The Masterpiece
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The fourteenth novel in a twenty book series collectively entitled, "Les Rougon-Macquart, L'Œuvre" was first translated into English in 1886, the title having since been rendered "The Masterpiece". Set in France's Second Empire, the story of naturalist painter Claude Lantier is believed to be a highly fictionalized account of Zola's friendship with the painter Paul Cézanne. The fictional artist of Zola's Bohemian world, Lantier, strives to complete a great work that will reflect his own talent and genius as a revolutionary, but struggles greatly in living up to his artistic potential. The story was perhaps too personal for Cézanne, whose correspondence with Zola ended immediately after the novel's publication. Nevertheless, this story of the misunderstood artist, brilliant but scorned by the intolerant art-going public and their unwillingness to abandon traditional practices, epitomizes the attitudes of Bohemian Revolutionaries and the nineteenth century era of French Naturalism.
Emile Zola
Émile Zola was a French writer who is recognized as an exemplar of literary naturalism and for his contributions to the development of theatrical naturalism. Zola’s best-known literary works include the twenty-volume Les Rougon-Macquart, an epic work that examined the influences of violence, alcohol and prostitution on French society through the experiences of two families, the Rougons and the Macquarts. Other remarkable works by Zola include Contes à Ninon, Les Mystères de Marseille, and Thérèse Raquin.
In addition to his literary contributions, Zola played a key role in the Dreyfus Affair of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. His newspaper article J’Accuse accused the highest levels of the French military and government of obstruction of justice and anti-semitism, for which he was convicted of libel in 1898. After a brief period of exile in England, Zola returned to France where he died in 1902. Émile Zola is buried in the Panthéon alongside other esteemed literary figures Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas.
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