L'Œuvre
Encyclopedia
L'œuvre is the fourteenth novel in the Rougon-Macquart
series by Émile Zola
. It was first serialized in the periodical Gil Blas
beginning in December 1885 before being published in novel form by Charpentier in 1886.
The title, translated literally as "The Work" (as in work of art
), is often rendered in English
as The Masterpiece or His Masterpiece. It refers to the struggles of the protagonist
Claude Lantier to paint a great work reflecting his talent and genius.
L'œuvre is a fictional account of Zola's friendship with Paul Cézanne
and a fairly accurate portrayal of the Parisian art world in the mid 19th century. Zola and Cézanne grew up together in Aix-en-Provence
, the model for Zola's Plassans, where Claude Lantier is born and receives his education. Like Cézanne, Claude Lantier is a revolutionary artist whose work is misunderstood by an art-going public hidebound by traditional subjects, techniques and representations. Many of the characteristics ascribed to Claude Lantier are a compound taken from the lives of several impressionist painters
including Claude Monet
, Édouard Manet
, as well as Paul Cézanne. Zola's self-portrait can be seen in the character of the novelist Pierre Sandoz.
The book is often blamed for ending the friendship between Cézanne and Zola. The story of a groundbreaking artist unable to live up to his potential must have seemed intensely personal to Cézanne; no correspondence exists between the two after a letter in which Cézanne thanks Zola for sending him the novel.
The novel covers about 15 years, ending in 1870. Besides depicting the bohemian
art world of 19th-century Paris
, L'œuvre explores the rise of Realism
, Naturalism and Impressionism
in painting
. Zola also looks at contemporary sculpture
, literature
, architecture
, music
and journalism
, as well as the commodification
of art. In creating his portrayal of the Parisian art world Zola includes several characters who are composites of real-life art world related figures; artists, writers, art dealers, and friends that he knew.
L'œuvre was translated into English by Ernest A. Vizetelly in 1886 (reprinted by Barnes & Noble
in 2006); other translations have appeared since. One of the most readily accessible is that by Thomas Walton (1957), revised in 1993 for Oxford World's Classics
.
marriage. Sandoz also pursues marriage - not for love but stability and to better understand what he is writing about.
The outcry in the artistic community over the sidelining of new artists in favor of popular, established, traditional artists at the annual Salon of the Académie des Beaux-Arts
leads to the creation of a Salon des Refusés
for the rejected artists to display their work. No painting gathers more interest or generates more criticism than Claude's. Entitled Plein Air (Open Air), it depicts a nude female figure in the front center and two female nudes in the background, with a fully dressed man, back to the viewer in the foreground. (Zola deliberately invokes Le déjeuner sur l'herbe
by Edouard Manet
, which provoked outcries at the actual Salon des Refusés in 1863.)
Claude moves to the country to soak up more of the 'Open Air' atmosphere he revelled in as a child and to create more masterpieces. Accompanying him is Christine Hallegrain, who served as the model for Claude's nude and they have a son. Claude is unable to paint much and grows more and more depressed. For the sake of his health, Christine convinces him to return to Paris. Claude has three paintings in three years rejected by the Salon before a spectacular view of the Ile de la Cité
captures his imagination. He becomes obsessed with this vision and constructs a massive canvas on which to paint his masterpiece. He is unable to project his ideas successfully or combine them into a meaningful whole. He begins adding incongruous elements (like a female nude bather), reworks and repaints until the whole enterprise collapses into disaster, then starts over. His inability to create his masterpiece deepens his depression. The slow breakup of his circle of friends contributes to his decaying mental state, as does the success of one of his confreres, a lesser talent who has co-opted the 'Open Air' school and made it a critical and financial triumph.
