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This essay challenges traditional readings of Balzac's he Chef d'oeuvre inconnu. Whereas many critics dismiss both the aging painter Frenhofer and his chef d'oeuvre" as failures, diverse elements within the text suggest that the failure lies instead with the two lesser painters, Poussin and Porbus, and their inability to comprehend Frenhofer's attempt to turn painting into poetry.
Theorists often pose an opposition between literature and such sister arts as painting, sculpture and music. The opposition usually springs from the materiality-the spatial, physical quality-of the non-literary arts in contrast to the supposedly non-material, or temporal, character of literature, which, as a linguistic phenomenon, depends on an arbitrary system of signs. The term "ekphrasis" plays a key role in such discussions, as does the Horation expression "ut pictura poesis" ("as with painting so with poetry"). When interrelations between these arts are considered under the aforementioned rubrics, they are generally undertaken in terms of one art seeking to emulate the other. In the case of literature and the non-literary arts, it is most often literature that is studied in its attempt to emulate the other arts. Murray Kreiger explores this tradition in Ekphrasis, the term which describes "the use of visual and spatial effects in the arts of the word" (31).
Honore de Balzac's "come philosophique," Le Chef d'oeuvre inconnu, provides the forum for one such encounter between painting and poetry. In this work Balzac introduces the reader to two types of painters and two opposing concepts of painting: the one mimetic, the other poetic. In the conflict between the two types of painters, paintings and their reflections on art a seemingly irreconcilable struggle between painting and poetry is played out in its literary form.
This essay will examine these two opposing concepts of painting as they are reflected in these painters and their paintings. It will advance a thesis that runs counter to traditional readings of Balzac's story. Whereas many critics dismiss Frenhofer, the aging master, as a failure, in fact a close reading of the work indicates that it is not Frenhofer but those around him whose artistry ultimately falls short. Moreover, Frenhofer's success hinges on his ability to surpass traditional boundaries between the arts, splicing those between painting and literature. Frenhofer's success springs from...