The unknown Masterpiece and Balzac's realizm

Abstract

This article is based on the conception of realism of one of the best writers of French literature, Honoré de Balzac, and on his short novel. The Unknown Masterpiece written in 1831. The Unknown Masterpiece is about a painter named Frenhofer who works on a painting for long years without being able to finish it, because he always thinks that he couldn’t reach the reality he wishes to possess. In this short novel, Frenhofer’s discourse shows the laws necessary for creating a realistic piece of art. In fact, what we see is that, it is Balzac who describes his conception of realism, through the words of the master painter, Frenhofer. First a semiotic analysis of Frenhofer’s discourse is undertaken, then, having stated the rules of Balzac’s realism, that study attemts to demonstrate the parallelism between these rules and the ones dictated by Frenhofer’s through examples taken from Balzac’s other works.It is assumed that, Balzac describes the conception of realistic literature, Frenhofer speeks for him.