Understanding Émile Zola’s “La Joie de Vivre” in Van Gogh’s “Still Life with Bible” Painting

Have you ever had any idea that Vincent Van Gogh – the famous Dutch post-impressionist painter – was a Zola’s fan? In his letters to his brother Theo, Van Gogh often quoted some excerpts from Zola’s books, and he was thoroughly influenced by Zola’s ideas. Van Gogh was born into a religious family; his father was a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. Before plunging headlong into painting, Van Gogh was a fervent evangelist in one of coal-minings in Belgium. In fact, his two years stay with the coal miners left deep impression in the village, that Émile Zola later depicted his Abbé Ranvier character in Germinal from Van Gogh’s image, when Zola stayed there in doing researches for his masterpiece-to-be.

One of Van Gogh’s “Still Life” paintings (a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural or man-made - wikipedia) is: Still Life with Bible, which he painted in 1885.

It is a gloomy painting of an open bible on the table against dark background, with a candlestick beside it. In front of the bible, with a faint yellow light, sit a battered copy of Zola’s La Joie de Vivre. The painting’s caption on Van Gogh museum’s website read: “This hefty Bible had belonged to Van Gogh's father, a Protestant minister. Van Gogh painted it just after his father's death. He placed his own copy of Émile Zola's La joie de vivre next to it. That book was a kind of 'bible' for modern life. The books symbolize the different worldviews of Van Gogh and his father.” While in his letter to his brother Theo – with whom he often had a lengthy discussions of his painting progress – Van Gogh described this painting as 'a still life of an open, hence an off-white Bible, bound in leather, against a black background with a yellow-brown foreground, with an additional note of lemon yellow.'

Normally I won’t be interested in this painting – it’s too gloomy, and poor of color – but for Zola’s book in it. Now, I have just read The Bright Side of Life (English title for La Joie de Vivre published by Oxford World Classics), and while searching for some background texts, I accidentally stumbled upon an article about this interesting fact. And so, I began to scan the painting thoroughly, and tried to unfold its meaning.

What struck me immediately while scrutinizing it for the first time, is the lighting. You can see that the background is totally dark. Yet, there is the yellow light on the foreground; and from the way the shadow projecting from the book, the light could not come from the foreground. Then, where does it come from? There is a candlestick beside the bible; it even has a candle on it, but unlighted. I’m not a painter, and perhaps I’m not quite qualified to discuss paintings, but in my opinion, normally Van Gogh won’t have seen the objects in that way of lighting. So, was it intentionally, then – to emphasize an idea, perhaps?

Before trying to solve the “mystery of the lighting”, let’s discuss first about the bible and the book. We know that the bible belonged to Van Gogh’s father, the Protestant minister, who, I imagined, had planted Christian doctrines into his son’s head eversince Van Gogh's childhood. The bible is open, and we can see the blur prints on it – out of curiosity, I zoomed in the painting several times, trying to catch the title or a word or two to define to which part of the book it opened – I failed. Either my file is in low pixel (but I couldn’t find a better one), or it’s my eyes that are too weak! Anyway, I googled through, and finally found a text that says that the bible actually open to a certain passage from Isaiah 53:

“He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.” (King James edition)

Most coincidentally, I am a Lector at my local church, and for these months I have been reading this particular passage so many times I almost remember them, as I was preparing to read it on Holy Friday mass. So, technically, I have read Zola’s La Joie de Vivre along with Isaiah 53 – both pictured in this painting – during April, amazing, eh? That’s why I could relate very much to this subject.

Texts from Google which I have consulted were mostly convinced that Van Gogh saw La Joie de Vivre as a “new bible”, as Van Gogh was in a process to synthesize (if not replaced – as believed by a Cliff Edwards) religion with modernity. But, in that case, why is the bible opened, while the book shut? If he had wanted to replace religion with modernity, will it not make more sense to do the opposite? Some also argues about the different sizes of bible vs book – the book is way too small in comparison with the bible. But I don’t buy it; it’s mentioned in the museum website that the bible was “leather bound - hefty”, so it is only possible that it’s measured four times of the book (mass-market size?) Anyway, I’m more inclined to analyze the context, than the sizes of the object.

Isaiah 53 speaks about God’s man – a selfless man – who, though purely innocent, was chastised and must endure pain, solely for the salvation of others. Isn’t that directly correlated with La Joie de Vivre’s heroine, Pauline Quenu, who chose to endure the betrayal and robbery of the family only for their sake/happiness? Thus, in my opinion, the bible needed to be opened to show its precise passage, to be studied in parallel with the main theme of La Joie de Vivre. Do you think it’s possible?

Then how to explain the curious lighting angle (which many regard as symbolically shutting off his father’s rigid religion and shifting to a new-modern one)? In my opinion, still in conjunction with Isaiah 53, the dark background and unlighted candle reflected death (of God’s man or Christ, as well as his father’s perhaps), while the yellow light reflected the joy of life. Because, isn't it true that both Isaiah 53 and La Joie de Vivre speak of death and pain which in the end bring glory and joy? We could interprete the "wrong" angle of the lighting as symbolically alluding that the dark of death has been replaced with a simmering light of life. Does it mean modernity has become Van Gogh's "new religion", as he left his father’s religion? It is more likely that La Joie de Vivre has let Van Gogh adjusted his old view (influenced by his father and his almost puritan mother) on death and sorrow, to be brighter and more optimistic than before.

