Gérôme Week Part V – Michelangelo

Welcome to the fifth and final installment of our weeklong overview of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904).  Today we look at one of Gérôme’s most intimate and affecting pictures, Michelangelo, painted in 1849.

When discussing Michelangelo, it is important to remember that Gérôme was not just a great painter, but a gifted sculptor as well.  He made his public debut as a sculptor at the Paris International Exhibition of 1878, with a bronze group of figures called The Gladiators, which were inspired by his own painting Pollice Verso from 1872.  Gérôme had been making plaster models to use as an aid in painting for many years, and his abiding interest in artistic anatomy led naturally to modeling and sculpting.  He sculpted Omphale, a life-size depiction of the Lydian queen watching the labors of Hercules, in marble.  Other figures include Tanagra (1890) and Cupid and the Infant Bacchus.  (The French government wanted to buy Omphale, but he declined, finding the offer of purchase satisfying enough.)

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475 – 1564), of course, was the great Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer.  Though gifted in many of the arts, Michelangelo primarily thought of himself as a sculptor, and thought the art of painting, in some way, precious and effete.  His muscular figures, carved on monumental scale, reflect his vision of the inherent divinity of man and his key place in the heavens as the servant of God.

Michelangelo was the subject of many paintings by 19^th Century artists.  Joseph-Nicolas Robert-Fleury (1797-1890) painted a series of pictures about Michelangelo in the 1840s, from which Gérôme borrowed costume details.  Gérôme depicts the Renaissance master as old and blind (there is no historical evidence for later blindness, so here Gérôme takes a bit of poetic license).  An apprentice guides the old artist’s hands to one of the most famous sculptures of antiquity, the Belvedere Torso, which was an endless source of inspiration to the younger Michelangelo.

Michelangelo is, in many way, Gérôme’s most sentimental picture.  Michelangelo is old and frail, stooped and unable to see one of the great works that he loved so in his youth.  The boy, small, frail and supple, leads the older man along.  The scene is obviously Michelangelo’s studio, littered with his marbles, his hammer and his gathered drawings.

The Belvedere Torso, now on view at the Vatican, is nowhere near as sizable as that depicted in Gérôme’s painting, so again the artist takes a bit of liberty for the sake of his composition.  But look here at the composition and the close grouping of the figures.

Michelangelo and the apprentice are both contrasted in profile, one aged and bearded, the other hairless and young.  The old man’s body is lumpy and stooped in contrast to the boy who is lissome and gently curved.  The lines of the boy’s pants point upward at his own profile and Michelangelo’s, while also drawing attention to the curve of his bottom.

The torso, on the other hand, is everything Michelangelo and the boy are not.  It is monumental, vigorous, muscular, heroic and larger-than-life.  The disparity between the three figures is also the point of sympathy; it is impossible to look at the painting and not fall into reverie.

What, I wonder, was Gérôme thinking, exactly?  Is he making some comment on loss of the senses as we age … or thinking about the sense of touch, specifically?  Was he contrasting youth and age?  Or was it something else?  I prefer to think that Gérôme, one of the great masters of his age, was also making a comment on the spiritual, on the idealizing quality of art.  Both Michelangelo and the boy reach out to touch an idealized torso, and vision of the divine, a view of humanity’s spiritual perfection made flesh (or stone).  What Gérôme wanted to say, I believe, is that when we touch art, it touches us, and brings meaning and transcendence into our lives.

For years this picture hung at the Dahesh Museum in New York, a haven for serious art connoisseurs and students which has, sadly, closed its doors for now.  The museum frequently has travelling exhibitions (most recently in Dubai) and if Michelangelo comes near you in one of these shows, I strongly urge you to see it.

Gérôme Week Part IV – Duel After the Masquerade

Welcome to the fourth installment of our weeklong overview of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904), one of the most celebrated masters of his time, and now little more than a footnote to the general public in the wake of Modernism.  (Ah, but how he is cherished by connoisseurs and the many artists working to restore the skills and ideals of the classical world, the Italian Renaissance and the Beaux-Arts tradition!)

