The French art novel, with its tales of artists, models and creative struggles, is often thought to be a specifically nineteenth-century phenomenon, which dies out by 1900. This wide-ranging, interdisciplinary study argues that the art novel does not in fact disappear but rather undergoes a series of transformations in the early twentieth century, in step with radical changes in the visual arts of the period. Examining both well-known and all-but-forgotten novels, Shingler examines the ways in which they move on from their nineteenth-century predecessors, as the development of avant-garde movements makes questions of aesthetic value and authenticity ever more pressing; as changing gender roles increasingly put pressure on writers to acknowledge female creativity; and as the emergent art of the cinema comes to compete with painting as the primary visual reference point for writers.

Katherine Shingler is Assistant Professor in French and Francophone Studies at the University of Nottingham.