Paul Cézanne was not only "the father of modern art" but a prodigious writer of letters to his friends, family, patrons and fellow painters. Here - from his own translation of over 250 of these - Cézanne's biographer Alex Danchev selects a few that illuminate one of the central relationships of the painter's life: his friendship with Émile Zola.
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) and Émile Zola (1840-1902) grew up together – in the same cradle, said Zola. They loved each other, it is tempting to say, like brothers. For Cézanne, his relationship with Zola was unsurpassed. Theirs was one of the seminal artistic liaisons: as intimate, as complex, as fascinating and as fathomless as any in the annals of modernism.
They went to the same school in Aix-en-Provence, where Cézanne carried off a succession of prizes for Latin and Greek translation and almost everything else besides, except painting and drawing. His early letters to Zola are full of mock epics in verse, classical doggerel (“Hannibal’s Dream”), literary spoofs and jokes, some ribald, some almost obscene. Some of the doggerel is dire; but it is of great interest, for his early preoccupations, his intellectual formation, his literary tastes – Cézanne was a great reader – and above all his immersion in the classics. There was a time when Zola himself thought that Cézanne might have made the better writer, or at any rate the better poet.
“Yes, mon vieux, more of a poet than I. My verse is perhaps purer than yours, but yours is certainly more poetic, more true; you write with the heart, I with the mind; you firmly believe what you set down, with me, often, it’s only a game, a brilliant lie.”
When Zola left Aix for Paris, in 1858, Cézanne was 19. After five years of constant companionship, the enforced separation hit them hard. They started an intensive correspondence, by turns playful, doleful, scatological and confessional. Over time, Zola became Cézanne’s confessor and lender of last resort. Cézanne searched all his life for moral support, as he said, and periodically, financial aid. He had an allowance from his father, but he also had a family to support – his companion Hortense, and a son, also called Paul – a family kept secret from his father, for fear of parental disapproval and disinheritance.
For Zola, Cézanne was an inspiration and a source. His early novel Le Ventre de Paris (1873) introduced Claude Lantier, a character clearly modelled on his friend Cézanne. In 1886 a new novel, L’Œuvre (known in English as The Masterpiece), placed Lantier centre stage and told his life story – a tragedy. Lantier’s fate is foretold by the sardonic master Bongrand: “If only we could have the courage to hang ourselves in front of our last masterpiece!” One grey day – the kind of day Cézanne used to wish for – Lantier’s wife finds him in the studio. “Claude had hanged himself from the big ladder in front of his unfinished, unfinishable masterpiece.” In Zola’s account, therefore, he may or may not be some sort of genius, but one thing is clear: he is a failure.
The novel is widely held to have put an end to the relationship. Zola sent Cézanne a copy, as always. Cézanne’s enigmatic acknowledgement of April 4 1886 was the last letter ever to pass between them. And yet they never lost sight of one another. Sixteen years later, news of Zola’s death reached Cézanne in Aix. He shut himself in his room and wept. No one dared to go in. For hours, the gardener could hear him howl. Later he wandered in the countryside, alone in his landscape and his grief.
To Émile Zola
Aix, July 29 1858
Mon cher,
Not only did your letter make me happy, getting it made me feel better. I’m gripped by a certain internal sadness and, my God, I dream only of that woman I told you about. I don’t know who she is; I sometimes see her out in the street as I’m going to the monotonous college. I sigh, morbleu, but sighs that do not give themselves away, these are mental sighs. I thoroughly enjoyed that poetic morsel you sent me, I really liked to see you remember the pine that provides shade for the riverbank of the Palette, the pine that I love, how I should like to see you here – damn everything that keeps us apart. If I didn’t restrain myself, I should let off a whole string of nom de Dieu, de Bordel de Dieu, de sacrée putain, etc; but what’s the point of getting in a rage, that wouldn’t get me any further, so I put up with it.
Yes, as you say in another piece no less poetic – though I prefer your piece about swimming – you are happy, yes you [are] happy; but I suffer in silence, my love (for it is love that I feel) will not come bursting out. A certain ennui is always with me, and when I forget my sorrow for a moment it’s because I’ve had a drink. I’ve always liked wine, but now I like it more. I’ve got drunk, I’ll get drunker, unless by chance I should succeed, my God! I despair, I despair, so I’m going to deaden the pain. […]
P Cézanne