Émile Zola was a prolific novelist, the pioneer of the 19th century literary style known as naturalism. He was also a forward thinking art critic, who championed the radical art of his time. With surgical precision, he dissected the social and political anatomy of modern Paris, unflinchingly analyzing unsavory aspects of contemporary life: political corruption, middle class hypocrisy, workhouses, alcoholism and prostitution. His novel, The Belly of Paris (Le Ventre de Paris) centers on the thriving market culture around Les Halles. In concert with the Context walk led by Carolin C. Young around the neighborhood that inspired Zola’s book, this walk through the Musee D'Orsay will introduce visitors to those painters, including Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Frédéric Bazille, Paul Cézanne, and others, who sought to revolutionize French painting in the same way that Zola modernized literature.
Another important work by Zola, The Masterpiece (L’Oeuvre), recounts the career of an ambitious, although frustrated artist, Claude Lantier, who makes a cameo in The Belly of Paris. An intimate of many painters in the Parisian avant-garde, Zola drew upon the personalities and careers of several artists as he created Lantier. A detailed portrait of the collaboration between Zola and these artists, this seminar will also trace the emergence of the aesthetic that laid the foundations for Impressionist painting. Beginning with Jean-François Millet and Gustave Courbet in the late 1840s, we will consider how artists gradually abandoned mythological and biblical subjects in order to focus on genre (scenes from every day life), landscape, rural labor and still-life. Moving into the crucial decade of the 1860s, when Manet painted some of the most radical canvases of his career, we will discuss the parallels between Realism in art and literature. Finally, moving upstairs, we will look closely at Impressionist painters, including Gustave Caillebotte, Edgar Degas and Claude Monet, who engaged subjects from modern life in the same spirit as Zola.
This 2 hour itinerary in the Musée d’Orsay, is recommended in concert with The Belly of Paris.
NOTE: The cost of this walk includes entrance tickets to the Musee D'Orsay, which we will secure for you in advance. Your docent will have these tickets with him/her at your meeting point. Please let us know if anyone in your party has a Paris Museum Pass or is younger than 18 years old, as entrance is free in these cases and we will adjust your order accordingly. If you notify us after we've charged your order that you're purchasing Museum Passes and won't need us to supply tickets, we will only be able to refund you 85% of the ticket price.
Cancellation Policies
