Honore de Balzac's 'The Unknown Masterpiece' is the title of his French short story 'Le Chefd' Oeuvre inconnu', in English. Nicolas Poussin is a young and upcoming painter who is not sure of his talent and has had an obsession of indescribable nature with his success as a renowned painter. The story opens with Nicolas sauntering before the chateau of a famous painter Porbus. He is reluctant to get in. His poverty is one of the reasons for his stagnancy. It is the Paris of 1612 that has drawn the poor painter from his native place hoping to find a foothold in the world of artists. One of his friends, who is rich enough to support him has seen to it that Nicolas reaches Paris safely. It usually happens to gifted individuals in the world. Within a very short while from his arrival, he is spotted by a very beautiful, rich young woman Gillette. Gillette is that sort of a young girl who would do anything for a poor artist who wants to realise his dream. She falls in love with the young man and sheds all her riches to be with the hapless artist. His intention to meet Porbus is to get inspiration and promotion in the field of art as he has nothing but a few canvasses, pieces of chalk and charcoal and not palette with paints and brushes.
A stranger overtakes Nicolas on the flight of staircase and knocks at the atelier. It is opened by an emaciated man and Nicolas gets a feeling that the figure is Porbus. The stranger is old and bald-headed and has a promising visage and spirit in his eyes. The stranger looks at the canvass at the easel, that upholds a recently done portrait of St. Mary of Egypt at a boat with a boatman. Porbus is all ears as the old man begins a discourse on painting, use of light and tint and bringing life into the painting. He dismisses any painting that merely copies things as they are, which is nothing but a prising of objects off nature and making them lifeless. He wants the veins of women in portraits blush with flowing blood. Nicolas is roused by the criticism as he finds the portrait promising. He intervenes with a raddled face to praise the painting. The old man wants Nicolas to prove his mettle as a connoisseur of art and Nicolas draws a line drawing, a reproduction of St. Mary of Egypt and signs on the canvass as Nicolas Poussin. The old man and Porbus admire his talent and approve him of a painter and the old man begins his lesson of improving the portrait of Porbus. The old man is Frenhofer, a student of a great artist, Mabuse. Mabuse taught him about the employment of light and shade on portraits. Frenhofer was rich enough to sponsor Mabuse and learn everything from him. He starts working like a possessed spirit on Porbus' portrait and improves it with his magical brush-strokes.
Frenhofer's talent is admirable and uncanny. He compares this with his life-time work, 'Belle Noiseuse', as he has been working on it for ten years, and it titles itself to be his masterpiece. It is a portrait of a courtezan, Catherine Lescault, that remains incomplete as Frenhofer is incapable of combining light with shade and cannot produce shape of the body successfully. He does not want to show the portrait to his hosts, as he takes Porbus and Nicolas for a drink to his studio, where Nicolas is flabbergasted by the portrait of Georgina, as he considers the figure of the woman as his lover, he her creator, lover and husband. Three months pass and the man could not finish his masterpiece, as his efforts to perfect it on seeing the paintings of great masters and he is in dire requirement of a perfect model. Porbus meets him and tries to strike a deal with him. Gillette is conveyed of Nicolas' admiration for Frenhofer and his masterpiece and is requested by Nicolas to pose for the completion of it. Gillette does not want to do so. However her love for Nicolas and the future of Poussin drive her to accept the proposal. The deal of Porbus is that Frenhofer should show his masterpiece as they swap women, Gillette for Noiseuse.
Though Poussin initiates the suggestion of Gillette posing for the portrait, he rues for his decision as he sees the eyes of the old painter gain unusual energy on seeing the silhoutte of Gillette's body. She wants Poussin to wait outside the studio with a dagger in his hand, strongly clutching its hilt and rush in if hears a squeal from her. After waiting for several hours, the gentlemen are let in to find a hazy, foggy portrait, that Frenhofer claims shrouding the figure of a fantastic woman. Poussin and Porbus point out the artist's failure that Frenhofer refuses to accept and accuses of them trying to cheat him. The artist Poussin is distracted by the cry of Gillette and the lover in him wakes up to take her out of the atelier. Frenhofer is discombobulated and bids a nasty farewell. The story ends the very next day when Porbus discovers that Frenhofer died the previous night after setting his portraits on fire including his masterpiece.
In 1991, Jacques Rivette, a French director made a film La Belle Noiseuse, a very liberal adaptation of Balzec's twenty page short story. It is a near to four hour film extensively detaililing the recuperative artistic energy of Frenhofer. The film begins in a village inn with Marianne and Nicolas (Gillette is Marianne in the film), as they are waiting for Porbus to take them to the chateau of Frenhofer. Marianne is interested as Nicolas talks a lot about the painter and has given arresting looks while looking at the portraits of him. She does not know much of the painter nor has she been acquainted with his paintings. The painter lives with his ex-model wife Liz, who has been the painter's model for many of his famous paintings and he has later confined her beauty to himself by not letting her pose after the marriage. Marianne is good looking and lures the painter's chances of reviving his effort to produce the la belle noiseuse masterpiece. Unlike in the story, Marianne has many a modelling session with Frenhofer for almost a week, visiting the chateau everyday, much to the discomfiture of Nicolas from the third day onwards. In the film, Liz warns Marianne not to see the finished product and which is snubbed by Marianne. The finished masterpiece is not shown to the audience and is known only to Marianne, who gets angered by the portrait, Liz and the servant-maid's daughter. Frenhofer seals the portrait with bricks and mortar on a wall and shows the nude back and buttocks of a woman as his masterpiece. The director takes a lot of liberty with Balzac's story as the film has a model-ex-lover to Nicolas. The film ends with a scathing opinion of Nicolas on Frenhofer's masterpiece as a lampoon and anti-climactic comic relief.
A great feature of the film is, it depicts real-time sketching of portraits with the lending of hand by the painter Bernard Dufour, a French painter notable for abstract painting.
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