The Rising Celebrity of the Artist

and

the Dreyfus Affair

There could not be perhaps two more different reactions to the Dreyfus Affair then Edgar Degas and Emile Zola. Degas proved less vocal and more discreet in his response to the trial of Alfred Dreyfus. Zola, on the other hand, loudly used his weight and power as a celebrity to change the outcome of the trial in favor of Dreyfus. Perhaps the different approaches can be analyzed as more than just isolated answers to the controversy that split Paris. We learn more about and may speculate on both of the personalities of Degas and Zola. Degas is more quiet, reserved, and traditional. Zola is more loud, radical, more of an activist. The way the two differ in personality reflects their different approaches and perspectives of art. Degas's social commentary is more ambiguous. He was revolutionary to the internal making of the art, yet more conservative in his technique. Zola, on the other hand, wrote about the plight of the working man in Germinal. He used his art form as a means of communicating ideas and realities to the French. He provoked, he condemned, he accused. Each man maintained a different position on the appropriate role of celebrity as well as the appropriate role of artist and art.

Art changes only through strong convictions, convictions strong enough to change society at the same time.-- Art Historian Theophile Thore.

There was more to modernity than just technological advances. The role of art completely changed in the modern era from its previously accepted role of the Renaissance and the Middle Ages. Art was no longer limited to portraiture or the subject choice of a particular patron. The artist became an entrepreneur in the modern era that allowed for above all a freedom of subject matter and experimentation. The artist evolved into a celebrity. Traditional conventions were cast aside as the avant-garde became the fashionable method. As Henri Saint-Simon described the "avant-garde:"

It is we the artists who will serve you as the avant-garde. ...The power of the arts is in fact most immediate and most rapid; when we wish to spread new ideas among men, we inscribe them on marble or canvas.... What a magnificent destiny of the arts is that of exercising a positive power over the society, a true priestly function, and of marching forcefully in the van of the intellectual faculties.¹

Saint-Simon saw the power of the art and the avant-garde relatively early. He, like so many others, saw the artists as intermediary for people and beauty. Artists, like philosophers, had the power to open the eyes of their audience and show them what existed around themselves.

Fourierist art critic and theorist Laverdant had a slightly different understanding of the role of the artist. The artists put into paintings or words what the people in the society were feeling. Similarly to Saint-Simon, he believed that the artists articulated what surrounded, and then presented that to its audience. As he said:

Art, the expression of society , manifests, in its highest soaring, the most advanced social tendencies; it is the forerunner and the revealer. Therefore to know whether art worthily fulfills its proper mission as initiator, whether the artist is truly the avant-garde, one must know where Humanity is going; know what the destiny of the human race is...

Laverdant recognized the power and possibilities of the artist. People looked to the artist for more than just nice and pretty pictures. They had come to expect a certain message, or truth of the painting. The artists continued to try new techniques and portray new subjects. A new art audience developed. Art was no longer something limited to aristocrats. The growing bourgeoisie encouraged the artists' experimentation perhaps as a way to celebrate their own newly-acquired positions of status. The new intellectual aspects of art appealed to them as well. One of the most important distinctions of modern art from earlier art was the subject matter. Many of the artists focused more on everyday activities and people, rather than mythological or historical events and heroes. These artists depicted the effects and conditions of modernity both in a celebratory and a moderately critical way.

[The new younger generation of artists since Delacroix] tended to emphasize on the one hand a greater concern with modern life and ordinary people, and on the other a greater freedom of handling combined with an attempt to paint what they actually saw, rather than what their minds and artistic precedents told them.⁴

The modern artist was both an observer and a participant in modern life in Paris. His subject changed from day to day but often was based in that which or those who surrounded him. His models were alive, not some mythological character and this added a new dimension of personality and sincerity to the art. The controversially of this new form of art grew as more of the conventions were rejected. The artists were denied showing in the main exhibitions and were forced to have their own exhibitions.

The avant-garde was the beginning of the new way to see the various art forms. One of the new forms was impressionism. Impressionism changed the way people saw art. The focus was not the details, but rather the reality that abounded through the lack of details. Artists had free range to master their own style and create new conventions.