Christine, whom he has at last married, watches as the painting — and especially the nude — begins to destroy his soul. When their son dies, Claude is inspired to paint a picture of the dead body that is accepted by the Salon (after considerable politicking). The painting is ridiculed for its subject and its execution and Claude again turns to his huge landscape. Christine watches as he spirals further into obsession and madness. A last-ditch effort to free him from Art in general and from his wished-for masterpiece in particular has an effect but in the end Claude hangs himself from his scaffolding. The only ones of his old friends who attend his funeral are Sandoz and Bongrand, an elder statesman of the artistic community who recognized and helped nurture Claude's genius.
. In L'assommoir
, he comes to Paris with his parents but returns to Plassans under the sponsorship of a local patron who recognizes his artistic talent. In Le ventre de Paris
, Claude has returned to Paris and is discovered in the Les Halles
marketplace searching for realistic subjects to paint.
Zola's plan for the Rougon-Macquart novels was to show how heredity
and environment worked on a family over the course of the Second French Empire
. Claude is the son (and grandson) of alcoholics
and inherits their predisposition for self-destruction. All of the descendants of Adelaïde Fouque (Tante Dide), Claude's great-grandmother demonstrate what today would be called obsessive-compulsive
behaviors. In Claude, this is manifested in his obsessive approach to making art.
Claude's brothers are Jacques Lantier (La bête humaine
), the engine driver who becomes a murderer and Étienne Lantier (Germinal), the miner who becomes a revolutionary and union agitator. Their half-sister is the prostitute
Anna (Nana) Coupeau (Nana
).
Claude's son Jacques-Louis also figures in L'œuvre, his death from unspecified causes being brought about by his parents' neglect. In him, Zola shows what happens when energy and natural creativity are stifled.
. The character of Sandoz, a young writer whose ambition is to write a story of a family that would portray the present epoch, is most clearly a self-portrait of the author. The basis of some of the other characters, including Claude Lantier, is murkier. Though Claude is most often understood as being based on Cézanne, the Impressionist painters Édouard Manet
and Claude Monet
are often cited as other possible sources. (In fact, Claude Lantier's first painting in the book is based on Manet's Le déjeuner sur l'herbe.). In a letter written after the novel's appearance in 1886, Claude Monet (who was acquainted with Cézanne and Manet) indicated that he did not recognize himself or any of his fellow painters in the character. Other parallels between the author’s life and the novel include Lantier’s dead child painting being similar to Monet’s portrait of the deceased Camille (his first wife), Lantier’s idea of mobile studios mirroring Monet’s and loose ties equating Fagerolles and Manet. In the book, the Open Air school got its name from the title of Lantier’s first mentioned painting. In real life, the Impressionists got their name from Monet’s Impression: Sunrise. Open Air (Plein air) and Impressionism were insulting names given by critics and jeering crowds.
) (English
) (1967) (TV) (French
)
see also Zola and The Quest for The Absolute in Art, by Thomas Zamparelli
Yale French Studies © 1969 Yale University Press
Les Rougon-Macquart
Les Rougon-Macquart is the collective title given to a cycle of twenty novels by French writer Émile Zola. Subtitled Histoire naturelle et sociale d'une famille sous le Second Empire , it follows the life of a fictional family living during the Second French Empire and is an example of French...
series by Émile Zola
Émile Zola
Émile François Zola was a French writer, the most important exemplar of the literary school of naturalism and an important contributor to the development of theatrical naturalism...
. It was first serialized in the periodical Gil Blas
Gil Blas (periodical)
Gil Blas was a Parisian literary periodical founded by Augustin-Alexandre Dumont in November 1879. It was in publication until 1914...
beginning in December 1885 before being published in novel form by Charpentier in 1886.
The title, translated literally as "The Work" (as in work of art
Work of art
A work of art, artwork, art piece, or art object is an aesthetic item or artistic creation.The term "a work of art" can apply to:*an example of fine art, such as a painting or sculpture*a fine work of architecture or landscape design...
), is often rendered in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
as The Masterpiece or His Masterpiece. It refers to the struggles of the protagonist
Protagonist
A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...
Claude Lantier to paint a great work reflecting his talent and genius.
