“Creativity” E. Zola in summary

Claude Lantier, an artist, hanged himself in his studio before the unfinished painting in November 1870. His wife, Christina, posing for this picture and painfully jealous of her, lost her mind from grief. Claude lived in complete poverty. He left nothing but a few sketches: the last and the main picture, a failed masterpiece, was torn from the wall and burned in a fit of rage by a friend of Claude Sandoz. In addition to Sandoz and Bongran – another friend of Claude, the artist-master and the academician-rebel – at the funeral there was none of their company.

… They were all from Plassan and made friends in college: the painter Claude, the novelist Sandoz, the architect Dyubush. In Paris, Dybyush with great difficulty entered the Academy, where he was subjected to ruthless ridicule of friends: both Claude and Sandoz dreamed of a new art, equally despising the classical examples and the gloomy, through-literary romanticism of Delacroix. Claude is not just phenomenally

gifted – he is obsessed. Classical education is not for him: he learns to portray life as seen by it – Paris, its central market, Seine embankments, cafes, passers-by. Sandoz dreams of a synthesis of literature and science, of a gigantic novel series that embraced and explained the whole history of mankind. Claude’s obsession is alien to him: he watches with fright as the periods of enthusiasm and hope are replaced by his friend’s grim impotence. Claude is working, forgetting about food and sleep, but does not go beyond sketches – nothing satisfies it. But the whole company of young painters and sculptors – an easy and cynical scoffer Fazerol, ambitious son of stonemason Magudo, prudent critic Zhori – are sure that Claude will become the head of the new school. Zhori called her “the open-air school”. The whole company, of course, is busy not only with disputes about art: Magudo with disgust suffers next to himself the whore-apothecary Matilda, Fazerol is in love with the charming cocotte Irma Beko, spending time with artists unselfishly, that’s really for the love of art.

Claude avoided the women until one night, not far from his house on the Bourbon Quay, did not meet during a thunderstorm a stray young beauty – a tall girl in black, who came to the lecturers to the rich widow of the general. Claude had no choice but to invite her to spend the night with him, and she had no choice but to agree. Quietly placing the guest behind the screen and annoyed at the sudden adventure, in the morning Claude looks at the sleeping girl and freezes: this is the nature that he dreamed of for a new picture. Forgetting everything, he starts swiftly sketching her small breasts with pink nipples, a thin hand, blooming black hair… She wakes up and tries to hide under the sheet in horror. Claude tries hard to persuade her to pose further. They belatedly get acquainted: her name is Christina, and she was barely eighteen. She trusts him: he sees in it only a model. And when she leaves, Claude admits to herself that she will probably never see the best of her models again, and that this fact seriously upsets him.

He made a mistake. She came in a month and a half with a bouquet of roses – a sign of her gratitude. Claude can work with the same enthusiasm: one sketch, albeit successful, is better than all the previous ones, for his new work is not enough. He planned to portray a naked woman against the backdrop of a spring garden in which couples stroll and fight wrestlers. The name for the picture is already there – just “Plein Air”. In two sessions he wrote Christina’s head, but to ask her to pose again naked is not solved. Seeing how he suffers, trying to find a model similar to her, she in one evening undresses in front of him, and Claude completes his masterpiece in a matter of days. The painting is intended for the Salon of the Les Miserables, conceived as a challenge to the semi-official Parisian Salon, which is semi-official and unchanged in its passions. Near the picture of Claude the crowd gathers, but the crowd laughs. And no matter how much assured Zhori that this is the best advertising, Claude terribly depressed. Why is a woman naked and a man dressed? What a sharp, rough brushstroke? Only artists understand the originality and power of this painting. In a feverish excitement, Claude screams of contempt for the public, about how Paris will win over his comrades, but he returns home in despair. A new shock awaits him here: the key is sticking out at the door, some girl is waiting for him for two hours… This is Christina, she was at the exhibition and saw everything: a picture, in which she recognized herself with horror and admiration, and the public from the dunces and scoffers. She came to comfort and encourage Claude, who, falling to her feet, no longer restrains sobbing. rough brushstrokes? Only artists understand the originality and power of this painting. In a feverish excitement, Claude screams of contempt for the public, about how Paris will win over his comrades, but he returns home in despair. A new shock awaits him here: the key is sticking out at the door, some girl is waiting for him for two hours… This is Christina, she was at the exhibition and saw everything: a picture, in which she recognized herself with horror and admiration, and the public from the dunces and scoffers. She came to comfort and encourage Claude, who, falling to her feet, no longer restrains sobbing. rough brushstrokes? Only artists understand the originality and power of this painting. In a feverish excitement, Claude screams of contempt for the public, about how Paris will win over his comrades, but he returns home in despair. A new shock awaits him here: the key is sticking out at the door, some girl is waiting for him for two hours… This is Christina, she was at the exhibition and saw everything: a picture, in which she recognized herself with horror and admiration, and the public from the dunces and scoffers. She came to comfort and encourage Claude, who, falling to her feet, no longer restrains sobbing. she was at the exhibition and saw everything: a picture in which she recognized herself with horror and admiration, and the audience, consisting of dunces and scoffers. She came to comfort and encourage Claude, who, falling to her feet, no longer restrains sobbing. she was at the exhibition and saw everything: a picture in which she recognized herself with horror and admiration, and the audience, consisting of dunces and scoffers. She came to comfort and encourage Claude, who, falling to her feet, no longer restrains sobbing.

