Phryne before the Areopagus

Jean-Léon Gérôme made paintings that look like photographs of events that never happened. His Orientalist scenes, slave markets, mosque interiors, snake charmers, are built on sketches and objects gathered during travels in Egypt and Turkey, then assembled in a Paris studio into something far more composed than anything he saw. The finish is enamel smooth and the detail relentless. Pollice Verso, with its gladiator standing over a fallen opponent while the crowd gestures downward, invented much of how we picture the Roman arena, and fed directly into twentieth century cinema. He taught for decades at the École des Beaux-Arts and fought the Impressionists hard, calling their 1900 exhibition a disgrace to French art. He was also a serious sculptor in his later years, working in marble, bronze and tinted materials. Edward Said’s critics have made his Orientalist subjects contested ground, and the paintings are now read as much for what they reveal about French attitudes as for their craft.