a C n m V. 0w. Ta ”P G. m .4— SECTlO/V I. GEROME SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION GEROME * A COLLECTION 'WORKS 0E 7.‘L. GEROME IN ONE' HUNDRED PHOTOGRAVURES Emnm M'EDWARD STRAHAN ',C:C)PX’ IQCD. 6153.’ PRINTED FOR RELLA V1 BREYFOGLE, 615 THIRD AVENUE, LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY. _ NEW YORK SAMUEL ‘L. HALL 757 BROADWAY 1881 x was 375%,: “1‘;qu «3";qu - _»‘:.1_:a.,«’.¢«.\\39 Sh) vnvw‘aa TIU?AQWH Rq- Pfiéxfor ’4'me ‘ GIFT ' mm ck; Trow'n Printing and Bookbin‘ding Company, New York. 1 v7.3a”! A H M ‘nl i“) "H ‘l A '1‘ ma“; imam, '- m“mm,x _ »m% ,r ‘, x,’ ‘ \ . , j. \ . \ g r . ‘ ‘ \ 1 , V \ n _ a; g, -~.V '5': ‘ i i / . .. PHOTOGRAVURE Kc IMP GOUPIL 30 C?‘ / A | Nekaork. Samuel L Hall H "" ' ' ~F ND5’53 G1 554 v.1 A rt 55m§nar INTRODUCTORY AND CRITICAL. AINTE-BEUVE has somewhere a pleas— ant word on our modern rage for types. “In the present day things march on swiftly, and you pass immediately into a state of ‘type.’ We do not wait for fifty years of probation and quarantine; you are a tyfle at gunshot distance and on the morrow of your decease. T yfie, in our mythology (y‘ abstrac- tions, in our new asthetic Pantheon, is what was formerly called demi— god, DIVUS. You have your altars. A type no longer has defects. We criticise and cheapen an individual, a genius in his fersonal and fri— vate capacity; we do not cheafen our tyjfies. Towards them there is an amnesty ready for everything, and everything belonging to them is transfigured. We accept them in confidence; we do not give them advice; we do not discuss. They have attained their immutability; they are, because they are. They do not now have to make uf and fresent their accounts. What was called an error yesterday, fresto / has changed its name, and become the plain trait of character and the Signifying thing, when once they are granted to be tyfes. They are consecrated.” It would be pleasant to be able to hear what will be said of Gerbme the fainter when he has passed into his justification, and when the critics, who now exert themselves because there is a chance of correct- ‘ ing him, will have nothing to do but to estimate him as a specimen. To compass this, they will measure him by his central and higher mmsm INTRODUCTORY AND CRITICAL. worhs; by the tendencies which are distinct in his greatest things, and only tentative in his ephemera. But is it not possible for one who hnows and loves him well to project himselfi with a special eflort, into the twentieth century, and construct, by main force, the estimate which will then be made of him .9 I should lihe to try. The taste of the time tends to drift diametrically from him, and to exult in a triumflhant painting of still-life. Yet, I hope, when Vol/on and [Wunhacsy have worked all their will ,' when realism is quite perfected and done; when the last veil of distinction shall have disappeared between the perishable object, in its reeh and sweat and savor, and its immortality on canvas ,° that Gerbme will only shine out the distincter for the ‘ contrast. The last of the nineteenth century classical flainters, “growing old in an age he condemns,” I have yet hopes that there is a brain in his worh which will live on when paint- ing of the senses shall have had its day. His more characteristic creations are deeply moving4fiercz'ngl31/ pathetic— oems. Such are the POLLICE VERSO, the AVE CAESAR, the NILE PRISONER, the EGYPTIAN RECRUITS, and other inventions that are distinct afpeals of eloquence. The purpose to be moving, to grife the heart, is egually proud and challenging in its fretension when he selects pure history, as in the DEATH OF CAESAR, the PHRYNE, the CAESAR AND CLEOPA’I‘RA, the DEATH OF N EY; it shows itself, too, with distinctness, in inventions which he values less, as the MASKED DUEL, the fortrait of RACHEL. In each such composition, even in the his— torical ones, he builds frecisely lihe the poets in their more deliberate , epical worhs; he constructs, in forms of chosen beauty, an afifaratus for the enslavement of the imagination,—essays a careful and calcu- ‘ lated grasp of our feelings, just such as was essayed when “Christabel” ' was written, or “Sohrab and Rustum,” or “The Pot of Basil,” or “In a Balcony,” or “ 0n ne Badine Pas avec l ’Amour,” or “Albert Sav— arus,” or “ The Scarlet Letter,” or “The [Mill on the Floss.” [t is a fioor definition of narrative fioetry which will not accommodate all these diflerent worhs, along with the “Ave! Cesar, Morituri te Salutant.” And let me pause to point out here that the invention of delib- erate, suggestive poems on canvas was a notion introduced by the French school (f art. I have never seen this claim enunciated in set terms; but let us see if it be not a valid one. The excefltions that would naturally be made—the appeal for other nations—would, w. .r_v V“. INTRODUCTORY AND