GÉrÔme has his allotted place among the illustrious French painters of the Nineteenth Century. He achieved success, honours, official recognition; and he deserved them, if not for the compelling personality of his temperament, at least for his assiduous industry, his accurate, methodical, and picturesque way of seeing people and things, and the amazing and fertile variety both of his choice and his interpretation of subjects.
He was a pupil of Paul Delaroche and seems to have inherited the latter's adroitness in seizing upon the one salient and emotional detail in a composition. Like that historian-painter of the Death of the Duc de Guise, GÉrÔme excelled in always giving a dramatic stage setting to the persons and the events which he knew how to conjure up with such learned and scrupulous care.
In spite of his versatility, and notwithstanding that many a vast canvas has demonstrated his ingenious and resourceful talent, he takes his place beside Meissonier because of the extreme importance that he attached to accuracy and precise effects.
PIERRE LAFITTE & CIE, PARIS
PLATE II.—RECEPTION OF THE SIAMESE AMBASSADORS
(In the Museum at Versailles)
This picture possesses a curious interest because it shows in what a picturesque manner GÉrÔme could execute a painting officially ordered. He received the commission in 1865, through the Imperial Household. He has rendered with much felicity all the pompous and highly coloured aspect of the scene, very effective in the sumptuous setting of the Salle des FÊtes at Fontainebleau.
Although it is some years since he passed away, GÉrÔme has left behind him living memories among his friends and pupils, many of whom have in their turn become masters. Both as man and as artist he was and still continues to be profoundly regretted, independently of all divergences of opinion, method, and temperament.
A master of oriental lore, a curious and subtle antiquarian, a chronicler of ancient and modern life, rigorous at times, but more often distinguished for his charm and delicacy,—such is GÉrÔme as he has revealed himself to us through the medium of his abundant works.
Whether he paints us the men of the Desert and the almas of Egypt, or shows us the gladiators of the Circus, the death of Caesar, the leisure hours of Frederick II, the dreams of a Bonaparte, or takes us to the Winter Duel in the Bois de Boulogne after the Masked Ball, a picture that achieved much popularity, GÉrÔme never fails to catch and hold attention by startling contrasts of colour combined with a fine accuracy of line work.
But what matter the means through which an effect is sought if they prove successful both in the general impression produced by the work as a whole and in the charm of the separate details,—in other words, if the result justifies the effort?
Effort, in GÉrÔme's case, meant literally a valiant and noble persistence. He was ceaselessly in search of something new. In spite of assured fame, he never repainted the same subject. During the later years of his life, his ambition was to be at the same time an illustrious painter and a sculptor of recognized merit; and in this he succeeded. His attempt to revive, after a fashion of his own, the precious lost art of antique sculpture, although greeted with a wide divergence of opinions, remains a noteworthy achievement.
On the eve of his eightieth year and abrupt decease, GÉrÔme still laboured with the ardour and the splendid faith of youth. He sets an encouraging example, as fine and as stimulating as the best of his splendid pictures.
