“ The artist who paints our portrait does not display our bones. ”
Guy de Maupassant, Pierre and Jean (1888). copy citation
| Author | Guy de Maupassant |
|---|---|
| Source | Pierre and Jean |
| Topic | portrait artist |
| Date | 1888 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | Translated by Clara Bell |
| Weblink | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pierre_and_Jean_(Bell,_1902) |
Context
“And he makes him so demean himself from one end of the volume to the other, that all his actions, all his movements shall be the expression of his inmost nature, of all his thoughts, and all his impulses or hesitancies. Thus they conceal psychology instead of flaunting it; they use it as the skeleton of the work, just as the invisible bony frame-work is the skeleton of the human body. The artist who paints our portrait does not display our bones.
To me it seems that the novel executed on this principle gains also in sincerity. It is, in the first place, more probable, for the persons we see moving about us do not divulge to us the motives from which they act.”
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