L'œuvre is a fictional account of Zola's friendship with Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century. Cézanne can be said to form the bridge between late 19th...
and a fairly accurate portrayal of the Parisian art world in the mid 19th century. Zola and Cézanne grew up together in Aix-en-Provence
Aix-en-Provence
Aix , or Aix-en-Provence to distinguish it from other cities built over hot springs, is a city-commune in southern France, some north of Marseille. It is in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the département of Bouches-du-Rhône, of which it is a subprefecture. The population of Aix is...
, the model for Zola's Plassans, where Claude Lantier is born and receives his education. Like Cézanne, Claude Lantier is a revolutionary artist whose work is misunderstood by an art-going public hidebound by traditional subjects, techniques and representations. Many of the characteristics ascribed to Claude Lantier are a compound taken from the lives of several impressionist painters
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
including Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
, Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
, as well as Paul Cézanne. Zola's self-portrait can be seen in the character of the novelist Pierre Sandoz.
The book is often blamed for ending the friendship between Cézanne and Zola. The story of a groundbreaking artist unable to live up to his potential must have seemed intensely personal to Cézanne; no correspondence exists between the two after a letter in which Cézanne thanks Zola for sending him the novel.
The novel covers about 15 years, ending in 1870. Besides depicting the bohemian
Bohemian
A Bohemian is a resident of the former Kingdom of Bohemia, either in a narrow sense as the region of Bohemia proper or in a wider meaning as the whole country, now known as the Czech Republic. The word "Bohemian" was used to denote the Czech people as well as the Czech language before the word...
art world of 19th-century Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, L'œuvre explores the rise of Realism
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
, Naturalism and Impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
in painting
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
. Zola also looks at contemporary sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
, literature
Literature
Literature is the art of written works, and is not bound to published sources...
, architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, music
Music
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
and journalism
Journalism
Journalism is the practice of investigation and reporting of events, issues and trends to a broad audience in a timely fashion. Though there are many variations of journalism, the ideal is to inform the intended audience. Along with covering organizations and institutions such as government and...
, as well as the commodification
Commodification
Commodification is the transformation of goods, ideas, or other entities that may not normally be regarded as goods into a commodity....
of art. In creating his portrayal of the Parisian art world Zola includes several characters who are composites of real-life art world related figures; artists, writers, art dealers, and friends that he knew.
L'œuvre was translated into English by Ernest A. Vizetelly in 1886 (reprinted by Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest book retailer in the United States, operating mainly through its Barnes & Noble Booksellers chain of bookstores headquartered at 122 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District in Manhattan in New York City. Barnes & Noble also operated the chain of small B. Dalton...
in 2006); other translations have appeared since. One of the most readily accessible is that by Thomas Walton (1957), revised in 1993 for Oxford World's Classics
Oxford World's Classics
Oxford World's Classics is an imprint of Oxford University Press. First established in 1901 by Grant Richards and purchased by the Oxford University Press in 1906, this imprint publishes primarily dramatic and classic literature for students and the general public...
.
Plot summary
Painter Claude Lantier advocates painting real subjects in real places, most notably outdoors. This is in stark contrast to the artistic establishment, where artists painted in the studio and concentrated on mythological, historical and religious subjects. His art making is revolutionary and he has a small circle of like-minded friends equally intent on shaking up the art world and challenging the establishment. His best friends are his childhood comrades Pierre Sandoz, novelist and Louis Dubuche, an architect. Like Zola, Sandoz contemplates a series of novels about a family based in science and incorporating modern people and everyday lives. Dubuche is not half as bold as Claude and, although a painter, finds music to be his passion. He chooses a more conventional course, opting for the security of a middle-class life and a bourgeoisBourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
marriage. Sandoz also pursues marriage - not for love but stability and to better understand what he is writing about.
