Balzac

It's not everyday that I take on a short story - to say nothing of a story penned during the first half of the nineteenth century. Still, I did just that today in the form of a poorly translated copy of Balzac's "The Unknown Masterpiece" (1832).

I concede that it was slow going at first, but that, after I picked up the rhythm of the work, I enjoyed it. The story, as I'm sure has been noted, is far more a meditation on art and form than it is a traditional narrative.

What I enjoyed most was Balzac's insistence that art, like beauty (or even love), is never quite the same once it's been shared. Which is to say that, once a piece has been laid bare, its meaning inherently shifts. Perhaps there's nothing so novel about this except that Balzac gets at it in a way that draws a convincing parallel between art and human beauty.

This, I thought, was the most effective aspect of the story: for when the old artist declares at the end of this story that "there is a woman beneath" all that paint, he speaks simultaneously for all of us: indeed, beneath the contrived veneer, there is something else all together, something far more...pristine.