ABSTRACT
In Balzac’s story “The Unknown Masterpiece,” from 1831, there is a tale that speaks to the aspirations of many artists. Froenhoffer, the protagonist, has spent ten years working in secret on his great masterpiece, a reclining nude. When unveiled, the still-unfinished work is an almost completely impenetrable mass of colors and shapes. At one end of the painting, how - ever, is a foot of such exquisite beauty and reality that it seems to jump off the canvas into real life. The success of this foot lies not merely in its being a faithful image of some more vivid original. Rather, it seems, Froenhoffer has managed to put on canvas something the experience of which is identical to the experience of the real.