Duel After the Masquerade, painted in 1857, is one of the most remarkable and haunting pictures in Gérôme’s oeuvre.  The picture depicts the aftermath of a duel after a costume ball – a foggy morning in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris.  Pierrot is dying in the arms of the Duc de Guise; a man in the costume of a Venetian doge examines the wound while Domino behind them is overcome with emotion and remorse.  To the right, the victor, in the costume of an American Indian, leaves alongside Harlequin.

What is it about Duel After the Masquerade that is so suggestive, so disquieting, so evocative?  Is it the fact that we are looking at the last moments of Pierrot’s life?  Surely not, as we have seen hundreds of pictures featuring men dying.  Is it the look of concern and consternation of his fellows?  Or is it simply the fact that a man in clown’s makeup is always both more-and-less than human…?

The point of the duel can be deduced by Gérôme’s clever use of costume.  Pierrot is a pantomime character; a sad clown in love with Columbine, who usually leaves him for Harlequin.  Pierrot is the quintessential loser – he is too naive for his own good, is the butt of pranks, and invariably trusts the wrong person.  Harlequin, who is leading the winning duelist away, on the other hand, is a servant of the devil, helping chase the souls of the damned to hell.   Clearly, these two men have not tried to kill each other over a point of honor, but over a woman and, in Gérôme’s picture, evil has triumphed.

And perhaps it is that – the clear triumph of evil – that is so haunting in this picture.  The doomed Pierrot is clearly not a villain, and probably not the aggressor, either.  Those supporting his body during his final moments are too horrified, too gentle, too dismayed for the dying man to have been an agent of evil.  Indeed, Harlequin leads the Indian away (as he leads away damned souls) with their backs to us, as if we are unworthy of their regard.

What is remarkable about Duel After the Masquerade is how different it is from the rest of Gérôme’s body of work.  We have seen his mastery of ornate detail (from pillars and scrollwork, to tapestries and marble), but aside from some detail on the doge’s costume, there is none of that here.  We have also looked at his remarkably lush use of color – but the color scheme of Duel is extremely muted.  Much of the picture is white (or  off-white), a non-color, the color of death.  (Black, on the other hand, is all colors; white is the color of the void.)  Gérôme marvelously obscures the trees and two carriages in the background; this is not some impressionist technique, but, rather, a superb evocation of fog, slowly burning off with the dawn.  It is a brilliant use of a wintery palette, and quite unlike his other work.

Gérôme poses his players in a dramatic fashion.  The characters to the left are larger, more delineated, and Pierrot is outlined by the colors of the men around him.  Indeed, the red of the doge’s robe and angle of his elbow seem to point directly at the dying man’s wound – a dramatic drop of blood on the white costume.  His face is covered in white makeup, but his arm now also has the white bloodless quality of death.

These figures are anchored to those on the right by the cloak in the snow that bridges them together.  The figures walking away seem to merge into the fog and nothingness – they deliver the necessary information for the narrative, but never keep us from the great drama of the dying man on the left.

A magnificent painting – and an atypical piece from a great master.  We will further explore Gérôme’s versatility tomorrow with a look at his painting of Michelangelo.

More Gérôme tomorrow!

Gérôme Week Part III – Éminence Grise

From the extremely graphic Pollice Verso, we now move to the extremely subtle with Gérôme’s 1873 picture Éminence Grise.

Éminence Grise (French for grey eminence) is one of Gérôme’s most quiet compositions, and one that perfectly captures the man’s innate sense of Romanticism.  The phrase originally referred to François Leclerc du Tremblay (1577 – 1638), also known as Père Joseph, a French Capuchin friar who was a confident and agent of Cardinal Richelieu.  “Grey eminence” over time came to mean a powerful advisor who operates secretly or unofficially – an often malefic power behind the throne.  (Think Karl Rove with holy orders, greater intelligence and panache.)

Père Joseph began his professional relationship with Richelieu in 1612 – and the full extent of the services he rendered to the Cardinal are still shrouded in mystery.  In 1627, Père Joseph was involved in the siege of La Rochelle; he also colluded with Richelieu to defeat the Habsburgs prior to unifying Europe in the hopes of resurrecting the Crusades.  As agent to the Cardinal, Père Joseph was involved in the 1630 Diet of Regensburg to block the emperor’s plans, and then advocated the intervention of Gustavus Adolphus.  Throughout all of these intrigues (and many of them form the backdrop of Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers),   Père Joseph maintained a monkish austerity and simplicity.  Like many of the truly powerful, he sought to hide behind a mask of simplicity.

