Jean-Léon Gérôme

Infobox Artist
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name = Jean-Léon Gérôme


imagesize =
caption = "Self-portrait, 1866"
birthname =
birthdate = birth date|1824|5|10|mf=y
location = Vesoul (Haute-Saône), France
deathdate = death date and age|1904|1|10|1824|5|10
deathplace = Paris, France
nationality = French
field = Painting, Sculpture
training = Paul Delaroche, Charles Gleyre
movement = Orientalism
works =
patrons =
influenced by =
influenced =
awards =

Jean-Léon Gérôme (May 11, 1824 – January 10, 1904) was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as Academicism. The range of his oeuvre included historical painting, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits and other subjects, bringing the Academic painting tradition to an artistic climax.

Life

Born at Vesoul (Haute-Saône), he went to Paris in 1840 where he studied under Paul Delaroche, whom he accompanied to Italy (1843-1844). He visited Florence, Rome, the Vatican and Pompeii, but he was more attracted to the world of nature. Taken by a fever, he was forced to return to Paris in 1844. On his return he followed, like many other students of Delaroche, into the atelier of Charles Gleyre and studied there for a brief time. He then attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1846 he tried to enter the prestigious Prix de Rome, but failed in the final stage because his figure drawing was inadequate.

He tried to improve his skills by painting "The Cockfight" (1846), an academic exercise depicting a nude young man and a lightly draped girl with two fighting cocks and in the background the Bay of Naples. He sent this painting to the Salon of 1847, where it gained him a third-class medal. This work was seen as the epitome of the Neo-Grec movement that had formed out of Gleyre's studio (such as Henri-Pierre Picou (1824-1895) and Jean-Louis Hamon), and was championed by the influential French critic Theophile Gautier.

Gérôme abandoned his dream of winning the Prix de Rome and took advantage of his sudden success. His paintings "The Virgin, the Infant Jesus and St John" (private collection) and "Anacreon, Bacchus and Cupid" (Musée des Augustins, Toulouse, France) took a second-class medal in 1848. In 1849 he produced the paintings "Michelangelo" (also called "In his studio") (now in private collection) [http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=151 image of the painting] and "A portrait of a Lady" (Musée Ingres, Montauban).

In 1851 he decorated a vase, later offered by Emperor Napoleon III of France to Prince Albert, now part of the Royal Collection at St. James's Palace, London. He exhibited "Bacchus and Love, Drunk", a "Greek Interior" and "Souvenir d'Italie", in 1851; "Paestum" (1852); and "An Idyll" (1853).

In 1852 Gérôme received a commission by Alfred Emilien Comte de Nieuwerkerke, "Surintendant des Beaux-Arts" to the court of Napoleon III, for the painting of a large historical canvas, the "Age of Augustus" [http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/image.asp?id=14836 image of the painting] . In this canvas he combines the birth of Christ with conquered nations paying homage to Augustus. Thanks to a considerable down payment, he was able to travel in 1853 to Constantinople, together with the actor Edmond Got. This would be the first of several travels to the East : in 1854 he made another journey to Turkey and the shores of the Danube, where he was present at a concert of Russian conscripts, making music under the treat of a lash.

In 1854 he completed another important commission of decorating the Chapel of St. Jerome in the church of St. Séverin in Paris. His "Last communion of St. Jerome" in this chapel reflects the influence of the school of Ingres on his religious works.

To the exhibition of 1855 he contributed a "Pifferaro", a "Shepherd", "A Russian Concert", "The Age of Augustus" and "Birth of Christ". The last was somewhat confused in effect, but in recognition of its consummate rendering the State purchased it. However the modest painting, "A Russian Concert" (also called "Recreation in the Camp") was more appreciated than his huge canvases.

In 1856 he visited Egypt for the first time. This would herald the start of many orientalist paintings depicting Arab religion, genre scenes and North African landscapes.

Gérôme's reputation was greatly enhanced at the Salon of 1857 by a collection of works of a more popular kind: the "Duel: after the Masked Ball" (Musée Condé, Chantilly), "Egyptian Recruits crossing the Desert", "Memnon and Sesostris" and "Camels Watering", the drawing of which was criticized by Edmond About.

In 1858 he helped to decorate the Paris house of Prince Napoléon Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte in the Pompeian style. The prince had bought his "Greek Interior" (1850), a depiction of a brothel also in the Pompeian manner.In "Caesar" (1859) Gérôme tried to return to a severer class of work, the painting of Classical subjects, but the picture failed to interest the public. "Phryne before the Areopagus", "King Candaules" and "Socrates finding Alcibiades in the House of Aspasia" (1861) gave rise to some scandal by reason of the subjects selected by the painter, and brought down on him the bitter attacks of Paul de Saint-Victor and Maxime Du Camp. At the same Salon he exhibited the "Egyptian chopping Straw", and "Rembrandt biting an Etching", two very minutely finished works.

