“The Spectacular Art of Jean-Léon Gérôme”

“By the time Gerôme died in 1904, he was recognized in America as a celebrated lion of the French art world, but also regularly criticized as a second-rate master.”

That’s co-curator Mary Morton on the once prolific and ubiquitous Jean-Leon Gérôme (b.1824), a descriptive realist and a painter of historical and fanciful panoramas who was also, in his handling and finish, an artistic heir (or second-generation follower) of Paul Delaroche and Jean-August Dominique Ingres.

Gérôme avoided the heroic depictions of Jacques-Louis David and his circle – all those fellows with last names that began with the letter “G,” like Gérard, Girodet, and Gros – and early on became the proclaimed leader of the Néo-Grec school, “with its lighthearted take on classical antiquity,” as the other co-curator, Scott C. Allan, neatly describes it.

However, beginning in 1857, Gérôme’s artistic production tilted heavily towards Orientalist and historical genre pictures, with the later focusing on antiquity, the 17th century, and the Age of Napoleon. One of these works, “The Death of Caesar” (1859-67) is pure visual theater, depicting the assassination in its immediate aftermath.

That was one of the cool things about Gérôme, his sense of drama (he frequented the theater and opera), which today might be pegged as an eye for the cinematic. His gladiator pictures best capture this, and they are bound to impress anyone who hightails it up to the Getty by September 12 and ponders “Pollice Verso (Thumbs Down)” (1872) or “The Christian Martyrs’ Last Prayer” (1863-1883).

Reshaping the Near East

“Thanks to Gérôme,” says Dominique de Font-Réaulx, “the Orient seemed to be an immutable scene that Western beholders could contemplate eternally.”

The painter, with seemingly indefatigable energy, made several trips to the Levant – Cairo, Istanbul, Jerusalem, and so forth, where he meticulously recorded his impressions – while also utilizing the new medium of photography (which later, via his father-in-law, Adolphe Goupil, he relied upon to help disseminate his work). As Sophie Makariou and Charlotte Maury point out, “Clothing, objects and backdrops, taken in isolation, may be authentic, but their orchestration is not; the result is often theatrical, surprising, intriguing, and inauthentic.”

Even worse, for art critics as well as for sociologists and people on the lookout for ways to be offended, Gérôme has been accused of promulgating cultural stereotypes (as if the West doesn’t do it to this day!). This wasn’t so much the case at the time, because French citizens were eager for dazzling images of the world beyond France, let alone Europe, but has accumulated in the tumble of decades since. Well, it’s like this: Gérôme was a painter who took liberties, as if he were writing historical novels. The pictures most often frowned upon are those that seem to depict Western models in ornate, Middle Eastern bathhouses, but perhaps one should just take a breath and regard Gérôme as something of a Romantic in Realist clothing, with a bit of Delacroix and a lot of Böcklin thrown in, who thus produced exotic-erotic pictures that were ideal for slipping into and losing oneself.

For example, “The Grief of the Pasha (The Dead Tiger)” (1885) is clearly a product of the imagination: the seated pasha gazes mournfully at his large Nubian tiger, lifeless at his feet on an ornate carpet, roses strewn about and two massive candlesticks on either side of the immense animal. You see, Gérôme was good at this sort of thing, his mix of oriental horrors and sensualities, and presumably he knew exactly what sort of response – one of awe and astonishment – he was trying to elicit from his viewer.

All of which leads me to my first complaint about the show’s accompanying catalogue: It’s boring! Many of the scholars who contributed to it, not quite knowing how to approach their subject, opted for separating the fictional from the factual (probably the thing that matters least where art is concerned), like people dissecting a novel by Jules Verne instead of simply enjoying it.

The real casualty in this is Jean-Léon Gérôme himself, because we never get a sense of the man behind the painting. We miss out on the excitement of this artist as a passionate human being (a duel, apparently fought over a woman, is briefly alluded to in the chronology), and I have to stress that this is really too bad – because it’s such a lavish and well-illustrated book.

My second complaint about the catalogue is the quality of the translations, although the opening salvo, by Guy Cogeval, may simply be ludicrous under the best of conditions. Or is it possible that the French – who know a thing or two about lingerie, perfume, and the boudoir (more cultural stereotyping!) – are really this inept after the Sorbonne has granted them their Ph.D? You have to wonder.

I’ll make an exception for Jonathan Sly’s translation of Gautier’s incisive reviews in the “Anthology.”

Gérôme passed out of favor because the Impressionists came along and the artist – “deliberate, calculated, precise, and coolly linear,” as Mary Morton says – became yesterday’s news. Cézanne and Manet, Gauguin and Van Gogh… this was the new generation, and boy was it exciting! And so Gérôme, poor soul, sank like a stone to the bottom of the pond.

On the heels of recent scholarship, a critical and public reevaluation is taking place. Gérôme will never be seen as a groundbreaker, or as a seminal figure in the art world, but this exhibition keeps him in the running game. What has not suffered a loss of respect is his uncanny ability to frame a scene or subject so that it sits at its most powerful – as in “Golgotha (It is Finished)” (1867) or even “The Tulip Folly” (1882). Let me add to this Gérôme’s use of color, which can be looked at and looked at and looked at again – visual perfume! – in “The Carpet Merchant (The Rug Merchant in Cairo)” (1887) or “For Sale (The Slave Market)” (1871), and in so very many other works in this lavish and dazzling exhibition.

The Spectacular Art of Jean-Léon Gérôme is on view through Sept. 12 at the J. Paul Getty Museum in the Getty Center, 1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles. Hours, Tuesday through Friday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Free; parking, $15. Call (310) 440-7300 or go to getty.edu. ER

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