Gérôme’s Éminence Grise depicts Père Joseph descending the grand staircase of the Palais Cardinal.  Let us look at Gérôme’s composition for a moment.  The figures on the upper and lower stairs all form a perfect arrow, pointing at Père Joseph.  Add to that, all of the figures in the picture are looking at the friar, so the focal point is unmistakable.

To maintain a fluid motion for the eye, Gérôme has a streak of sunlight (note that none of the lamps are lit, so this must be light from an unseen window) on the lower right hand of the canvas, snaking up a few steps, casting little daubs of light against the wall, and then ending with another figure looking at the friar from behind a banister.  These little things, so often unregistered by the mind but enticing to the eye, are the components that drive the ‘motion’ of a picture – and Gérôme’s mastery of composition is one of the most fecund facets of his genius.

Look, too, at how Gérôme directs his players.  The friar, in sandals and rough-hewn robe, is oblivious to the obsequious bows of the courtiers around him.  Père Joseph gazes into his devotional book, but are his thoughts on religion, or public policy?  He stands before another of Gérôme’s wonderfully realized tapestries, here a symbol of power and monarchy.

The people on the stairs are a wonderfully diverse bunch: musketeers, courtiers, churchmen (how wonderfully the red robe of the cleric catches the light, with an almost tactile satiny finish), and palace guards.  Their bodies are bowed but their heads are slightly elevated – both looking at Père Joseph and hoping to be noticed.

Of course, the railing of the staircase, the lamps, the ornate costuming and the marble pillars are delineated with Gérôme’s customary pitch-perfect draftsmanship and ornate attention to detail.

Looking at Gérôme’s artistry, it is perhaps best here to also discuss his reputation as a teacher.  Gérôme taught at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris for 40 years, and he was also co-creator (with Charles Bargue) of celebrated Drawing Course  (“Cours de Dessin”) first published in Paris in the 1860s and 1870s.  These 200 lithographs were copied by art students around the world before attempting to draw from a live model.  The course was divided into three sections, each more difficult.  The Drawing Course had been unavailable for decades until it was reconstructed by historian Gerald M. Ackerman and artist Graydon Parrish in a heroic act of reconstruction.  Anyone interested in serious arts training should obtain a copy.  (See the cover below.)

A list of Gérôme’s successful students would be quite a long one, but a partial list includes: Frank Boggs, Frederick Arthur Bridgman, George Bridgman,Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, Alexander Harrison, William McGregor Paxton and Abbott Handerson Thayer.

More Gérôme tomorrow!

Gérôme Week Part II – Pollice Verso

Welcome back to our week-long overview of Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904), one of the great Artist Adventurers of the Victorian era.  Today we are looking at a picture as dramatically different from the spiritual calm of Harem Women Feeding Pigeons in a Courtyard as is humanly imaginable, the masterful Pollice Verso, painted in 1872.

“Pollice Verso” is an ambiguous Latin phrase meaning “with a turned thumb” (not necessarily “thumbs down”).  It was common during gladiatorial battles for the audience (or emperor) to express satisfaction by motioning with thumbs up or thumbs down – however, it is unknown if thumbs up meant mercy or execution.  So, this begs the question in Gérôme’s canvas: are the spectators arguing for death, or clemency?  Though it is unclear in the narrative of the painting, the faces of the spectators leave little doubt that additional blood will be shed.

Gérôme was a master at depicting enclosed space – and though the impression of Pollice Verso is of an open immensity, it, too, is an enclosed space.  The arena wall surrounding the combatants effectively closes off the picture (and any hope of escape), and the far distance in the upper left of the canvas is blocked by a mass of people.  To further emphasize that this is not open space, look at what Gérôme does with light: there are streaks of sunlight crossing the sand of the arena, and streaking up the wall and into the spectators.  If there are streaks of sunlight, there must be some obstruction overhead, casting the majority of the action in shadow.  What that obstruction is remains unknown – but look at what it does for Gérôme: he uses the light to create “arrows” pointing at the main action, and up at the people commenting on it.  Gérôme’s genius for composition is one of the many things that make him such a remarkable painter – so let’s look at some of the things he puts within his framework.

