The gaze in the model-painter relationship: Fictions of art by Zola, the Goncourts, Poe, and James (Emile Zola, Edmond de Goncourt, Jules de Goncourt, France, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James)

The art novel or roman sur les arts is a major trend of nineteenth-century novels: the Goncourts' Manette Salomon (1867) and Zola's L'oeuvre (1886) in French literature, Poe's “The Oval Portrait” (1850) and James's “The Madonna of the Future” (1875) in American literature, emphasize the figure of the artist painter and attendant aesthetic problem. The texts explore the painter's relationship to his art and to his model, unfolding along dual trajectories of plot and subplot, or creative struggles with the canvas and amorous entanglements with the model and especially her representation in painting. To disarticulate the triangular relationship between artist, model, and work of art is to show that the governing elements of this triad is the gaze. The painter's gaze at the model and her double, that is her representation on canvas, is the guiding line for his ability to create. Analysis of the relations between the female model and her aesthetic counterpart reveals how femininity and art are perceived in the art novel.