The Hidden Masterpiece | Page 9

crowd of ignoramuses, who fancy they draw correctly because they can
paint one good vanishing line, I have not dryly outlined my figures, nor
brought out superstitiously minute anatomical details; for, let me tell
you, the human body does not end off with a line. In that respect
sculptors get nearer to the truth of nature than we do. Nature is all
curves, each wrapping or overlapping another. To speak rigorously,
there is no such thing as drawing. Do not laugh, young man; no matter
how strange that saying seems to you, you will understand the reasons
for it one of these days. A line is a means by which man explains to
himself the effect of light upon a given object; but there is no such

thing as a line in nature, where all things are rounded and full. It is only
in modelling that we really draw,--in other words, that we detach things
from their surroundings and put them in their due relief. The proper
distribution of light can alone reveal the whole body. For this reason I
do not sharply define lineaments; I diffuse about their outline a haze of
warm, light half-tints, so that I defy any one to place a finger on the
exact spot where the parts join the groundwork of the picture. If seen
near by this sort of work has a woolly effect, and is wanting in nicety
and precision; but go a few steps off and the parts fall into place; they
take their proper form and detach themselves,-- the body turns, the
limbs stand out, we feel the air circulating around them.
"Nevertheless," he continued, sadly, "I am not satisfied; there are
moments when I have my doubts. Perhaps it would be better not to
sketch a single line. I ask myself if I ought not to grasp the figure first
by its highest lights, and then work down to the darker portions. Is not
that the method of the sun, divine painter of the universe? O Nature,
Nature! who has ever caught thee in thy flights? Alas! the heights of
knowledge, like the depths of ignorance, lead to unbelief. I doubt my
work."
The old man paused, then resumed. "For ten years I have worked,
young man; but what are ten short years in the long struggle with
Nature? We do not know the type it cost Pygmalion to make the only
statue that ever walked--"
He fell into a reverie and remained, with fixed eyes, oblivious of all
about him, playing mechanically with his knife.
"See, he is talking to his own soul," said Porbus in a low voice.
The words acted like a spell on Nicolas Poussin, filling him with the
inexplicable curiosity of a true artist. The strange old man, with his
white eyes fixed in stupor, became to the wondering youth something
more than a man; he seemed a fantastic spirit inhabiting an unknown
sphere, and waking by its touch confused ideas within the soul. We can
no more define the moral phenomena of this species of fascination than
we can render in words the emotions excited in the heart of an exile by

a song which recalls his fatherland. The contempt which the old man
affected to pour upon the noblest efforts of art, his wealth, his manners,
the respectful deference shown to him by Porbus, his work guarded so
secretly,--a work of patient toil, a work no doubt of genius, judging by
the head of the Virgin which Poussin had so naively admired, and
which, beautiful beside even the Adam of Mabuse, betrayed the
imperial touch of a great artist,--in short, everything about the strange
old man seemed beyond the limits of human nature. The rich
imagination of the youth fastened upon the one perceptible and clear
clew to the mystery of this supernatural being,--the presence of the
artistic nature, that wild impassioned nature to which such mighty
powers have been confided, which too often abuses those powers, and
drags cold reason and common souls, and even lovers of art, over stony
and arid places, where for such there is neither pleasure nor instruction;
while to the artistic soul itself,--that white-winged angel of sportive
fancy,--epics, works of art, and visions rise along the way. It is a nature,
an essence, mocking yet kind, fruitful though destitute. Thus, for the
enthusiastic Poussin, the old man became by sudden transfiguration Art
itself,--art with all its secrets, its transports, and its dreams.
"Yes, my dear Porbus," said Frenhofer, speaking half in reverie, "I have
never yet beheld a perfect woman; a body whose outlines were faultless
and whose flesh-tints--Ah! where lives she?" he cried, interrupting his
own words; "where lives the lost Venus of the ancients, so long sought
for, whose scattered beauty we snatch by glimpses? Oh!