Working People, Paris, 1800s

"A Woman Ironing" by Edgar Degas, 1873.
(Metropolitan Museum)

Reading Zola's novel L'Assommoir reminded me of many Impressionist paintings of Paris workers that I've seen in a number of museums. Zola (1840-1902) was familiar with these paintings and in sympathy with the motive for painting them. Degas, for example, was quite fascinated by women ironing in a laundry shop: the exact situation of the main character of L'Assommoir. Several of the Impressionists painted pictures of working people drinking in cafés -- another subject of L'Assommoir. Because of the many connections between Zola and the Impressionists, their paintings are often used in the covers of modern editions of his books.

Degas, "The Laundress," 1873.
(Norton Simon Museum)

“Yesterday I spent the whole day in the studio of a strange painter called Degas,” wrote the critic Edmond de Goncourt in February 1874. “[H]e has fallen in love with modern life, and out of all the subjects in modern life he has chosen washerwomen and ballet dancers. When you come to think of it, it’s not a bad choice. It’s a world of pink and white, of female flesh in lawn and gauze… He showed me… washerwomen and still more washerwomen… speaking their language and explaining the technicalities of the different movements in pressing and ironing.” -- Quote from the Norton Simon Museum website.

"Women Ironing" by Edgar Degas, 1873.
(Norton Simon Museum, Wikipedia)

"Man Smoking a Pipe" by Paul Cezanne, 1902. (Wikipedia)
Cezanne and Zola were boyhood friends though they had a famous falling-out over the novel
The Masterpiece, in which an unfavorably depicted artist was thought to be based on Cezanne. 

"In a Café" by Edgar Degas, 1875-1876.
(Musée d'Orsay, Wikipedia)

"The Floor Planers" by Gustave Caillebotte, 1875.
(Musée d'Orsay, Wikipedia)

More posts for Paris in July are at Tamara's blog Thyme for Tea.