What do you think?

Zola's influence proved to be quite deep in Van Gogh, as besides this painting, Van Gogh also painted La Joie de Vivre in his "Still Life with Oleanders". The poor miner family in Germinal was also depicted in Van Gogh's "The Potato Eaters".

Still Life with Oleanders - 1888

The Potato Eaters, 1885

The Bright Side of Life by Émile Zola

The twelfth novel of the Rougon-Macquart cycle turned out to be the most autobiographical of Zola's. He wrote The Bright Side of Life when he was 44 years old, and was in one of his much mental instability cases caused by the death of his two friends – one of them was his mentor: Gustave Flaubert – then followed by his mother's. From age 30, Zola too has been suffering from necrophobia (irrational fear of death) and obsessive-compulsive disorder. From these few facts, you know what's to expect from this novel. Despite of the original title: La Joie de Vivre, there's also a balanced dose of pain and sorrow. In fact, The Bright Side of Life is all about paradox: life force vs death, health vs pain, optimism vs pessimism. But Zola's true aim is that optimism must counterbalance pessimism, which was spreading in France when he wrote it.

Our heroine this time is Pauline Quenu, the daughter of Lisa Macquart and Quenu (from The Belly of Paris). She is, perhaps, the most mentally-stable member of the Rougon-Macquart clan. From the first, Pauline is a cheerful, hopeful, loving, and persevering young girl. Whatever her condition is, she always brightens her surroundings, spreading positive vibes around her. Pauline was orphaned after Lisa's and Quenu's death. She was adopted and lived with Chanteaus family on the seaside village called Bonneville. She tended her uncle Chanteau, who suffered from gout, with extra tenderness. And with Lazare, her cousin, Pauline often played outdoor near the seaside. Now Lazare was Pauline's opposite. He was gloomy and pessimistic, and gradually it became clear that he suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder. He had an obsessive fear of death (necrophobia) – yeah, he is Zola’s embodiment in this novel – and he could never settle his mind on anything. Despite of their huge age difference and character difference, Pauline and Lazare were attracted to each other.

Pauline inherited a large sum of money from her parents, and from the first Madame Chanteau insisted that she would keep the money intact in the drawer at her desk until Pauline come of age to manage it herself. However, with Lazare's incapability to earn money, Madame Chanteau began to borrow Pauline's money for daily household, which the girl was always too pleased to lend. Then Lazare would come up with an idea which he believed will make the family rich, but had no money to fund it. Pauline would lend her money for capital, of which the Chanteaus made sure of returning after Lazare's success. He failed eventually, the money evaporated, and the pattern repeated over and over again! Madame Chanteau, out of her shame and indignation of "begging" from her niece, eventually just took the money without consulting Pauline. Moreover, she shut down her conscience by turning the blame to Pauline. She made herself believed that Pauline has brought bad influence to the family, and began to treat Pauline with hostility. On the face of all this, Pauline felt sad, but persevered and maintained her loving and cheerful manner. Pauline and Lazare were about to be married (Madame Lazare's genius idea of legally robbing Pauline's money), but one day in came a sophisticated town girl called Louise, whose femininity attracted Lazare. So now, it's not only her money, they robbed her of love too. She has sacrificed everything for the happiness of others, yet she was treated badly.

"Le Joie de Vivre" copy in Van Gogh's "Oleanders" - 1888

I have been wondering through the story, why Zola titled this book the joy of life, while it is filled with sorrow and pain – Pauline's heartbreaking is nothing compared to Louise's suffering in her greatly painful labor (Zola pictured it too vividly, that I felt my stomach ached only to imagine it!) So, where is the "joy"? I think this is the most philosophical novel from Zola which I have read so far. It takes us to reflect upon life and its meaning. Why must we continue living and persevering if at the end death is inevitable? Is life all sorrow and hopeless, then? Through Pauline, Zola wanted to raise France from its pessimistic slumber. Life might not be full of joy, but the joy of life is in life itself – being alive, having survived through perseverance in one's daily routines, sharing, loving and sacrificing for others' happiness, that is the joy of life! That is humanity. I loved how Zola symbolized Pauline’s emotional struggles with another “living character” of this book: the sea! When Pauline is happy, the sea is calm and beautiful, but when jealousy outburst (the only family-inherited “flaw” found in Pauline) violently shook her, the sea, too, became dark, raging, and turbulent.

In a way this novel is very Zola, but at the same time, it's very un-Zola – in term of the writing style. You won't see any of his usual exaggerated (or as I prefer to call it: intense) narrative. It was actually Zola's intention from the beginning to create a "simple" story. "This is the novel I want to write. Good, honest people placed in a drama that will develop the ideas of goodness and pain. Then, it will all be down to how it is written. Not my usual symphony. A simple, straightforward story. Environment still playing its necessary role, but less to the fore; description reduced to minimum. The style direct, correct, forceful, without romantic flourishes. The kind of classical language I dream of writing. In a word, honesty in everything, nothing dressed up." ~Zola's preliminary sketches of this novel. To be honest, I rather miss his “dressed up”, powerful, intense style – a quality I rarely found combined with beautiful prose in any other writers. Nonetheless, it’s one of the most honest books I’ve ever read; it’s OUR lives, OUR journeys, and OUR struggles.

My score: 4 / 5