The outcry in the artistic community over the sidelining of new artists in favor of popular, established, traditional artists at the annual Salon of the Académie des Beaux-Arts
Académie des beaux-arts
The Académie des Beaux-Arts is a French learned society. It is one of the five academies of the Institut de France.It was created in 1795 as the merger of the:* Académie de peinture et de sculpture...
leads to the creation of a Salon des Refusés
Salon des Refusés
The Salon des Refusés, French for “exhibition of rejects” , is generally an exhibition of works rejected by the jury of the official Paris Salon, but the term is most famously used to refer to the Salon des Refusés of 1863.-Background:...
for the rejected artists to display their work. No painting gathers more interest or generates more criticism than Claude's. Entitled Plein Air (Open Air), it depicts a nude female figure in the front center and two female nudes in the background, with a fully dressed man, back to the viewer in the foreground. (Zola deliberately invokes Le déjeuner sur l'herbe
The Luncheon on the Grass
Le déjeuner sur l'herbe – originally titled Le Bain – is a large oil on canvas painting by Édouard Manet created in 1862 and 1863. The painting depicts the juxtaposition of a female nude and a scantily dressed female bather on a picnic with two fully dressed men in a rural setting...
by Edouard Manet
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
, which provoked outcries at the actual Salon des Refusés in 1863.)
Claude moves to the country to soak up more of the 'Open Air' atmosphere he revelled in as a child and to create more masterpieces. Accompanying him is Christine Hallegrain, who served as the model for Claude's nude and they have a son. Claude is unable to paint much and grows more and more depressed. For the sake of his health, Christine convinces him to return to Paris. Claude has three paintings in three years rejected by the Salon before a spectacular view of the Ile de la Cité
Île de la Cité
The Île de la Cité is one of two remaining natural islands in the Seine within the city of Paris . It is the centre of Paris and the location where the medieval city was refounded....
captures his imagination. He becomes obsessed with this vision and constructs a massive canvas on which to paint his masterpiece. He is unable to project his ideas successfully or combine them into a meaningful whole. He begins adding incongruous elements (like a female nude bather), reworks and repaints until the whole enterprise collapses into disaster, then starts over. His inability to create his masterpiece deepens his depression. The slow breakup of his circle of friends contributes to his decaying mental state, as does the success of one of his confreres, a lesser talent who has co-opted the 'Open Air' school and made it a critical and financial triumph.
Christine, whom he has at last married, watches as the painting — and especially the nude — begins to destroy his soul. When their son dies, Claude is inspired to paint a picture of the dead body that is accepted by the Salon (after considerable politicking). The painting is ridiculed for its subject and its execution and Claude again turns to his huge landscape. Christine watches as he spirals further into obsession and madness. A last-ditch effort to free him from Art in general and from his wished-for masterpiece in particular has an effect but in the end Claude hangs himself from his scaffolding. The only ones of his old friends who attend his funeral are Sandoz and Bongrand, an elder statesman of the artistic community who recognized and helped nurture Claude's genius.
Relation to the other Rougon-Macquart novels
Claude Lantier (b. 1842, the son of Gervaise Macquart and Auguste Lantier) is first introduced briefly as a child in La fortune des RougonLa Fortune des Rougon
La Fortune des Rougon, originally published in 1871, is the first novel in Émile Zola's monumental twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart...
. In L'assommoir
L'Assommoir
L'Assommoir is the seventh novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. Usually considered one of Zola's masterpieces, the novel—a harsh and uncompromising study of alcoholism and poverty in the working-class districts of Paris—was a huge commercial success and established...
, he comes to Paris with his parents but returns to Plassans under the sponsorship of a local patron who recognizes his artistic talent. In Le ventre de Paris
Le Ventre de Paris
Le Ventre de Paris is the third novel in Émile Zola's twenty-volume series Les Rougon-Macquart. It is set in and around Les Halles, the enormous, busy central market of 19th Century Paris. Les Halles, rebuilt in cast iron and glass during the Second Empire was a landmark of modernity in the city,...
