|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Hidden Masterpiece by Honore de Balzac: painting! art! Because you make something which looks more like a
woman than a house, you think you have touched the goal; proud of not
being obliged to write "currus venustus" or "pulcher homo" on the
frame of your picture, you think yourselves majestic artists like our
great forefathers. Ha, ha! you have not got there yet, my little men;
you will use up many a crayon and spoil many a canvas before you reach
that height. Undoubtedly a woman carries her head this way and her
petticoats that way; her eyes soften and droop with just that look of
resigned gentleness; the throbbing shadow of the eyelashes falls
exactly thus upon her cheek. That is it, and--that is NOT IT. What
lacks? A mere nothing; but that mere nothing is ALL. You have given
|
