Zola, E. "The Moment in Art"
Emilè Zola (1840-1902), “The Moment in Art” a summary.
INTRODUCTION:
Emilè Zola was a significant French author born in Paris in 1840. He worked in the period we call naturalism. This is a summary of his article ”The Moment in Art".
SUMMARY:
Emilè Zola has a critical point of view of the artists who are shown at the Salon in Paris, and he belives that his opinions about art is the only true ones.
He says that art is a product of man, and he wants to see the artist expressions and the artists' personality. He admires individual works, and wants the artist to show him their body and soul. "There are two elements in a work: the element of reality, in which is nature, and the personal element, which is man." Reality, which he resembles with nature, is fixed and stays the same for everyone. On the other hand the personal element, man, is the variable.
There are as many possible works as there are different minds, and art is a combination of these two elements. The word realist means nothing to him, he would rather resemble or subordinate that word with temperament. The truth is important, but he would be happier if that is combined with personality and vivid. He does not want to see a schoolboy's exercises copied from masters lessons. He wants to see life, temperament and reality.
Emilè Zola misses these elements in pictures shown in the Salon. He says that there are only a handful pictures among the two thousand paintings shown that makes you feel something when you see it. He criticizes the jury for being to kind, and says that he has never seen such a mediocre collection. "The problem is not whether I risk offending the tastes of the artists, but the fact that they have already offended my feelings even more rudely." Emilè Zola says that painting for the masses will create a lot of pleasing art, and will turn out very uninteresting. Its too feminine, with a lot of anxiety, and its too sentimental and insipid. The Salon is nothing but verses and madrigals he says. "I beg of you, since you are painters, paint, do not sing. I give you flesh, I give you light: make an Adam of your own creation."
He stays hopeful for those few artists who have not been included in the Salon, and which he means are great. He misses the strong individuality in those included, and seeks to treasure the few strong ones that exists.
LITERATURE:
Harrison, Charles, Wood, Paul, Gaiger, Jason, Art in Theory 1815-1900, An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Blackwell Publishing Ltd 1998.
