We had a group of 24 on July 27th come over on a lovely summer evening to hash out Balzac's "Unknown Masterpiece."
In the final scene of the story, Poussin and Porbus wait outside Frenhofer's studio while he puts the finishing touches on his painting The Quarrelsome Beauty ("La Belle Noiseuse"), which he has been working on for ten years. Poussin has agreed to allow his live-in girlfriend, Gillette, to model for Frenhofer.
When Frenhofer unveils the painting, he thinks he has created a masterpiece, and waxes poetic as he extols its virtues. Poussin and Porbus see nothing discernible, except a foot. Poussin even calls Frenhofer "more a poet than a painter. Porbus continues his flattery of Frenhofer (is it because Frenhofer is rich?)
Poussin remarks, "But sooner or later he'll notice there's nothing on his canvas." It triggers a violent reaction in Frenhofer, who calls him names ("vagabond, good-for-nothing, cad, catamite"). Frenhofer then becomes crestfallen, and thinks himself a fraud.
The men have completely forgotten Gillette until Poussin hears her weeping in a corner. Her speech contains a startling juxtaposition of opposites when she says, "I'd be vile to love you still -- you fill me with contempt. I admire you, yet you horrify me. I love you, and I think I hate you already."
The three artists have forgotten the true source of their inspiration.
The interactions of these characters amount to a set of profound reflections about the wellsprings of art. Frenhofer's death that night, I would argue, is incidental to those reflections.
