Zola, Émile

Zola, Émile (b Paris, 2 Apr. 1840; d Paris, 29 Sept. 1902). French writer. One of the greatest novelists of the 19th century, he also wrote outspokenly on social and political issues and was a significant art critic. Just as his novels deal vividly with contemporary life, so he rejected academic conventions in art and was one of the first supporters of the group of artists who would become known as the Impressionists, writing about them in articles in the radical newspaper L'Événement from 1866. In particular he championed Manet, publishing a pamphlet on him in 1867; Manet returned the compliment by painting a superb portrait of Zola (1868, Mus. d'Orsay, Paris). Zola had grown up in Aix-en-Provence, where as a boy he became a close friend of Cézanne. However, their friendship ended in 1886, when Zola published his novel L'Œuvre, for Cézanne believed that the central character—a tormented artist who kills himself in front of his unfinished masterpiece—was based on him. They evidently never saw one another again, but when Zola died tragically in 1902—killed by fumes from a defective stove—Cézanne is said to have shut himself in his studio and wept all day.