![]() You are not a servile copyist, but a poet!” cried the old man sharply, cutting Porbus short with an imperious gesture. “The aim of art is not to copy nature, but to express it. Remarkably, “The Unknown Masterpiece” pulls it off.įrenhofer’s philosophy of art doesn’t simply succeed in making the story work it’s been studied ever since by actual painters!Īnd that’s quite a trick on de Balzac’s part. That’s a ton of pressure for an author to take on when writing a story. He must talk about painting in ways that capture our attention, our imagination and our mind. He must speak very well about the nature of art. It’s a philosophical consideration pulled through a plot.Īnd for it to work, the character of Frenhofer must be very smart. Making the artistic philosophy espoused by one of the characters truly brilliantīut my own particular emotional response aside, let’s note that this is very much a story of ideas. The Unknown Masterpiece by Honoré de Balzac, 1832 ![]()
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