, Claude has returned to Paris and is discovered in the Les Halles
Les Halles
Les Halles is an area of Paris, France, located in the 1er arrondissement, just south of the fashionable rue Montorgueil. It is named for the large central wholesale marketplace, which was demolished in 1971, to be replaced with an underground modern shopping precinct, the Forum des Halles...
marketplace searching for realistic subjects to paint.
Zola's plan for the Rougon-Macquart novels was to show how heredity
Heredity
Heredity is the passing of traits to offspring . This is the process by which an offspring cell or organism acquires or becomes predisposed to the characteristics of its parent cell or organism. Through heredity, variations exhibited by individuals can accumulate and cause some species to evolve...
and environment worked on a family over the course of the Second French Empire
Second French Empire
The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...
. Claude is the son (and grandson) of alcoholics
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
and inherits their predisposition for self-destruction. All of the descendants of Adelaïde Fouque (Tante Dide), Claude's great-grandmother demonstrate what today would be called obsessive-compulsive
Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Obsessive–compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing the associated anxiety, or by a combination of such obsessions and compulsions...
behaviors. In Claude, this is manifested in his obsessive approach to making art.
Claude's brothers are Jacques Lantier (La bête humaine
La Bête humaine
La Bête Humaine is an 1890 novel by Émile Zola. The story has been adapted for the cinema on several occasions. It is based around the railway between Paris and Le Havre in the 19th century and is a tense, psychological thriller....
), the engine driver who becomes a murderer and Étienne Lantier (Germinal), the miner who becomes a revolutionary and union agitator. Their half-sister is the prostitute
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
Anna (Nana) Coupeau (Nana
Nana (novel)
Nana is a novel by the French naturalist author Émile Zola. Completed in 1880, Nana is the ninth installment in the 20-volume Les Rougon-Macquart series, the object of which was to tell "The Natural and Social History of a Family under the Second Empire", the subtitle of the series.-Origins:A year...
).
Claude's son Jacques-Louis also figures in L'œuvre, his death from unspecified causes being brought about by his parents' neglect. In him, Zola shows what happens when energy and natural creativity are stifled.
Historical basis
The book includes a few autobiographical details. As a young journalist, Zola wrote many articles on art and he was deeply interested in the newest ways of painting; he was one of the earliest champions of the work of Édouard ManetÉdouard Manet
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
. The character of Sandoz, a young writer whose ambition is to write a story of a family that would portray the present epoch, is most clearly a self-portrait of the author. The basis of some of the other characters, including Claude Lantier, is murkier. Though Claude is most often understood as being based on Cézanne, the Impressionist painters Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism....
and Claude Monet
Claude Monet
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting. . Retrieved 6 January 2007...
are often cited as other possible sources. (In fact, Claude Lantier's first painting in the book is based on Manet's Le déjeuner sur l'herbe.). In a letter written after the novel's appearance in 1886, Claude Monet (who was acquainted with Cézanne and Manet) indicated that he did not recognize himself or any of his fellow painters in the character. Other parallels between the author’s life and the novel include Lantier’s dead child painting being similar to Monet’s portrait of the deceased Camille (his first wife), Lantier’s idea of mobile studios mirroring Monet’s and loose ties equating Fagerolles and Manet. In the book, the Open Air school got its name from the title of Lantier’s first mentioned painting. In real life, the Impressionists got their name from Monet’s Impression: Sunrise. Open Air (Plein air) and Impressionism were insulting names given by critics and jeering crowds.
Sources
- Brown, F. (1995). Zola: A life. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
- Zola, E. L'œuvre, translated as The Masterpiece by Thomas Walton (1957, rev. 1993)
External links
(FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
) (English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
) (1967) (TV) (French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
)
- Aruna D'Souza, "Paul Cézanne, Claude Lantier, and Artistic Impotence." In Nineteenth-Century Art Worldwide, autumn 2004.
see also Zola and The Quest for The Absolute in Art, by Thomas Zamparelli
Yale French Studies © 1969 Yale University Press