| PREFACE |
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| II |
| III |
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| XII |
‘HIS MASTERPIECE,’ which in the original French bears the title ofL’Œuvre, is a strikingly accurate story of artistic life in Parisduring the latter years of the Second Empire. Amusing at times, extremelypathetic and even painful at others, it not only contributes a necessaryelement to the Rougon-Macquart series of novels—a series illustrative ofall phases of life in France within certain dates—but it also representsa 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 hadacquired among Parisian painters and sculptors considerable notoriety as arevolutionary art critic, a fervent champion of that ‘Open-air’school which came into being during the Second Empire, and which found itsfirst real master in Edouard Manet, whose then derided works are regarded, inthese later days, as masterpieces. Manet died before his genius was fullyrecognised; still he lived long enough to reap some measure of recognition andto see his influence triumph in more than one respect among his brotherartists. Indeed, few if any painters left a stronger mark on the art of thesecond half of the nineteenth century than he did, even though the school,which he suggested rather than established, lapsed largely into mereimpressionism—a term, by the way, which he himself coined already in1858; for it is an error to attribute it—as is often done—to hisfriend and junior, Claude Monet.
It was at the time of the Salon of 1866 that M. Zola, who criticised thatexhibition in the Evenement newspaper,* first came to the front as anart critic, slashing out, to right and left, with all the vigour of a borncombatant, and championing M. Manet—whom he did not as yet knowpersonally—with a fervour born of the strongest convictions. He had cometo 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 recentyears, the belief that Captain Dreyfus was innocent impelled him in like mannerto plead that unfortunate officer’s cause. When M. Zola first championedManet and his disciples he was only twenty-six years old, yet he did nothesitate to pit himself against men who were regarded as the most eminentpainters and critics of France; and although (even as in the Dreyfus case) theonly 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 inforecasting the ultimate victory of Manet and his principal methods.
* Some