Schaffner on Falguière-Léonard, Grenaud-Tostain, Macke, and Martin, eds. (2023)

This exceptional, path-breaking book offers new and enlightening criticism examining Émile Zola’s lesser known passion: photography. Zola and his practice of photography, which spanned from 1888 until his death, have been studied before, but this new publication stems from a collaboration between the Médiathèque du Patrimoine et de la Photographie (MPP) and Zola scholars (ITEM-CNRS), after the MPP acquired 2,020 of Zola’s negatives on glass plates in 2017. For the first time, an exhaustive in-depth analysis of this entire body of photographs has been made possible. The Ministère de la Culture has published these negatives on their online database titled Mémoire, which is freely accessible and includes full descriptions of each image.

This beautifully edited art book is divided into two parts. Part one includes twenty chapters, all richly illustrated by photographs and documents, written by eminent scholars as well as experts in photography. The second part presents photographs taken by Zola. Gilles Désiré dit Gosset (general curator of the MPP) reminds us that this visual writer par excellence, viewed photography as his hobby and focused primarily on his loved ones: his friends, his wife Alexandrine, and his mistress Jeanne Rozerot with whom he had two children, Denise and Jacques. The contributors agree that “Zola the photographer” is distinct from “Zola the writer”; he viewed photography as a separate practice. In the introduction to this book, Bertrand Éveno highlights the idea that “Zola, a highly visual mind, understood the subtle ties woven between the eye and the heart when taking photographs” (15).

Far from being a mere amateur, Zola developed his own photographs, owned five cameras, and had three laboratories built in his residences. He learned all the techniques as an autodidact and constantly played with effects, paper, texture, brilliance, light, staging, etc. Zola’s discovery of photography paralleled the beginning of his liaison with Jeanne in the summer of 1888. He poured himself into photography from 1894 until his death in 1902. Zola had excellent dexterity, experimenting with angles, compositions and formats. He also followed all the new developments, practicing photography as an artist. The various essays in this volume converge in uncovering the fact that Zola understood what was at stake in photography; in this sense, he can be called a pioneer. A quote from a 1900 interview he gave to the newspaper The King is particularly striking: “In my opinion, you cannot say that you have seen something thoroughly if you have not taken a photograph of it”(16). Several contributions explore his photographic style, the ways his photographs related to his literary and aesthetic works, and above all, his personal life. Beyond being extremely well written and well researched, all of the contributions seamlessly weave together the threads of Zola the man, the husband, the father, the writer, and the photographer. 

It is impossible to put down this book, as each chapter unveils thought-provoking aspects of Zola’s relationship to photography. In chapter five, François Labadens retraces the historical and social place of photography during Zola’s lifetime (1840–1902), as he was born just as Daguerre’s invention went public in 1839. From this time on, perceptions started to evolve as the public could see historical moments or famous figures. Capturing family scenes, industry, travel, and the arts, photographs started to appear in newspapers and on postcards, particularly during the Dreyfus affair. Jean-Sébastien Macke studies the role of photography as a “textual device” (22) in Zola’s novels, as both an object and a gloomy and devalued representation of reality. For Macke, photography is a strong component of his creative imagination prompting him to go beyond words and use another medium to transcribe the real, photography. Quite naturally, the volume moves from literature to the fine arts with Bruno Martin’s essay on the influence of painting on Zola’s aesthetic conceptions and thus, on his personal practice of photography both in its themes and forms. A number of paintings and photographs are analyzed side by side to show affinities in constructing images.

As the book progresses, contributions increasingly focus on the personal and intimate dimension of Zola’s photographs. Céline Grenaud-Tostain explores photography in the private sphere, providing a close reading of the 318 letters that Zola addressed to his wife Alexandrine. At turns, photography is called upon as a testimonial document, an art, a privileged cog in the marital machine, a sort of mediator designed to release tensions and to express mutual attachment and finally as a factory of remembrance (41). Bruno Martin provides a rich analysis of the most elaborate album in this collection dedicated to Zola’s children, “Denise and Jacques, a True Story.” Through an extremely acute interpretation of several photographs, Martin argues that they reveal characteristics that form both a narration and an aesthetic arrangement akin to a cinematographic endeavor. Alain Pagès offers a compelling analysis of four photographs of Zola’s desk in Rue de Bruxelles, which show an abundance of carefully displayed objects. Despite the absence of the writer himself, these stunning and modern exhibits embody “le travail de l’écriture” (74) and are, for Pagès, Zola’s personal museum of writing (76). The personal dimensions of the author/Zola are also scrutinized in chapters thirteen and fourteen. According to Mathilde Falguière-Léonard, Zola practiced photography with curiosity and generosity, using photography as a “vehicle for connection” (81). Olivier Lumbroso further examines this feature of Zola’s photography, underlying partnership (“complicité”) as being a key concept for reading his very diverse body of iconographic work. The various photo-montages are strikingly symbolic in this matter.

After a captivating investigation of the “interactive theater” (81) that embodies photography for Zola, we move to Monique Sicard’s chapter, which focuses on Zola’s insight into photography. She demonstrates how Zola’s practice of photography results from a skillful and emerging creative sensitivity. He experimented with it as a new way of approaching the world and intuitively discovered aesthetic and historical perspectives offered by this new medium (96). Jean-Michel Pottier provides in-depth analyses of several photographs revealing Zola’s attention to composition and concludes that what Zola was looking for in photography was humanity (103).

Further broadening the scope of this multidimensional exploration of Zola and photography, two essays take us outside of France. First, Giorgio Lungo traces Zola’s meetings and friendships in Italy relating to literature and photography, and thus revealing new comparative perspectives on Italian Verismo and French Naturalism. Second, Hortense Delair explores the images of Zola’s exile to England. As an uprooted individual forced to live abroad for a year, Zola made these new locations his own by taking photographs. In chapters seventeen and eighteen, respectively Falguière-Léonard retraces in detail the long history of Zola’s photographs before their recent acquisition by public institutions and Martin also references the process of restoration through collaborative financing.

In addition to all the excellent individual essays focused on a particular element of Zola’s practice of photography, the main asset of this collective volume is to shed additional light on a man, an artist and an intellectual thanks to a beautiful collaboration between patrimonial institutions and researchers. This magnificent book will most definitely appeal to all Zola and nineteenth-century French literature scholars worldwide as it unveils unknown aspects of Zola’s works and creative paths. At the same time, it will also delight a broader audience eager to discover more about Zola and photography.

Two postfaces brimming with tenderness and devotion, respectively written by Brigitte Émile-Zola and Martine Le Blond-Zola, Zola’s great-grand daughters, conclude this magnificent journey through Zola’s romance with photography.