The gladiator stands above his vanquished foes, forming a tight triangle of action.  (Note how a streak of sunlight rides up his arm and helmet.)  The fallen trident underscores the triangular shape that would’ve been somewhat mitigated by the outstretched arm of the victim.  With a few deft strokes, Gérôme manages to mix blood and sand … painting a red mud that is wonderfully visceral.

Next, look at the Emperor slightly to the left over the gladiator’s helmet.  Apparently he is above the drama occurring around him: his thumb is neither up nor down, indeed, it looks as if he is sampling some savory from the dish at his left.  The woman to the right of the gladiator’s helmet seems greatly distressed at the outcome … and who is that, leaning over her shoulder?  A friend?  Or a rival of the vanquished man?

Finally, look at the bloodthirsty Vestal Virgins, all dressed in white.  Essentially priestesses, they behave with disquieting abandon, more like harpies than women with the sacred duty of maintaining the flame at the House of Vesta in the Forum.  It is one of the ugliest depictions of womanhood in the Victorian corpus, and it is somehow more disgusting than the violence at their feet.  (Have a moment, too, for the faces of the crowd one tier above the vestal virgins: lust, disdain and violence are etched on all of them.)

Other details richly ornament the picture: Gérôme has a sure hand in creating the cool feel of the marble walls, the highly ornate pillars and tapestries, and the decorative relief under the Emperor’s box.  A lesser painter would have blocked these in and filled them with dense color; Gérôme, instead, delineates each component with extensive detail.

Though a grim picture of violence, depravity and decadence, Pollice Verso is a masterpiece, and one of Gérôme’s most accomplished pictures.  It is clear to see the influence Gérôme has had on our conception of the ancient world, and his work echoes through the vision of filmmakers as diverse as D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. De Mille and Ridley Scott. 

More Gérôme tomorrow!

Gérôme Week Part I -- Harem Women Feeding Pigeons in a Courtyard

Welcome to this, the 75^th post on The Jade Sphinx.

Readers interested in art – both as connoisseurs and artists themselves – could hardly do better than spending a week in the company of Jean-Léon Gérôme ( 1824–1904).  One of the most celebrated artists and teachers of his era, Gérôme still has much to teach us.  With that in mind, we will spend the next five days looking at some of what I think are Gérôme’s finest pictures, and examine the components that make them so interesting.

Gérôme was born in Vesoul; his father was a goldsmith, and his mother a merchant's daughter. Gérôme  was something of a prodigy at school, receiving prizes in chemistry, physics and oil painting.  He started his drawing lessons at age nine and his painting tutorials at 14.  At 16, he went to Paris to study with Paul Delaroche (1797-1856).

Gérôme was a very popular student – much as he would later become a much admired and beloved adult.  He was invariably friendly and often helped out fellow students with food or pocket money.  During his third year at the atelier, the school closed following a bout of depression suffered by Delarouche.  His wife, Louise (daughter of painter Horace Vernet) had died, and a fellow student had died in a duel.  Gérôme accompanied his teacher on a trip to Rome along with two other artists, helping the older man overcome his despair.

Gérôme would later call this period in Rome the happiest of his life.  He spent his time looking at great masterworks and studying antiquities.  However, he also came down with typhoid and his mother had to come from Vesoul to care for him.  Gérôme returned to Paris in 1844 and finished his studies with Charles Gleyre (1806-1874).  Gleyre also taught Monet, Renoir and Whistler, and was also an enthusiast of the Near East – an enthusiasm that would be shared by Gérôme. 

