Closely following upon the Cock Fight, we must recall Anacreon with Bacchus and Cupid (1848, Toulouse Museum) which Gérôme himself characterized as a "lifeless picture," and which nevertheless earned him a second class medal. Later on he was destined to treat this same subject in marble (Salon of 1881). The polished and somewhat affected grace of Anacreon must have especially pleased the painter, because in 1889 he produced a whole series of compositions of delicious daintiness, entitled Cupid Tipsy. On the same order of ideas, mention must be made of Bacchus and Cupid Intoxicated (1850, Bordeaux Museum), and in addition to these, under the head of what may be called his Hellenic canvases,—in which he succeeded in conjuring up with magic skill the splendours and graces of that immortal mother of letters and arts, Greece beloved by the gods,—the following pictures, The Idyll (1853), full of charm and solid erudition; The Greek Interior (1856), of sure and penetrating art; King Candaules (1859), in which the sumptuous beauty of Nyssia illumines the bed-chamber of a Heraclid, 700 years B.C., and in which the interest of the picturesque anecdote is enhanced by the artist's marvellous documentary knowledge.
In the same group must be mentioned Phryne before the Tribunal (1861, reëxhibited in 1867), of charming subtlety, but with a little too much emphasis, perhaps, on the irony of its psychology; and, of course, Socrates Seeking Alcibiades at the House of Aspasia, analogous in inspiration, and, as it happens, belonging to the same year; and lastly Daphnis and Chloe (1898).
PIERRE LAFITTE & CIE, PARIS
PLATE VI.—THE LAST PRAYER
(In a Private Collection, United States)
The amphitheatre is filled to overflowing with the crowd that has gathered to witness the martyrdom of the Christians. Around the vast circle, unhappy victims agonize upon the cross. In one corner of the arena, a group of men and women, condemned to die, confess their new faith in an ardent prayer, while from the opened subterraneous passage the ravenous beasts are advancing upon their human prey.
Italy also, with all her memories, furnished Gérôme with scenes of striking contrast, evoked from the vanished past, spectacles at once sumptuous and barbaric. He caught this atmosphere with rare felicity. Paestum (1851) commands attention because of its group of buffaloes, which the Goncourts praised for "their ponderous weight of head, the solidity of their huge bulk, the grouping of their attitudes, the shagginess of their coats, the prevailing sense of grateful coolness."
It is necessary to assign a place apart, in this series, for the Augustan Age, Birth of Christ (1855, Amiens Museum). In his own private opinion, confided to his cousin Timbal, Gérôme held that this enormous composition, measuring ten metres in length by seven in height, lacked inventiveness and originality. It is true that the artist's personality is not clearly revealed in this picture, which is a sort of vast commentary on a phrase by Bossuet, and indisputably draws its inspiration from the Apotheosis of Homer by Ingres. Nevertheless, no one can dispute its noble qualities, and to borrow a phrase from Théophile Gautier, its "high philosophic significance." Beside Augustus Caesar deified appears Rome, in the form of a woman, helmeted, armed with a buckler, and clad in a red chlamys; then Tiberius, standing on the right, then statesmen and poets, Caesar, Cleopatra, Anthony, Brutus, and Cassius grouped together; lastly the throng of all nations on their knees, admirably rendered. In the centre, relatively unimportant in this immense assemblage, are the Virgin Mary, the Infant Jesus, and St. Joseph, treated in a curious fashion, modelled on the manner of Giotto. "It is the chief ornament of the Amiens Museum," Gérôme would say jestingly; for he had largely lost respect for this prolonged and important effort which represented two years' work of a serious and diligent student of history.
The two flawless masterpieces of Gérôme, the eloquent interpreter of ancient Rome, are unquestionably his Ave Caesar, Morituri te Salutant (1859), purchased by Mathews, in which, in the presence of a bloated, overfed Vitellius, sitting pacifically in his imperial box, not far from the white Vestals, crowned with verbena, gladiators are fighting and dying in the circus, and Pollice Verso (1874) in which these same gladiators are represented, no longer as Roman soldiers, but in the exact costume that they wear at the moment when the Emperor and the crowd, ravenous for carnage, turn down their thumbs as signal for the death stroke. This work, published by Goupil, did not appear at the Salon. We must cite further Gaius Maximus, the Chariot Race, which aroused legitimate enthusiasm in America; The Wild Beasts Entering the Arena (1902) and we must not forget that Gérôme also expended his energy as a sculptor upon these same attractive gladiatorial figures.