The impressionists were people of their own time in a more deliberate way, perhaps, than any previous group of artists had been, reflecting the society in which they lived deliberately, and depicting it as a matter of conscious aesthetic policy rather than as part of that inescapable reflex which links all artists with their own age. It is right to describe them, as many contemporaries do, as ‘realists,’ and, like their literary counterparts such as Zola or the Goncourts, they addressed themselves to recording a new urban proletariat which in Paris, perhaps more than any other city, had become to dominate the visual aspects of daily life.²

With the new invention of photography, there was no longer a need for artists to try to depict as realistically as before. Any attempt could never equal the precision of a photograph. Impressionists sought to define a new type of reality. As the above quotation suggests, the impressionists worked create something that closer represented the truth, the way people see things, the way light and air affects their subjects.

The writer, Emile Zola, first entered the impressionist world when he was asked to cover the art salon for his weekly article of La Tribune. The position allowed him to explore the impressionists’ world and it was from there that he extracted many ideas for his books.5 He admired and “was encouraged by the modernity of some of the subjects treated by the painters.”Inspired from their work, Zola find a way where his own work could be so impressionistic.“Their works are alive because they have taken them from life and have painted them with all the love they feel for modern subjects.”6

Zola recognized the importance and potential of impressionism and was a fervent supporter of the oft' criticized controversial Manet. Zola could only extol Manet's work, and it was from his admiration and good company that the two artists became good friends. As Zola said of Manet's work, “Everything holds together in clear, masterly, striking tones, so realistic that the eye forgets the multiplicity of objects and sees only one harmonious unity; I do not speak of still lives -- the accessories, and the books scattered on the table. Manet is a past master... It is all a marvel of skill.” Zola ⁷

At the Right: Pissarro's advice to the student is an important source as we study impressionism. This example is perfect to demonstrate the beliefs of some of the new artists. "Tightening the form," as Pissarro states, will deny the painting of an actual impression. Only by "painting what is within" can the artist portray the subject in a real and true way. Pissarro's advice also touches upon the importance of using emotions, rather than conventions, when composing a painting

In the literary world, there were just as many innovations. Journalism had always been an important way to inform and rally the people. Despite strict censors, newspapers tried to publish anything they could, even at the expense or possibility of lawsuits or civil punishments. Writers criticized a host of different things. The avant-garde also applied to writers, as they experimented with new subject matter. The literary world, however, was different from the visual arts in a number of ways. However, it anything, similar to that of the visual artists, writers were becoming celebrities. They were also seen as intermediaries between the world and the people. They transcribed and translated the events that encircled the public.

Emile Zola was one such modern writer. His books and articles offered social commentaries on French life. Zola had achieved great fame before the time of the Dreyfus Affair. His diverse audience and high reputation served him well when he wrote "J'Accuse" as they only added to the credibility and impact of his accusations. Zola's involvement in the affair changed Dreyfus's destiny. He used his fame in order to ally public opinion to force the French government to (eventually) rescind its decision to imprison an innocent man. Degas, on the other hand, though also in a position of influence, remained relatively quiet in his conservatism. Their differences in volume in their political positions lend indications about their views on their roles as celebrities. While one decided to use his fame advance political causes, the other refrained from interfering in it. While one directly conveyed his views through his art, the other only hinted at his political and social beliefs through his. Zola's social commentary was clear and direct compared to Degas's ambiguity. It was Perhaps these varying perspectives of the role of the artist was also directly connected to the different art mediums. Traditionally, the media has always had more explicit implications than visual art. Both men, however, furthered their respective arts in innovative and revolutionary ways. Degas's addition to painting was more to add an internal and evolutionary aspect to the process. Indeed, this may help explain Degas's reaction to the affair, which was one of isolation and withdrawal. The Dreyfus Affair remains crucial to the at the different views of the two artists, because it illustrates both the new impact of the artist as a celebrity and the situation and complexities of France.

Additional Sources:

The Impressionists at First Hand by Bernard Denver is a great book for an introduction to impressionism. It also is chock full of interesting primary sources about and by the various impressionists.

1 from Linda Nochlin

2 Denver, Bernard. The Impressionists at First Hand. London: Thames and Hudson, 1987. p.9

3 ibid

4 Denver, Bernard. The Impressionists at First Hand. London: Thames and Hudson, 1987. p.9

5 Grant, Elliot M. Emile Zola. NY: Twayne Publishers, 1966. p.41

6 ibid, p.85

7 Denver, Bernard. The Impressionists at First Hand. London: Thames and Hudson, 1987. p.49

8 ibid, p.147