His Masterpiece

L'Oeuvre is the fourteenth novel in the
Rougon-Macquart series by Emile Zola. It was first serialized in the periodical
Gil Blas beginning in December 1885 before being published in novel form
by Charpentier in 1886.

The title, translated literally as "The Work" (as in work of art), is often
rendered in English as The Masterpiece or His Masterpiece. It
refers to the struggles of the protagonist Claude Lantier to paint a great work
reflecting his talent and genius.

L'Oeuvre is a highly fictionalized account of Zola's friendship with
the painter Paul Cézanne. Zola and Cézanne grew up together in Aix-en-Provence,
the model for Zola's Plassans, where Claude Lantier is born and receives his
education. Like Cézanne, Claude Lantier is a revolutionary artist whose work is
misunderstood by an art-going public hidebound to traditional subjects,
techniques, and representations. Zola's self-portrait can be seen in the
character of the novelist Pierre Sandoz.

The book is often blamed with ending the friendship between Cézanne and Zola.
The story of a groundbreaking artist unable to live up to his potential must
have seemed intensely personal to Cézanne; no correspondence exists between the
two after a letter in which Cézanne thanks Zola for sending him the novel.

— Excerpted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.