ART AND CONSCIENCE
"I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the
dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled
to happiness" (Zola, J'accuse).
Glass vase "Les hommes noirs" by Émile Gallé and Victor Prouvé, engraved with monstrous mutations coming out of the darkness of human nature displayed in Paris at the 1900 Exposition Universelle.
Image source: Wikipedia Commons.
Within two weeks of the publication of J'accuse in the newspaper L'Aurore, edited by Clemenceau ('le tigre' of French republican politics and future war leader, who was also an admirer of the Impressionists), Zola was prosecuted by the government for
libel on 23 February, after a trial described at the time by the Manchester Guardian as "a mockery of justice", he was condemned to the highest penalty of a year's imprisonment and a fine of 3,000 francs. There was a further humiliation when he was removed from the Légion d'honneur. He avoided hearing his final sentence at a second trial in July by fleeing to England, where he stayed in exile until June 1899, returning when he saw signs that "truth was marching on" under the pressure of the Dreyfusards, with the government's collapse and the appointment of a more sympathetic president. His prime objective, the retrial of Dreyfus, was ordered at last....Zola died in 1902, and four years later, Dreyfus was officially exonerated. As a symbol of the nation's cleared conscience, Zola was re-instated as a hero of France and his ashes were transferred to the Panthéon. Looking at reality through Zola's eyes, the march of truth against the army of lies and injustice never stops.
"I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the
dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled
to happiness" (Zola, J'accuse).
Glass vase "Les hommes noirs" by Émile Gallé and Victor Prouvé, engraved with monstrous mutations coming out of the darkness of human nature, displayed in Paris at the 1900 Exposition Universelle. The full inscription round the rim translates as:
'Dark men, from where do you come? We come from beneath the earth.'
Image source: Wikipedia Commons.
Gallé,
as committed to social causes as he was to experimental decorative art,
based on his close observation of nature and mastery of modern
technology, risked the profits of his successful glass and ceramics
manufacturing
business by using his art works to publicly denounce the fanaticism,
prejudices and
lies that had scapegoated the innocent Jewish army officer, Dreyfus and tainted the nation.
French society was polarized around the issue, that became a struggle
for the soul of the Third Republic.
Regarding human nature realistically, it is hard to believe that absolute altruism, the absence of interest in self, exists; but the Dreyfus affair is a close to perfect example of artists and intellectuals, like Gallé, Zola and the politician Clemenceau, putting aside personal advantage in the service of humanity and reason.
Standing forlornly among the evil figures on the vase is a male figure symbolizing Truth. Gallé and Zola did not think of Truth and Beauty as grand slogans for selling their books and decorative objects to anxiously self-improving consumers, but as manifestations of human virtues and vices, ideas and impulses.
The moral difficulty for any popular writer or artist whose target is the fashionable and avaricious middle-classes, obsessed with making money and making themselves look good, is that they are his chief customers, on whom he is dependent to make a living. The more hypocritical the audience are, the better for the artist. Sex and money, even if you haven't got them, are addictive entertainments rather than subjects for moral improvement; whenever they recognize themselves, individuals may adjust the mirror held up to nature if they don't like their reflection. Libel suits are as often filed to appease personal vanity or re-varnish a lie, as to uncover the truth.
Regarding human nature realistically, it is hard to believe that absolute altruism, the absence of interest in self, exists; but the Dreyfus affair is a close to perfect example of artists and intellectuals, like Gallé, Zola and the politician Clemenceau, putting aside personal advantage in the service of humanity and reason.
Standing forlornly among the evil figures on the vase is a male figure symbolizing Truth. Gallé and Zola did not think of Truth and Beauty as grand slogans for selling their books and decorative objects to anxiously self-improving consumers, but as manifestations of human virtues and vices, ideas and impulses.
The moral difficulty for any popular writer or artist whose target is the fashionable and avaricious middle-classes, obsessed with making money and making themselves look good, is that they are his chief customers, on whom he is dependent to make a living. The more hypocritical the audience are, the better for the artist. Sex and money, even if you haven't got them, are addictive entertainments rather than subjects for moral improvement; whenever they recognize themselves, individuals may adjust the mirror held up to nature if they don't like their reflection. Libel suits are as often filed to appease personal vanity or re-varnish a lie, as to uncover the truth.
Writers and artists are found among the biggest liars, compounded by self-righteousness - but not Zola. With commercial success, an artist may become assimilated by the bourgeoisie without realizing it. Even the humanitarian causes to which he lends his name are carefully selected to add lustre and not injure him. Zola was one of those who in a long career kept the clarity of his youthful vision and courage of his convictions. He wasn't scared of personal discomfort. He believed that active involvement and when necessary protest about the times he lived in was an essential part of being an artist: " I am here to live out loud". ("Je viens vivre tout haut", from The Experimental Novel, 1880.) Keeping quiet about human rights violations is to collude with them.
Clemenceau, politician and journalist, a practitioner of realism in the corporeal world, was also a sensitive supporter of the Impressionists, a devoted friend of Monet, who recognized the artistic and spiritual significance of the Water Lilies sequence. The last great Nymphéas emerged out of hell, the First World War, in their own struggle for beauty and truth in changing light, the antithesis of the dark nightmare of Les hommes noir, a fusion of the figurative and abstract, a crossing to the future of art, and an ecstatic vision of the moment between life and death - of how we would like it to be.
Monet: "Water-Lily Pond," c.1915-1926.Oil on canvas, diptych in the Chichu Art Museum. Image source: Wikipedia
related post:
