His Masterpiece
Claude Lantier is a painter of furious ambition, certain he can force a new kind of truth onto canvas and slowly destroyed by the effort. Set in the Paris of the emerging Impressionists, the novel follows his rejected pictures, his loyal circle of artist and writer friends, and the single great work he paints and repaints until it consumes him. Émile Zola drew on his own friendships with Cézanne and Manet, and the book’s harsh portrait of artistic failure famously strained his lifelong bond with Cézanne. Beyond one man’s obsession, it asks what art costs the people who give everything to it. This free PDF and EPUB edition offers a candid novel about creation and its price.
About the Author
Émile Zola (1840-1902) was a French novelist and the leading figure of literary naturalism. His twenty-volume Rougon-Macquart cycle traced one family under the Second Empire, and his open letter J’accuse in defense of Alfred Dreyfus reshaped the writer’s role in public life.
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