Opposing Frames: Zola and Fromentin

Abstract

ABSTRACT Grounded in Zola’s art criticism, this article analyses for the first time his writing on Fromentin over the decade 1866–76. It explores the diverse reasons for a hostility that is inseparable from a wider frame of reference in which Orientalism is perceived as emblematic of a Romantic aesthetic opposed by Zola. Paradoxically, however, Zola’s engagement with Fromentin’s Les Maîtres d’autrefois, opposed to modernist innovation, coincides with his own increasing disenchantment with Impressionism. His simultaneous re-evaluation of the Old Masters allows us to discern shared pictorial priorities which bring Zola and Fromentin into the same critical frame.