Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2002. Vol. 8. Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 28)

Studies - Judit Borbély: The Writer's Paintings and the Painter's Scenes

JUDIT BORBÉLY THE WRITER'S PAINTINGS AND THE PAINTER'S SCENES 'To the art of the brush the novel must return, I hold, to recover whatever may be still recoverable of its sacrificed honour,' Henry James writes in 'The Lesson of Balzac,' giving voice to his lifelong conviction that there is an undeniable analogy between literature and painting (Literary Criticism: French Writers etc. 136). The novelist and the painter are brothers in James's eyes, since, as he formulates it in 'The Art of Fiction', 'their inspiration is the same, their process (allowing for the different quality of the vehicle) is the same, their success is the same' (Selected Literary Criticism 51). The sceptic of a sarcastic turn of mind may say, of course, that it is nothing but sour grapes, for Henry James could not help admitting, unwillingly though, that as regards drawing, his humble attempts were inferior to his brother's artistic achievements, and thus he had to content himself with writing. It is certainly true that it was his brother, William, who had private lessons with Mr Coe, the art teacher at school in New York, where the young Henry could only see William in the back parlour, drawing, always drawing and to make matters worse, 'not with a plodding patience, which, I think, would less have affected me, but easily, freely, and [...] infallibly,' he remembers the early days in his Autobiography (Autobiography 118). Several years later, when the family settled in Newport, the 17-year-old Henry James finally got compensated for his possible sibling jealousy on meeting John La Farge, the painter, who opened new windows for him. Himself being well-versed in literature, La Farge introduced the young man to Browning and Balzac, and even encouraged him to translate 123