Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: October 13, 2025
"Yes, my dear Porbus," said Frenhofer, speaking half in reverie, "I have never yet beheld a perfect woman; a body whose outlines were faultless and whose flesh-tints Ah! where lives she?" he cried, interrupting his own words; "where lives the lost Venus of the ancients, so long sought for, whose scattered beauty we snatch by glimpses?
The foot seemed to them like the torso of some Grecian Venus, brought to light amid the ruins of a burned city. "There is a woman beneath it all!" cried Porbus, calling Poussin's attention to the layers of color which the old painter had successively laid on, believing that he thus brought his work to perfection.
Yet I like far better than any of these pictures of Rubens a work of that old Dutch master, Peter Porbus, which hangs, though almost out of sight indeed, in our church at home.
You clothe your women with delicate skins and glorious draperies of hair, but where is the blood which begets the passion or the peace of their souls, and is the cause of what you call 'effects'? Your saint is a dark woman; but this, my poor Porbus, belongs to a fair one. Your figures are pale, colored phantoms, which you present to our eyes; and you call that painting! art!
The contempt which the old man affected to pour upon the noblest efforts of art, his wealth, his manners, the respectful deference shown to him by Porbus, his work guarded so secretly, a work of patient toil, a work no doubt of genius, judging by the head of the Virgin which Poussin had so naively admired, and which, beautiful beside even the Adam of Mabuse, betrayed the imperial touch of a great artist, in short, everything about the strange old man seemed beyond the limits of human nature.
Come nearer, and you will see the work more distinctly; if too far off it disappears. See! there, at that point, it is, I think, most remarkable." And with the end of his brush he pointed to a spot of clear light color. Porbus struck the old man on the shoulder, turning to Poussin as he did so, and said, "Do you know that he is one of our greatest painters?"
The two men turned towards him with one accord, beginning to comprehend, though vaguely, the ecstasy in which he lived. "He means it in good faith," said Porbus. "Yes, my friend," answered the old man, rousing from his abstraction, "we need faith; faith in art. We must live with our work for years before we can produce a creation like that. Some of these shadows have cost me endless toil.
Nobody will thank us for what is underneath, remember that!" At last the demon paused; the old man turned to Porbus and Poussin, who stood mute with admiration, and said to them, "It is not yet equal to my Beautiful Nut-girl; still, one can put one's name to such a work. Yes, I will sign it," he added, rising to fetch a mirror in which to look at what he had done. "Now let us go and breakfast.
"Ah! if I were not so feeble," resumed Porbus, "and if you would consent to let me see your Beautiful Nut-girl, I too could paint some lofty picture, grand and yet profound, where the forms should have the living life." "Show my work!" exclaimed the old man, with deep emotion. "No, no! I have still to bring it to perfection. Yesterday, towards evening, I thought it was finished.
Yet I like far better than any of these pictures of Rubens a work of that old Dutch master, Peter Porbus, which hangs, though almost out of sight indeed, in our church at home.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking