‘HIS MASTERPIECE,’ which in the original French bears the title of
_L’Œuvre_, is a strikingly accurate story of artistic life in Paris
during the latter years of the Second Empire. Amusing at times,
extremely pathetic and even painful at others, it not only contributes
a necessary element to the Rougon-Macquart series of novels--a series
illustrative of all phases of life in France within certain dates--but
it also represents a particular period of M. Zola’s own career and work.
Some years, indeed, before the latter had made himself known at all
widely as a novelist, he had acquired among Parisian painters and
sculptors considerable notoriety as a revolutionary art critic, a
fervent champion of that ‘Open-air’ school which came into being during
the Second Empire, and which found its first real master in Edouard
Manet, whose then derided works are regarded, in these later days, as
masterpieces. Manet died before his genius was fully recognised; still
he lived long enough to reap some measure of recognition and to see his
influence triumph in more than one respect among his brother artists.
Indeed, few if any painters left a stronger mark on the art of the
second half of the nineteenth century than he did, even though the
school, which he suggested rather than established, lapsed largely into
mere impressionism--a term, by the way, which he himself coined already
in 1858; for it is an error to attribute it--as is often done--to his
friend and junior, Claude Monet.
It was at the time of the Salon of 1866 that M. Zola, who criticised
that exhibition in the _Evenement_ newspaper,* first came to the front
as an art critic, slashing out, to right and left, with all the vigour
of a born combatant, and championing M. Manet--whom he did not as yet
know personally--with a fervour born of the strongest convictions. He
had come to the conclusion that the derided painter was being treated
with injustice, and that opinion sufficed to throw him into the fray;
even as, in more recent years, the belief that Captain Dreyfus was
innocent impelled him in like manner to plead that unfortunate officer’s
cause. When M. Zola first championed Manet and his disciples he was only
twenty-six years old, yet he did not hesitate to pit himself against men
who were regarded as the most eminent painters and critics of France;
and although (even as in the Dreyfus case) the only immediate result of
his campaign was to bring him hatred and contumely, time, which always
has its revenges, has long since shown how right he was in forecasting
the ultimate victory of Manet and his principal methods.
* Some of the articles will be found in the volume of his
miscellaneous writings entitled _Mes Haines_.
In those days M. Zola’s most intimate friend--a companion of his boyhood
and youth--was Paul Cézanne, a painter who developed talent as an
impressionist; and the lives of Cézanne and Manet, as well as that of
a certain rather dissolute engraver, who sat for the latter’s famous
picture _Le Bon Bock_, suggested to M. Zola the novel which he has
called _L’Œuvre_. Claude Lantier, the chief character in the book, is,
of course, neither Cézanne nor Manet, but from the careers of those two
painters, M. Zola has borrowed many little touches and incidents.* The
poverty which falls to Claude’s lot is taken from the life of Cézanne,
for Manet--the only son of a judge--was almost wealthy. Moreover, Manet
married very happily, and in no wise led the pitiful existence which in
the novel is ascribed to Claude Lantier and his helpmate, Christine. The
original of the latter was a poor woman who for many years shared the
life of the engraver to whom I have alluded; and, in that connection, it
as well to mention that what may be called the Bennecourt episode of the
novel is virtually photographed from life.
* So far as Manet is concerned, the curious reader may consult M.
Antonin Proust’s interesting ‘Souvenirs,’ published in the _Revue
Blanche_, early in 1897.
Whilst, however, Claude Lantier, the hero of _L’Œuvre_, is unlike
Manet in so many respects, there is a close analogy between the artistic
theories and practices of the real painter and the imaginary one.
Several of Claude’s pictures are Manet’s, slightly modified. For
instance, the former’s painting, ‘In the Open Air,’ is almost a replica
of the latter’s _Déjeuner sur l’Herbe_ [‘A Lunch on the Grass’), shown
at the Salon of the Rejected in 1863. Again, many of the sayings put
into Claude’s mouth in the novel are really sayings of Manet’s. And
Claude’s fate, at the end of the book, is virtually that of a moody
young fellow who long assisted Manet in his studio, preparing his
palette, cleaning his brushes, and so forth. This lad, whom Manet
painted in _L’Enfant aux Cerises_ [‘The Boy with the Cherries’), had
artistic aspirations of his own and, being unable to justify them, ended
by hanging himself.