Gérôme lived during a great period that could well be called the era of the Artist Adventurer.  At a time when travel involved health risks, physical discomforts and potentially lethal hazards that we in 2011 can only imagine, Gérôme spent much of his time exploring the world.  His first trip to Turkey happened in 1855, when he went there to make studies for a large official commission.  Afterwards, he visited Egypt in 1857.  Later travels included a three-and-a-half month excursion to the Middle East with eight friends; by this time he had learned Arabic and was a seasoned traveler as well as a lively and convivial companion. Leaving from Marseilles, they disembarked at Alexandria and journeyed up the Nile to Cairo and Giza prior to taking a train to Suez and a safari to Mount Sinai via the east bank of the Dead Sea.  Gérôme and company then moved on across the peninsula of Aquaba to Petra and finally to Jerusalem.   Later, he visited Syria and Judea, as well as Turkey, Spain and Algiers, Holland, Greece, London, Sicily and Italy.

To these travels in historical perspective – most of these places were impossibly far, distant and exotic to the average 19^th Century European or American.  And while I’m not suggesting that Gérôme was Indiana Jones with a paintbrush, I am saying that his travels were an act of heroism and exploration of a type that is no longer possible in our shrinking world.  Other adventures for Gérôme include fighting a duel and viewing the opening of the Suez Canal – in short, the swashbuckling Gérôme makes the squalid episodes in the lives of 21^st Century “street” artists look like weak tea, indeed.

Between periods of intense work and travel, Gérôme found time to marry and have a family -- four daughters and one son, Jean (who wished to be a painter, as well, but died in his 20s).  As Gérôme  aged, he became a celebrated teacher and something of a national institution.  He was a Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, and entitled to a full military funeral when he died.  His Requiem Mass was mobbed by the public, attended by the President of the Senate, the Director of Fine Arts, the former President of the Republic, the mayor of Vesoul and many painters and writers.  He is buried in the Montmartre Cemetery in front of the statue of Sorrow he had cast in memory of his son Jean.

Near the end of his life, Gérôme was a vocal critic of the Impressionists.  An intelligent and perceptive man, he saw the tides of artistic training and taste changing.  Artists were giving up on drawing, on intensive training, on historical perspective, and giving themselves over to ‘feeling’ and ‘expression’ – abandoning discipline, intellectual and compositional rigor, and a centuries-old artistic tradition.  He saw the writing on the wall, and it was the first tragic step that would lead to later, more risible absurdities like Jackson Pollack, David Hockney and Marcel Duchamp.

Like many of the artists of this period who traveled to the Orient (which, at the time, was anything east of Istanbul), and who painted what they saw there, Gérôme was called an Orientalist.  Today’s picture, Harem Women Feeding Pigeons in a Courtyard, is a wonderful evocation of this style.

The composition of the picture is remarkable, ‘reading’ across the canvas from left to right a through-line of action.  The white veiled women are each distinct individuals by the color of their robes and the poise of their individual poses.  The woman feeding the pigeons extends her hand in easy grace, Gérôme depicting the birdfeed as it gently drifts towards the ground.  Look at her robe – the color is unmistakable – the same gentle tint of blue used by artists for centuries when depicting the Virgin Mary.  I cannot with certainty say that Gérôme consciously wished to evoke the Madonna, but this figure in blue feeding the flock of pigeons has a distinct Christian feel.  Surely it is significant that the light catches some of the pigeons, bleaching them dove-white, and that angels also have wings. 

The palace guard, however, in red robe and high, white hat, is a true outsider to the scene.  Unlike the women, his face is uncovered, but his skin is dark and his robe a distinct and dramatic military red.  One of his arms is behind his back, his other occupied in front of his body – he is not in any way involved in her act of charity and nourishment, which is particularly feminine.

The birds are masterfully done, flying in-and-out of shafts of bright sunlight.  Their shadows are cast on the sun-drenched steps, and they nest in the beams overhead.  The sense of flight is complete, with elegant wings suspending them mid-air, mixed with a sense of both delicacy and movement.

The most fascinating thing Gérôme does in this picture is, perhaps, the way in which he has captured the lofty space of the courtyard.  The pillars have support beams stretching back to the wall, providing a sense of depth; the pillars on the left are partially lit by the sun, providing a sense of height and scale.  One can almost feel the cool recesses of the space, hear the coo of the birds, and, perhaps, watch where one steps.

The door behind the birdfeeder leads into darkness and the cooler recesses within, while the window to the right opens out into the sun and open air.  This enclosed space –and Gérôme was a master of the enclosed space – is fully realized and complete.

More Gérôme tomorrow!