… This is their first night, followed by months of love intoxication. They rediscover each other. Christina leaves her general’s house, Claude is looking for a house in Bennekura, a suburb of Paris, for only two hundred and fifty francs a year. Not married with Christina, Claude calls her wife, and soon his inexperienced lover discovers that she is pregnant. The boy was called Jacques. After his birth, Claude returns to painting, but Bennecura landscapes have already bored him: he dreams of Paris. Christine realizes that it is unbearable for him to bury himself in Bennecure: the three of them return to the city.

Claude visits old friends: Magudo succumbs to the tastes of the public, but still retains talent and strength, the pharmacist continues to be with him and became even more ugly; Zhori earns not so much criticism as a secular chronicle and is quite pleased with himself; Fazerol, heavily stealing the picturesque finds of Claude, and Irma, changing lovers every week, occasionally rush to each other, for there is nothing stronger than the attachment of two egoists and cynics. Bon-gran, Claude’s eldest friend, an acknowledged master who rebelled against the Academy, for several months in a row can not get out of a deep crisis, sees no new ways, talks about the painful fear of the artist before the embodiment of each new idea, and in his depression Claude sees with a horror an omen their own torment. Sandoz got married, but still takes friends on Thursdays. Having gathered the same circle – Claude, Dubuš, Fazerol, Sandoz and his wife, Henrietta, – friends sadly notice that they are arguing without the same fervor and talking more about themselves. Communication broke, Claude goes into solitary work: it seems to him that now he is really capable of exhibiting a masterpiece. But the Salon for three years in a row rejects its best, innovative, amazingly bright creations: the winter landscape of the urban outskirts, the Batignolles Square in May and the sunny, like a melting view of the Carousel Square in the height of summer. Friends are delighted with these paintings, but a sharp, grossly accented painting scares away the jury of the Salon. Claude is again afraid of his inferiority, hates himself, his uncertainty is transmitted to Christina. Only a few months later he is a new idea – a view of the Seine with port workers and bathers. Claude takes on a giant sketch, quickly writes down the canvas, but then, as always, in a fit of insecurity, spoils his own work, nothing can bring to an end, destroys the idea. His hereditary neurosis is expressed not only in genius, but also in inability to realize. All finished work is a compromise, Claude is possessed by a mania of perfection, creating something more alive than life itself. This struggle leads him into despair: he belongs to the type of genius for whom any concession, any retreat is intolerable. His work becomes more and more convulsive, enthusiasm passes more and more: happy at the moment of the birth of the plan, Claude, like any true artist, understands all the imperfection and half-heartedness of any incarnations. Creativity becomes his torture. but also in the inability to realize. All finished work is a compromise, Claude is possessed by a mania of perfection, creating something more alive than life itself. This struggle leads him into despair: he belongs to the type of genius for whom any concession, any retreat is intolerable. His work becomes more and more convulsive, enthusiasm passes more and more: happy at the moment of the birth of the plan, Claude, like any true artist, understands all the imperfection and half-heartedness of any incarnations. Creativity becomes his torture. but also in the inability to realize. All finished work is a compromise, Claude is possessed by a mania of perfection, creating something more alive than life itself. This struggle leads him into despair: he belongs to the type of genius for whom any concession, any retreat is intolerable. His work becomes more and more convulsive, enthusiasm passes more and more: happy at the moment of the birth of the plan, Claude, like any true artist, understands all the imperfection and half-heartedness of any incarnations. Creativity becomes his torture. the inspiration passes faster: happy at the moment of the birth of the plan, Claude, like any true artist, understands all the imperfection and half-heartedness of any incarnations. Creativity becomes his torture. the inspiration passes faster: happy at the moment of the birth of the plan, Claude, like any true artist, understands all the imperfection and half-heartedness of any incarnations. Creativity becomes his torture.

