The Hidden Masterpiece | Page 8

from which he took two gold pieces and offered them to
him, saying,--
"I buy your drawing."
"Take them," said Porbus to Poussin, seeing that the latter trembled and
blushed with shame, for the young scholar had the pride of poverty;
"take them, he has the ransom of two kings in his pouch."
The three left the atelier and proceeded, talking all the way of art, to a
handsome wooden house standing near the Pont Saint-Michel, whose
window-casings and arabesque decoration amazed Poussin. The
embryo painter soon found himself in one of the rooms on the ground
floor seated, beside a good fire, at a table covered with appetizing
dishes, and, by unexpected good fortune, in company with two great
artists who treated him with kindly attention.
"Young man," said Porbus, observing that he was speechless, with his
eyes fixed on a picture, "do not look at that too long, or you will fall
into despair."
It was the Adam of Mabuse, painted by that wayward genius to enable

him to get out of the prison where his creditors had kept him so long.
The figure presented such fulness and force of reality that Nicolas
Poussin began to comprehend the meaning of the bewildering talk of
the old man. The latter looked at the picture with a satisfied but not
enthusiastic manner, which seemed to say, "I have done better myself."
"There is life in the form," he remarked. "My poor master surpassed
himself there; but observe the want of truth in the background. The
man is living, certainly; he rises and is coming towards us; but the
atmosphere, the sky, the air that we breathe, see, feel,--where are they?
Besides, that is only a man; and the being who came first from the hand
of God must needs have had something divine about him which is
lacking here. Mabuse said so himself with vexation in his sober
moments."
Poussin looked alternately at the old man and at Porbus with uneasy
curiosity. He turned to the latter as if to ask the name of their host, but
the painter laid a finger on his lips with an air of mystery, and the
young man, keenly interested, kept silence, hoping that sooner or later
some word of the conversation might enable him to guess the name of
the old man, whose wealth and genius were sufficiently attested by the
respect which Porbus showed him, and by the marvels of art heaped
together in the picturesque apartment.
Poussin, observing against the dark panelling of the wall a magnificent
portrait of a woman, exclaimed aloud, "What a magnificent
Giorgione!"
"No," remarked the old man, "that is only one of my early daubs."
"Zounds!" cried Poussin naively; "are you the king of painters?"
The old man smiled, as if long accustomed to such homage. "Maitre
Frenhofer," said Porbus, "could you order up a little of your good
Rhine wine for me?"
"Two casks," answered the host; "one to pay for the pleasure of looking
at your pretty sinner this morning, and the other as a mark of

friendship."
"Ah! if I were not so feeble," resumed Porbus, "and if you would
consent to let me see your Beautiful Nut-girl, I too could paint some
lofty picture, grand and yet profound, where the forms should have the
living life."
"Show my work!" exclaimed the old man, with deep emotion. "No, no!
I have still to bring it to perfection. Yesterday, towards evening, I
thought it was finished. Her eyes were liquid, her flesh trembled, her
tresses waved--she breathed! And yet, though I have grasped the secret
of rendering on a flat canvas the relief and roundness of nature, this
morning at dawn I saw many errors. Ah! to attain that glorious result, I
have studied to their depths the masters of color. I have analyzed and
lifted, layer by layer, the colors of Titian, king of light. Like him, great
sovereign of art, I have sketched my figure in light clear tones of supple
yet solid color; for shadow is but an accident,-- remember that, young
man. Then I worked backward, as it were; and by means of half-tints,
and glazings whose transparency I kept diminishing little by little, I
was able to cast strong shadows deepening almost to blackness. The
shadows of ordinary painters are not of the same texture as their tones
of light. They are wood, brass, iron, anything you please except flesh in
shadow. We feel that if the figures changed position the shady places
would not be wiped off, and would remain dark spots which never
could be made luminous. I have avoided that blunder, though many of
our most illustrious painters have fallen into it. In my work you will see
whiteness beneath the opacity of the broadest shadow. Unlike the