Emile Zola and French Impressionism

EMILE ZOLA AND FRENCH IMPRESSIONISM M. Douglas Kimball M. Douglas Kimball (??. and M.A., University of Utah; Ph.D. in progress at Brigham Young University) is presently an instructor in French at Brigham Young University. He is serving as chairman of the French and Italian literature section for the 1969 annual meeting in Trovo. The following article shows ZoZa's fascination with the physical sciences, especially as they were affecting the Impressionist painters of his time. April 27, 1866, was a day of excitement in Paris, at least for the patrons and amateurs of art who were anticipating the forthcoming annual exhibit of painting. The newspaper Evénement, predecessor of the Figaro, was featuring its first major article on the affair which was responsible in no small measure for the animation of the crowds. The writer had not only dispensed with the flattering formalities customarily addressed to the officials and judges of such events but had, on the contrary, taken the dignitaries to task in rather bold terms. An exhibition in our day is not the work of artists, it is the work of a jury. Therefore, I concern myself above all with the jury, the author of these long, livid rooms in which are displayed under the harsh light, all of the timid mediocrities and all of the stolen reputations. . . . This group of men is placed between the artists and the public. With their all-powerful authority they only show a third indeed only a fourth of the truth; they amputate art and present nothing more of it to the crowd than die mutilated cadaver. ... If I were a needy painter, my greatest concern would be who I might have for a judge, in order to paint according to his tastes.1 With these words among others, Emile Zola began his rather turbulent career as an art critic. Three days later in a second article Zola explained that it was the School of Realism which had been rejected arbitrarily by the judges, and declared himself to be the defender and spokesman of that group. The painters he had in mind were Manet, Monet, and others who had exposed their works at the Salon des Refusés of 1863. In 1874 these men became known as Impressionists after a private showing by Monet of a painting entitled "Impression of the Rising Sun." In this first series of articles Zola had a great deal more to say, and in flattering terms, about the artists who had been rejected by the judges than about those who actually exhibited their works. The Evénement refused to allow him to cover the exhibit the following year but the fiery critic sought and found other outlets for his writing. With the passage of time Zola became a more articulate critic, in part 1EmAe Zola, Salons, ed. F. W. J. Hemmings and R. J. Niess (Paris: Librairie Minard, 1959), pp. 50-52. The translations are those of the writer except where others are specifically designated. 52RMMLA BulletinJune 1969 because he was reflecting the ideas of the artists themselves with whom he was constantly associating. He defined Impressionism as "a more exact search for the causes and effects of fight which have as much influence upon the form of an object as upon its color. ... It is the study of light in its thousands of decompositions and recompositions."2 This preoccupation with natural light brought the painters out of the studios where they had been using a single source of unchanging illumination into the open air where the form and color of objects change from instant to instant with the movement of the sun or with the fleeting passage of clouds. The difficulties with which the artist must contend are apparent even to the casual observer. In order to capture one of these moments, the painter must make very rapid color sketches on the canvas itself. If the painting is large, the difficulties are compounded. For the Impressionists, color does not exist by itself in nature. It is the irradiation of light composed of the same elements as sunlight, that is, the seven tones of the spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. These colors...