Then she and Christina, tired of neighborly gossip, decide to finally get married, but the marriage does not bring joy: Claude is absorbed in the work, Christina is jealous: becoming a husband and wife, they realized that the former passion died. In addition, his son irritates Claude with his inordinately large head and slow development: neither the mother nor the father yet know that Jacques has a dropsy of the brain. Poverty comes, Claude embarks on the last and most grandiose picture of her – a nude woman again, the personification of Paris at night, the goddess of beauty and vice against the backdrop of a sparkling city. On the day when, in the twilight evening light, he sees his painting just finished and again realizes that he was defeated, twelve-year-old Jacques dies. Claude immediately begins to write “The Dead Child”, and Fazerol, feeling guilt before the ragged older comrade, with great difficulty puts the painting in the Salon. There, hung in the most remote hall, high, almost invisible to the public, she looked terrible and pitiful. Bongrun’s new work, The Village Funeral, written as if in a pair to his early Village Wedding, was also not noticed by anyone. But a huge success has a phaser, softening the finds from Claude’s early works and betraying them for his own; Fazerol, who became the star of the Salon. Sandoz looks with longing at the friends gathered at the Salon. During this time, Dubuysh profitable and unhappy married, Magudo made his wife an ugly aptekarshu and fell into complete dependence on her, Zori sold himself, Claude was awarded the nickname of a madman – does all life come to such an inglorious end? she looked terrible and pitiful. Bongrun’s new work, The Village Funeral, written as if in a pair to his early Village Wedding, was also not noticed by anyone. But a huge success has a phaser, softening the finds from Claude’s early works and betraying them for his own; Fazerol, who became the star of the Salon. Sandoz looks with longing at the friends gathered at the Salon. During this time, Dubuysh profitable and unhappy married, Magudo made his wife an ugly aptekarshu and fell into complete dependence on her, Zori sold himself, Claude was awarded the nickname of a madman – does all life come to such an inglorious end? she looked terrible and pitiful. Bongrun’s new work, The Village Funeral, written as if in a pair to his early Village Wedding, was also not noticed by anyone. But a huge success has a phaser, softening the finds from Claude’s early works and betraying them for his own; Fazerol, who became the star of the Salon. Sandoz looks with longing at the friends gathered at the Salon. During this time, Dubuysh profitable and unhappy married, Magudo made his wife an ugly aptekarshu and fell into complete dependence on her, Zori sold himself, Claude was awarded the nickname of a madman – does all life come to such an inglorious end? softened the finds from Claude’s early works and extraditing them for his own; Fazerol, who became the star of the Salon. Sandoz looks with longing at the friends gathered at the Salon. During this time, Dubuysh profitable and unhappy married, Magudo made his wife an ugly aptekarshu and fell into complete dependence on her, Zori sold himself, Claude was awarded the nickname of a madman – does all life come to such an inglorious end? softened the finds from Claude’s early works and extraditing them for his own; Fazerol, who became the star of the Salon. Sandoz looks with longing at the friends gathered at the Salon. During this time, Dubuysh profitable and unhappy married, Magudo made his wife an ugly aptekarshu and fell into complete dependence on her, Zori sold himself, Claude was awarded the nickname of a madman – does all life come to such an inglorious end?

But the end of Claude was worse than friends could have guessed. During one of the painful and already meaningless sessions, when Claude again and again drew naked Christine, she could not stand it. Terribly jealous of the woman on the canvas, she rushed to Claude, pleading for the first time in many years again to look at her as a woman. She is still beautiful, he is still strong. This night they experience a passion that they did not even know in their youth. But while Christina is asleep, Claude rises and slowly goes to the studio, to her painting. In the morning, Christina sees him hanging on the crossbar, which he himself once nailed to strengthen the staircase.

… The air of the era is poisoned, says Bongran Sandozu at the funeral of a genius, from which nothing remains. All of us are disfigured people, and the end of the century is to blame for everything with its rot, decay, dead ends in all ways. Art is in decline, anarchy is all around, personality is suppressed, and the century, which began with clarity and rationalism, ends with a new wave of obscurantism. If it were not for the fear of death, every genuine artist should have acted like Claude. But here, in the cemetery, among the old coffins and the dug up land, Bongran and Sandoz recall that their houses are waiting for work – their eternal, the only torture.