His Masterpiece

by Émile Zola

Emile Zola's His Masterpiece is the author's most autobiographical novel, based in part on his boyhood friendship with the painter Paul Cezanne. The painter of His Masterpiece, Claude Lantier, has much in common with Cezanne, as well as Manet -- the controversial painter of this period whose "realistic" work in some ways mirrors Zola's writing. Claude's friend Pierre Sandoz, the clerk and writer of the novel, is based closely on Zola himself. Not as fortunate in life as was Manet, Claude...