Nov 16, 20212 min read

The Unknown Masterpiece

Updated: May 29, 2023

illustration Honoré de Balzac by Margoulette Illustration

First published in the press, the short story of Honoré de Balzac's Unknown Masterpiece appeared in the summer of 1831 in the review L'Artiste.

It will then be modified, increased and completed with its denouement so that in 1945 it completes the Human Comedy. This short story can be found in volume XIV with La Peau de Chagrin and La Recherche de l'Obsolu.

The themes are numerous: we find symmetry, quest, secrecy, failure, myths.

It is a story of learning how to look. Naive or disillusioned, he is one of the painters, one of whom will be known and the other will remain invisible.

It is a quest, artistic for Frenhofer and aesthetic for Poussin.

While Poussin is one of the demanding ones, Frenhofer is a free designer.

One who gives priority to color and is ready for the incompletion of a work.

It is in the full expression of life and movement.

He is the one who gets lost in his quest for the absolute.

This masterpiece is what emerges from the chaos of colors and yet remains erased.

Like Pygmalion, Frenhofer will devote his existence to the realization of the work to which he wants to give life.

Émile Bernard will say of Cézanne: "One evening when I was speaking of the Unknown Masterpiece and of Frenhofer, the hero of Balzac's drama, he rose from the table, stood up in front of me, and, striking his chest with his index finger, he accused himself, without a word, but by this multiplied gesture, the very character of the novel. He was so moved that tears filled his eyes. Someone by whom he was preceded in life, but whose soul was prophetic, had guessed it."