The Hidden Masterpiece | Page 7

masterpiece for the world at
large; only those who are behind the veil of the holy of holies can
perceive its errors. But you are worthy of a lesson, and capable of
understanding it. I will show you how little is needed to turn that
picture into a true masterpiece. Give all your eyes and all your attention;
such a chance of instruction may never fall in your way again. Your
palette, Porbus."
Porbus fetched his palette and brushes. The little old man turned up his
cuffs with convulsive haste, slipped his thumb through the palette
charged with prismatic colors, and snatched, rather than took, the
handful of brushes which Porbus held out to him. As he did so his
beard, cut to a point, seemed to quiver with the eagerness of an
incontinent fancy; and while he filled his brush he muttered between
his teeth:--
"Colors fit to fling out of the window with the man who ground them,--
crude, false, revolting! who can paint with them?"
Then he dipped the point of his brush with feverish haste into the
various tints, running through the whole scale with more rapidity than
the organist of a cathedral runs up the gamut of the "O Filii" at Easter.
Porbus and Poussin stood motionless on either side of the easel,

plunged in passionate contemplation.
"See, young man," said the old man without turning round, "see how
with three or four touches and a faint bluish glaze you can make the air
circulate round the head of the poor saint, who was suffocating in that
thick atmosphere. Look how the drapery now floats, and you see that
the breeze lifts it; just now it looked like heavy linen held out by pins.
Observe that the satiny lustre I am putting on the bosom gives it the
plump suppleness of the flesh of a young girl. See how this tone of
mingled reddish-brown and ochre warms up the cold grayness of that
large shadow where the blood seemed to stagnate rather than flow.
Young man, young man! what I am showing you now no other master
in the world can teach you. Mabuse alone knew the secret of giving life
to form. Mabuse had but one pupil, and I am he. I never took a pupil,
and I am an old man now. You are intelligent enough to guess at what
should follow from the little that I shall show you to-day."
While he was speaking, the extraordinary old man was giving touches
here and there to all parts of the picture. Here two strokes of the brush,
there one, but each so telling that together they brought out a new
painting,--a painting steeped, as it were, in light. He worked with such
passionate ardor that the sweat rolled in great drops from his bald brow;
and his motions seemed to be jerked out of him with such rapidity and
impatience that the young Poussin fancied a demon, encased with the
body of this singular being, was working his hands fantastically like
those of a puppet without, or even against, the will of their owner. The
unnatural brightness of his eyes, the convulsive movements which
seemed the result of some mental resistance, gave to this fancy of the
youth a semblance of truth which reacted upon his lively imagination.
The old man worked on, muttering half to himself, half to his
neophyte:--
"Paf! paf! paf! that is how we butter it on, young man. Ah! my little
pats, you are right; warm up that icy tone. Come, come!--pon, pon,
pon,--" he continued, touching up the spots where he had complained
of a lack of life, hiding under layers of color the conflicting methods,
and regaining the unity of tone essential to an ardent Egyptian.

"Now see, my little friend, it is only the last touches of the brush that
count for anything. Porbus put on a hundred; I have only put on one or
two. Nobody will thank us for what is underneath, remember that!"
At last the demon paused; the old man turned to Porbus and Poussin,
who stood mute with admiration, and said to them,--
"It is not yet equal to my Beautiful Nut-girl; still, one can put one's
name to such a work. Yes, I will sign it," he added, rising to fetch a
mirror in which to look at what he had done. "Now let us go and
breakfast. Come, both of you, to my house. I have some smoked ham
and good wine. Hey! hey! in spite of the degenerate times we will talk
painting; we are strong ourselves. Here is a little man," he continued,
striking Nicolas Poussin on the shoulder, "who has the faculty."
Observing the shabby cap of the youth, he pulled from his belt a
leathern purse