are floating
between two systems,--between drawing and color, between the patient
phlegm and honest stiffness of the old Dutch masters and the dazzling
warmth and abounding joy of the Italians. You have tried to follow, at
one and the same time, Hans Holbein and Titian; Albrecht Durier and
Paul Veronese. Well, well! it was a glorious ambition, but what is the
result? You have neither the stern attraction of severity nor the
deceptive magic of the chiaroscuro. See! at this place the rich, clear
color of Titian has forced out the skeleton outline of Albrecht Durier, as
molten bronze might burst and overflow a slender mould. Here and
there the outline has resisted the flood, and holds back the magnificent
torrent of Venetian color. Your figure is neither perfectly well painted
nor perfectly well drawn; it bears throughout the signs of this
unfortunate indecision. If you did not feel that the fire of your genius
was hot enough to weld into one the rival methods, you ought to have
chosen honestly the one or the other, and thus attained the unity which
conveys one aspect, at least, of life. As it is, you are true only on your
middle plane. Your outlines are false; they do not round upon
themselves; they suggest nothing behind them. There is truth here,"
said the old man, pointing to the bosom of the saint; "and here,"
showing the spot where the shoulder ended against the background;
"but there," he added, returning to the throat, "it is all false. Do not
inquire into the why and wherefore. I should fill you with despair."
The old man sat down on a stool and held his head in his hands for
some minutes in silence.
"Master," said Porbus at length, "I studied that throat from the nude;
but, to our sorrow, there are effects in nature which become false or
impossible when placed on canvas."
"The mission of art is not to copy nature, but to represent it. You are
not an abject copyist, but a poet," cried the old man, hastily interrupting
Porbus with a despotic gesture. "If it were not so, a sculptor could reach
the height of his art by merely moulding a woman. Try to mould the
hand of your mistress, and see what you will get,-- ghastly articulations,

without the slightest resemblance to her living hand; you must have
recourse to the chisel of a man who, without servilely copying that
hand, can give it movement and life. It is our mission to seize the mind,
soul, countenance of things and beings. Effects! effects! what are they?
the mere accidents of the life, and not the life itself. A hand,--since I
have taken that as an example,-- a hand is not merely a part of the body,
it is far more; it expresses and carries on a thought which we must seize
and render. Neither the painter nor the poet nor the sculptor should
separate the effect from the cause, for they are indissolubly one. The
true struggle of art lies there. Many a painter has triumphed through
instinct without knowing this theory of art as a theory.
"Yes," continued the old man vehemently, "you draw a woman, but you
do not SEE her. That is not the way to force an entrance into the arcana
of Nature. Your hand reproduces, without