He married Marie Goupil (1842-1912), the daughter of the international art dealer Adolphe Goupil. They had four daughters and one son. Upon his marriage he moved to a house in the Rue de Bruxelles, close to the music hall Folies Bergère. He expanded it into a grand house with stables and a sculpture studio below and a painting studio on the top floor.

Gérôme was elected, at the fifth attempt, a member of the Institut de France in 1865. Already a knight in the Légion d'honneur, he was promoted to an officer in 1867. In 1869 he was elected an honorary member of the British Royal Academy. The King of Prussia Wilhelm I awarded him the Grand Order of the Red Eagle, Third Class. His fame had become such that he was invited, along with the most eminent French artists, to the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869.

The theme of his "Death of Caesar" (1867) was repeated in his historical canvas "Death of Marshall Ney", that was exhibited at the Salon of 1867, despite official pressure to withdraw it as it raised painful memories. He returned successfully to the Salon in 1874 with his painting "Eminence grise" (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). In 1896 he painted "Truth Rising from her Well", an attempt to describe the transparency of an illusion. He therefore welcomed the rise of photography as an alternative to his photographic painting. In 1902 he said "Thanks to photography, Truth has as last left her well".

Jean-Léon Gérôme died in his atelier on 10 January 1904. He was found in front of a portrait of Rembrandt and close to his own painting "The Truth". At his own request, he was given a simple burial service, even without flowers. But the Requiem Mass given in his memory was attended by a former president of the Republic, most prominent politicians, and many painters and writers. He was buried in the Montmartre Cemetery in front of the statue "Sorrow" that he had cast for his son Jean, who had died in 1891.

He was the father-in-law of the painter Aimé Morot. His descendants are the influential de Bourbon and de Suduiraut families of Paris.

elected works

Painting

Gérôme's best paintings are of Eastern subjects; among these may be named:
* "Turkish Prisoner and Turkish Butcher" (1863)
* "Prayer" (1865)
* "The Slave Market" (1867)
* "Excursion of the Harem" (1869)
* "Louis XIV and Molière" (1863) – Historical theme
* "The Reception of the Siamese Ambassadors at Fontainebleau" (1865)
* "Death of Marshal Ney" (1867)

culpture

Gérôme was also successful as a sculptor. His first work was a large bronze statue of a gladiator holding his foot on his victim, shown to the public at the Exposition Universelle of 1878. This bronze was based on the main theme of his painting "Pollice verso" (1872). The same year he exhibited a marble statue at the Salon of 1878, based on his early painting "Anacreon, Bacchus and Cupid" (1848).

Aware of contemporary experiments of tinting marble (such as by John Gibson) he produced "Dancer with Three Masks" (Musée des Beaux-Arts, "Caen" ), combining movement with colour (exhibited in 1902). His tinted group "Pygmalion and Galatea" provided his inspiration of depicting himself in several paintings as the sculptor who could turn marble into flesh such as in the painting Pygmalion and Galatea (1890) (Metropolitan Museum, New York)

Among his other works are "Omphale" (1887), and the statue of the duc d'Aumale which stands in front of the château of Chantilly (1899).

He started experimenting with mixed ingredients, using for his statues tinted marble, bronze and ivory, inlaid with precious stones and paste. His "Dancer" was exhibited in 1891. His lifesize statue "Bellona" (1892), in ivory, bronze, and gemstones, attracted great attention. at the exhibition in the Royal Academy of London,

The artist then began an interesting series of Conquerors, wrought in gold, silver and gems "Bonaparte entering Cairo" (1897); "Tamerlane" (1898); and "Frederick the Great" (1899).

Influence

In 1853 Gérôme moved to the "Boîte à Thé", a group of studios in the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, Paris. This would become a meeting place for other artists, writers and actors. George Sand entertained in the small theatre of the studio the great artists of her time such as the composers Hector Berlioz, Johannes Brahms and Gioachino Rossini and the novelists Théophile Gautier and Ivan Turgenev.

He started an independent atelier at his house in the "Rue de Bruxelles" between 1860 and 1862.

He was appointed as one of the three professors at the "Ecole des Beaux-Arts". He started with sixteen students, most who had come over from his own studio. His influence became extensive and he was a regular guest of Empress Eugénie at the Imperial Court in Compiègne.

When he started to protest and show a public hostility to "decadent fashion" of Impressionism, his influence started to wane and he became unfashionable. But after the exhibition of Manet in the Ecole in 1884, he eventually admitted that "it was not so bad as I thought".

