Reconsidering Gérôme

$27.50 at The Getty Museum.

Edited by Scott Allan and Mary Morton Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) was an undisputed professional success during his lifetime. Crowds flocked to see his vividly rendered historical and Orientalist compositions, and thanks to the mass marketing of his work through mechanical reproduction, he reached audiences on an unprecedented scale. From the outset, however, his success met with critical hostility.  Émile Zola, champion of Édouard Manet, dismissed Gérôme as a cynical manufacturer of anecdotal images for…