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The Unknown Masterpiece

The Unknown Masterpiece, Balzac's story unfairly ignored by the general public, it predicted the fate of figurative art in the century following the where the great writer lived, her decline from that language or communication tool of a man with other men, who had been from its inception, the exercise solipsistic, self-centered, lonely and arrogant when he would set in modern times. Balzac, besides being the great orchestrator of stories accumulated in his vast production of novels and short stories which he called, with justified pride, his Human Comedy, was an excellent observer of the evolution of thought and morals and, far-sighted genius he was, he realized where it made landfall on specious reasoning and smashing of the artists, already present at the time, the relationship between artist and work of art, between art and reality. Let's look at the dates.
Honoré de Balzac ( photos below) was in 1799 and died in 1850, The Unknown Masterpiece is composed in Paris in 1832, decades before the explosion of that season of art that will go down in history as Impressionism and, while still remaining bound to the representation of sensible reality, is the first shock to the natural reproduction of the form, marks the start of the process that is conceptual, from the decomposition of the subject, leading to its dissolution. Balzac, by denying Frenhofer, the main protagonist of his story, the existence in nature of the line, the outline of objects, defined in reality by the light surrounding surfaces dynamically and volumes, already anticipates, precisely, the impressionistic vision a reality-based representation of moving and changing with the decomposition of the paint surface in spots and splashes of color, taking shape in a game of shadows and reflections gathered to blow ' eye to return the dissolution of local color in tonal values, perspective and atmosphere.

The most important characters of the Unknown Masterpiece are three artists, Porbus, the painter said that socially enjoys the favors of an important client, Poussin, the hopeful young artist moved from province to Paris to find her posto di rilievo nel mondo dell’arte della capitale e, appunto, Frenhofer, l’artefice più anziano che, nella sua volontà prometeica di ricreare sulla tela il palpito e il mistero della vita “rubando a Dio”, come dice lui stesso, “il suo segreto” per cogliere lo spirito, l’anima, l’immagine profonda degli oggetti e delle creature, si è estraniato completamente dalla vita e dal pubblico per darsi totalmente alla sua ricerca dell’assoluto nell’espressione artistica. Subito, nella scena d’esordio del romanzo, in cui i tre personaggi si incontrano nello studio di Porbus, di fronte a una Maria Egiziaca dipinta con tocco magistrale dallo stesso Porbus, Frenhofer ha parole of contempt for the work of his friend. "Your creation is flawed: you could not give that part of your soul to your favorite work," she says. "The torch of Prometheus you goes out more than once in the hands of your picture and many details have not been touched by the heavenly flame." And, in front of objection uttered in a tone of shocked by the young Poussin: "But this is sublime holy, sir," asks in response the palette and brushes Porbus and begins to correct its framework with rapid touches of color, explaining to the boy because of his actions. "See how, with three or four strokes and a slight bluish haze, could allow air to circulate around the head of this poor saint, who must have felt suffocated, crushed in this heavy atmosphere! Watch as this drapery flutters hours, and as we understand that it's the wind to lift it. Before, it looked like a starched cloth and pinned with pins. " Porbus has nothing to complain about in the activities of the older master, indeed, going later in his studio with the young, asks him to let them see the work to which Frenhofer working for ten years without having ever shown to anyone, the portrait of a woman he calls La Belle Noiseuse. "So" says "maybe I could paint a painting noble and great and deep." But strongly repudiates the old: "I have yet to perfect. Yesterday I thought he had finished, his eyes seemed moist, the meat beating the strings of her hair moved: she was breathing! .. This morning, in the light of day, I recognized that he had wrong. "

At this point the young Poussin is buzzing with curiosity: he is convinced, as Porbus that the vision of the unknown Frenhofer will pave the way for access to the knowledge of great paintings. To achieve this goal, do not hesitate to ask his girlfriend to go along by the old master to introduce them to portray in order to have access the vision of his painting and the secrets of his art. Even in the face of reluctance of the young girl, who takes the request of her fiance as a sort of prostitution of his greed pictorial beauty of the old master, he also accompanies Frenhofer before, at the risk of losing his love. But Frenhofer, even for a moment charmed by the beauty of the young woman, immediately puts the spotlight on his painting, this portrait of a woman who is the sole focus of his life and, in a sense, his true love. And this time he decided to allow the vision to two fellow artists to enjoy the triumph that the beauty of his creation on the back of the girl in the flesh and bone. But the picture will prove to be nothing but an incomprehensible tangle of overlapping patches of color that form a wall painting, in which he sees only a fragment of a bare foot, a foot delicious, perfectly shaped. "There's a woman under there!" Porbus exclaims, pointing to the Poussin Frenhofer layers of color that has in turn superimposed on the belief that complete his work. "But eventually even to realize, sooner or later, there's nothing on the canvas!" Said Poussin. Shocked by the tone of the boy, and disappointed by the attitude of Porbus, Frenhofer can see for the first time his picture with bright eyes, and all of its safety vacillano. “Niente! Niente!” prorompe, scoppiando in lacrime. “E ci ho lavorato dieci anni!” L’indomani Porbus, preoccupato, torna a cercare Frenhofer, e scopre che è morto quella notte, dopo aver bruciato tutte le sue tele.

Balzac ha previsto, con questo racconto magistrale, quale sarebbe stato il destino dell’arte e la sua inevitabile involuzione verso l’astrazione, il concettuale e l’informale , col loro corollario di equivoci sfocianti spesso nell’impostura; individuando così perfettamente le conseguenze che deriveranno dell’estraniarsi dalla vita e dal pubblico e comprendendo quale minaccia nascondesse l’estetismo exasperation and nihilism linked to a conception of art superomista construed only as an exercise in private and individualistic, with the danger of lack of communication and destructiveness which contained, became a threat in the modern era and post-modernity, a tragic reality.

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