French Academic Painter and Sculptor, 1824-1904 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. 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. G??rôme 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 (Mus??e 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) image of the painting and A portrait of a Lady (Mus??e 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 G??rôme 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 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 threat of a lash. In 1854 he completed another important commission of decorating the Chapel of St. Jerome in the church of St. S??verin 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.   Related Paintings of Jean-Leon Gerome :. | King Candaules | Interior of a Mosque | L Eminence grise | After the Bath | Gerome Eminence grise |
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Peter Sheaf Newell
Cartoonist and illustrator American 1862-1924
Stefano Ussi
Italian, 1822-1901,Italian painter. He received his formal training at the Accademia delle Belle Arti in Florence (1837-50, expelled 1838-40) under Tommaso Gazzarini (1790-1853), Pietro Benvenuti and Giuseppe Bezzuoli. In 1854 he won a scholarship to study in Rome and for several years worked on the large-scale painting that established his reputation, the Expulsion of the Duke of Athens from Florence
Robert Frederick Blum
Major figure painter and illustrator American , 1857-1903 was an American artist born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on the 9th of July 1857. He was employed for a time in a lithographic shop, and studied at the McMicken Art School of Design in Cincinnati, and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, but he was practically self-taught, and early showed great and original talent. He settled in New York in 1879, and his first published sketches of Japanese jugglers appeared in St. Nicholas. His most important work is a large frieze in the Mendelssohn Music Hall, New York, Music and the Dance (1895). His pen-and-ink work for the Century Magazine attracted wide attention, as did his illustrations for Sir Edwin Arnold's Japonica. "Man before grilled entrance"In the country and art of Japan he had been interested for many years. A Daughter of Japan, drawn by Blum and W. J. Baer, was the cover of Scribner's Magazine for May 1893, and was one of the earliest pieces of color printing for an American magazine. In Scribner's for 1893 appeared also his Artist's Letters from Japan. He was an admirer of Fortuny, whose methods somewhat influenced his work. Blum's Venetian pictures, such as A Bright Day at Venice (1882), had lively charm and beauty. He died on the 8th of June 1903 in New York City.