I had just a slight acquaintance with Manet, whose studio I first
visited early in my youth, and though the exigencies of life led me long
ago to cast aside all artistic ambition of my own, I have been for
more than thirty years on friendly terms with members of the French art
world. Thus it would be comparatively easy for me to identify a
large number of the characters and the incidents figuring in ‘His
Masterpiece’; but I doubt if such identification would have any
particular interest for English readers. I will just mention that
Mahoudeau, the sculptor, is, in a measure, Solari, another friend of
M. Zola’s boyhood and youth; that Fagerolles, in his main features,
is Gervex; and that Bongrand is a commingling of Courbet, Cabanel and
Gustave Flaubert. For instance, his so-called ‘Village Wedding’ is
suggested by Courbet’s ‘Funeral at Ornans’; his friendship for Claude is
Cabanel’s friendship for Manet; whilst some of his mannerisms, such as
his dislike for the praise accorded to certain of his works, are simply
those of Flaubert, who (like Balzac in the case of _Eugenie Grandet_)
almost invariably lost his temper if one ventured to extol _Madame
Bovary_ in his presence. Courbet, by the way, so far as disposition
goes, crops up again in M. Zola’s pages in the person of Champbouvard, a
sculptor, who, artistically, is a presentment of Clesinger.
I now come to a personage of a very different character, Pierre Sandoz,
clerk, journalist, and novelist; and Sandoz, it may be frankly admitted,
is simply M. Zola himself. Personal appearance, life, habits, opinions,
all are those of the novelist at a certain period of his career; and
for this reason, no doubt, many readers of ‘His Masterpiece’ will find
Sandoz the most interesting personage in the book. It is needless, I
think, to enter into particulars on the subject. The reader may take
it from me that everything attributed in the following pages to Pierre
Sandoz was done, experienced, felt or said by Émile Zola. In this
respect, then ‘His Masterpiece’ is virtually M. Zola’s ‘David
Copperfield’--the book into which he has put most of his real life. I
may also mention, perhaps, that the long walks on the quays of Paris
which in the narrative are attributed to Claude Lantier are really M.
Zola’s walks; for, in his youth, when he vainly sought employment
after failing in his examinations, he was wont, at times of great
discouragement, to roam the Paris quays, studying their busy life
and their picturesque vistas, whenever he was not poring over the
second-hand books set out for sale upon their parapets. From a purely
literary standpoint, the pictures of the quays and the Seine to be found
in _L’Œuvre_ are perhaps the best bits of the book, though it is all
of interest, because it is essentially a _livre vecu_, a work really
‘lived’ by its author. And if in the majority of its characters, those
readers possessing some real knowledge of French art life find one man’s
qualities blended with another’s defects, the appearance of a third, and
the habits of a fourth, the whole none the less makes a picture of great
fidelity to life and truth. This is the Parisian art world as it really
was, with nothing improbable or overstrained in the narrative, save its
very first chapter, in which romanticism is certainly allowed full play.
It is quite possible that some readers may not judge Claude Lantier, the
‘hero,’ very favourably; he is like the dog in the fable who forsakes
the substance for the shadow; but it should be borne in mind that he is
only in part responsible for his actions, for the fatal germ of insanity
has been transmitted to him from his great-grandmother. He is, indeed,
the son of Gervaise, the heroine of _L’Assommoir_ [‘The Dram Shop’), by
her lover Lantier. And Gervaise, it may be remembered, was the daughter
of Antoine Macquart (of ‘The Fortune of the Rougons’ and ‘Dr. Pascal’),
the latter being the illegitimate son of Adelaide Fouque, from whom
sprang the insanity of the Rougon-Macquarts. At the same time, whatever
view may be taken of Claude’s artistic theories, whatever interest his
ultimate fate may inspire, it cannot be denied that his opinions
on painting are very ably expressed, and that his ‘case,’ from a
pathological point of view, is diagnosticated by M. Zola with all the
skill of a physician. Moreover, there can be but one opinion concerning
the helpmate of his life, the poor devoted Christine; and no one
possessed of feeling will be able to read the history of little Jacques
unmoved.
Stories of artistic life are not as a rule particularly popular with
English readers, but this is not surprising when one remembers that
those who take a genuine interest in art, in this country, are still a
small minority. Quite apart from artistic matters, however, there is, I
think, an abundance of human interest in the pages of ‘His Masterpiece,’
and thus I venture to hope that the present version, which I have
prepared as carefully as my powers permit, will meet with the favour of
those who have supported me, for a good many years now, in my endeavours
to make the majority of M. Zola’s works accessible in this country.