Books and Art

I am reading 'The Masterpiece', by Emile Zola. In the work Zola exposes the life and psychology of his friend Paule Cezanne. The book ended their friendship.

"Ultimately, Claude is filled with such despair and frustration about his inability to complete his “masterpiece” of a female bather to his satisfaction - to depict his ideal woman on his canvas - that he commits suicide after a frenetic episode of painting his nude’s legs and torso like “some infatuated visionary driven by the torments of the real to the exaltation of the unreal” (Zola 347). Claude resorts to hanging himself from a ladder positioned directly in front of the female nude in his incomplete masterpiece in such a way that it appears that he died while gazing at this woman’s eyes. The emotions manifest in this episode are analogous to the intense feelings of repressed eroticism experienced by Cézanne, himself, even though in Cézanne’s case, they never break through the surface so violently that he resorts to suicide like Claude."

After reading "The Masterpiece", Cezanne sent this note to Zola:

"After receiving a copy of the novel from Zola in 1886, Cézanne sent a succinct and formal note back to Zola stating: “…I thank the author of Les Rougon-Macauart for this kind token of remembrance and ask him to allow me to clasp his hand while thinking of bygone years. Ever yours under the impulse of past times, Paul Cézanne” (qtd Murphy 122). This letter denoted the dissolution of their long and intimate friendship. "

ouch.

If you read Zola, you know he is not very nice to his characters. They are real, solid, beautifully made, but life grinds them into the ground...grinds them to dust.

The Masterpiece Zola's artist (Claude Lantier) creates is modeled after "Le déjeuner sur l'herbe" (The Lunch on the Grass in French by Édouard Manet. Painted between 1862 and 1863 . The painting juxtaposes a female nudes with fully dressed men and sparked shock and outrage when the work was first exhibited at the Salon des Refuses in 1863. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Luncheon_on_the_Grass)

I really like Manet....a lot. We are fortunate to have a few of his works in the National Gallery here in DC. Frederic Bazille's "Young woman with Peonies"is considered an homage to Manet.

http://www.nga.gov/collection/gallery/gg90/gg90-61356.html

"Perhaps because he died so young—killed during the Franco-Prussian War only days short of his twenty-ninth birthday—Bazille’s name is less familiar than those of the other founders of impressionism. Bazille met Monet, Renoir, and Sisley as fellow students in the studio of painter Charles Gleyre. The four were unimpressed by the lofty religious and mythological subjects and polished painting style demanded by the academic tradition. They were attracted instead to the broad “unfinished” brushwork of Manet and also shared his preference for scenes of modern life.
This painting can be seen as Bazille’s homage to Manet. The flower vendor appears to be a reference to the black woman with the extravagant bouquet who stands behind Manet’s infamous nude Olympia. The flowers themselves, especially the prominent peonies, also offer a kind of tribute. Manet cultivated peonies and often painted their lush blooms. Here Bazille seems to have matched even his painting style—usually more smoothly blended—to Manet’s own, echoing with his brushstrokes Manet’s thick patches of color."

Here is "Olympia". This saucy broad rocked the establishment, too.