Pupils

His students included:

* Dagnan-Bouveret
* Georges Ferdinand Bigot
* Frank Boggs
* Frederick Arthur Bridgman
* Dennis Miller Bunker
* Kenyon Cox
* William DeLeftwich Dodge
* Wynford Dewhurst, R.B.A.
* Thomas Millie Dow
* Lecomte du Nouy
* Thomas Eakins
* Wyatt Eaton
* Delphin Enjolras
* Herbert Cyrus Farnum
* Alexander Harrison
* Robert Lee MacCameron
* Siddons Mowbray
* Aloysius O'Kelly
* Lawton Parker
* Paul Peel
* Harper Pennington
* William Picknell
* Théodore Ralli
* Carl Frederick von Saltza‎
* Julius Stewart
* Abbott Handerson Thayer
* Vasili Vasilyevich Vereshchagin
* Douglas Volk
* J. Alden Weir
* William McGregor Paxton

Museums

His paintings and sculptures are exhibited in many museums and public art galleries
*Musée d'Orsay, Paris [http://musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/index-of-works/resultat-collection.html?no_cache=1&S=0&zsz=1&zs_r_2_z=3&zs_r_2_w=Gerome%2C%20Jean-Leon&zs_ah=oeuvre&zs_rf=mos_a&zs_mf=20&zs_sf=0&zs_send_x=1&zs_liste_only=1 online]
*Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York [http://www.metmuseum.org/search/iquery.asp?command=text&datascope=all&attr1=%22Gerome%22&c=t%3A11%2F%2F%3Assl%2F%2Fsitemap+taxonomy%2F%2F%3AWorks+of+Art:Permanent+Collection%3A online]
*Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
*Art Institute of Chicago [http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/citi/search?artist=Gerome&keyword=&search=search online]
*Detroit Institute of Arts [http://www.dia.org/asp/search/ExecuteSearch.asp?kw=G%E9r%F4me online]
*The Museum of Fine Arts Houston [http://www.mfah.org/collection.asp?par1=17&par2=&par3=64&par6=3&par4=280&lgc=4&currentPage=1 online]
*Milwaukee Art Museum [http://www.mam.org/collections/19thcentury_detail_gerome.htm online]
*Minneapolis Institute of Arts [http://www.artsmia.org/search/index.cfm?type=artworks&term=G%C3%A9r%C3%B4me&err=no_array&err=no_array&err=no_array online]
*Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco [http://search.famsf.org:8080/search.shtml?artist=gerome online]
*National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. [http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/psearch?Request=S&imageset=1&Person=245810 online]
*National Gallery, London [http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/artistWorks?indexLetter=G&artistName=GEROME%2C+Jean-L%E9on&artistBatchIndex=1 online]
*National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa [http://cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/search/artist_work_e.jsp?iartistid=2245 online]
*Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia [http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/fcgi-bin/db2www/quickSearch.mac/gallery?selLang=English&tmCond=Gerome+Jean-Leon online]
* and many more.

References

*Benezit E. - "Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs" - Librairie Gründ, Paris, 1976; ISBN 2-7000-0156-7 (in French)
*Turner, J. - Grove Dictionary of Art - Oxford University Press, USA; new edition (January 2, 1996); ISBN 0-19-517068-7
*cite book | title=The life and work of Jean-Léon Gérôme; catalogue raisonné| last=Ackerman| first=Gerald M.| date=1986| pages=352 pages| publisher=Sotheby's Publications| location=London/New York| id=ISBN 0856673110
* Gerald M. Ackerman: "Jean-Léon Gérôme. Monographie révisée, catalogie raisonné mis a jour". ACR, Courbevoie 2000, ISBN 2-86770-137-6.
*cite book | title=Jean-Léon Gérôme : peintre, sculpteur et graveur; ses oeuvres conservées dans les collections françaises et privées| last=Catalogue of the exhibition in the Musée de Vésoul| date=August 1981| pages=190| publisher=Ville de Vésoul

External links

* [http://www.artandpopularculture.com/Jean-Léon_Gérôme Art & Pop Culture]
* [http://www.mezzo-mondo.com/arts/mm/orientalist/european/gerome/gerome.html biography]
* [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/gerome_jean-leon.html Artencyclopedia.com page on Gérôme]
* [http://www.darnleyfineart.com Darnley Fine Art]
* [http://www.artrenewal.org/asp/database/museum_template.asp?aid=9&page=1 Large gallery of Gérôme's paintings]
* [http://www.tendreams.org/gerome.htm Ten Dreams Galleries]
* [http://www.all-art.org/neoclasscism/gerome1.html Jean-Léon Gérôme in the "History of Art"]
* [http://smarthistory.org/blog/47/gerome-pymalion-and-galatea-c-1890-metropolitan-museum-of-art-2/ smARThistory: "Pygmalion and Galatea"]
* [http://www.historia-del-arte-erotico.com/1848_gerome/ Gérôme the nude]
* [http://www.jeanleongerome.org www.jeanleongerome.org] near 300 images by the artist