The Invisible Masterpiece

The “invisible masterpiece” is an unattainable ideal, a work of art into which a dream of absolute art is incorporated but can never be realized. Using this metaphor borrowed from Balzac, Hans Belting explores how the status and meaning of the “masterpiece” have been elevated and denigrated since the early 19th century. Before 1800, works of art were either imitative (portraits and landscapes) or narrative (history painting). But under the influence of Romantic modernity, the physical object - a painted canvas, for example, or a sculpture - came to be seen as visible testimony of the artist’s attempt to achieve absolute or ultimate art; in short, the impossible. — Hans Belting, 2001