CRITICAL. perhaps,“ occur in thinking (f such fainted foems as the Pisan “ Triumfh of Death,” or Raphael’s “ Calumny.” Attention to the history of art will restore this innovation to the French. It began with them as soon as they formed a school, and Gerbme continues the efort, we may even suppose, with a sense of national responsibility. ' About 1640, Poussin, a French artist, painted the “Ft in Arcadia 9’ Ego. Poussin was a student of . Dominichino’s; but Poussin never . found the hint of such an invention either in Dominichino or in any Italian. It was his French intelligence, his lucid national rhetoric, which impelled him to invent a rich and moving lyrical foem, and to express it in terms of fainting. The Italians before him, in the sense of deriving their conceftions—with the doubtful exceptions at Pisa—and the Greeks before them, never got beyond the function of the illustrator. Raphael either illustrates the scenes of the Bible, or he illustrates the Psyche story of Apuleius, or he and Holbein both illustrate Lucian’s account of Ape/les’ “Calumny; ” Titian’s “Sacred and Profane Love,” frobably misnamed, is too obscure of furfose to be called a foem ; if we could find its author’s title, we should see it to be a merely didactic lecture, lihe Leonardo’s “Modesty and Vanityfl’ T he Cree/é artists only illustrated their legends, and their highest eflrorts at fathos—the “Dying . Gauls ” of their Pergamus, or the “Dirce” and “Laocoo'n” of their Rhodes—were hinted to them by history. It was for French art, in the ferson of Poussin, to intrude into painting precisely lihe a poet constructing the most moving epic he is cafable of inventing. He imagines the young Arcadians, in what Balzac calls the insolence of health, stumbling on a tomb; the tomb cries to them, with the sublime peevishness, the inexpressibly un- hafpy boast of its tenant, “ 50 was I an Arcadian / ” “Above all, who shall celebrate, in terms of fit fraise, his picture of the shep— herds ?” cries Hazlitt, in ecstasy. “The eager curiosity of some, the exfression cf others, who start bach with fear and surfrise, the clear breeze flaying with the branches of the shadowing trees, the ‘valleys _low, where the mild zephyrs use,’ the distant uninterrupted sunny prospect, speah, and forever will sfeah on, of ages past to ages yet to come.” When he thought out this thing of pure invention, not history but parable, with its musical, lyrical cry, its eloquence of the ode, and its imagery of created grace, Poussin was not Poussin—he was beneficent France, enriching the world with a GENRE. INTRODUCTORY AND CRITICAL. So does France continue to enrich it. The luczdity, the clearness of intention and exfression, characteristic of the French mind, makes this nation unrivalled in presenting a statement within narrow bounds, wherein any distracting feature is eliminated, and serves them at once in constructing either a drama or a picture, both exfressed in terms of unmixed poetry. It is indiferent whether this drama is history or fure invention. Gerome tries either mpmmu’y, still dwelling on the foetic thread that goes through the theme. It was for French art, continuing the vein which may turn to ballad or to epic with the dignity of the toflic, to adofit the splendid subject of “Octavia Faint- ing at the Reading of Marcellus’ Elegy by Virgil,” an incident before unthought of by art, and So treated as to bring a rare and dgflcult tear into Roman history. Virgil, in the Brussels fainting by Ingres, fro— .3) nounces the “Tu Marcellus Eris , Octavia listens, about to swoon; Macenas hears with a scholar’s grief, and Augustus drinhs darhly the fraise of his race, chanted from a tomb. This treatment of history is purest song. But Gerome rises from elegy and from ballad into unequalled tragedy. There are teeth and talons in his grip of a subject. One day he chooses to mahe us 152th the gladiators. Educated in brutality, deprived of noble culture on system, carefully schooled to be wild animals, chosen from the ergastulum of a venal master, they hnow but one nobility, a brave death; just before their fate—a majestic outburst thrown before from the grave—this dignity finds a cry .' “Hail, Emperor, those about ‘ to die salute thee /” Vitellius, bridling and content, withdraws himself into his creases of fat, and leans on a flabby wrist to hear the homage. It is the work, I thin/e, of a great tragic foet to select for this corrupt horde, whom we are accustomed to respect only physicall , their one great opfortunity, in which we can respect - them for their instant of magnanimity. The affleal of whole worlds of oppressed classes rings in their shout, with its peifection of unselfishness. It is too long a story to tell what a thing of beauty the artist mahes out of his treatment of this subject: how his lines of architecture, his peah of a gigantic awning overhead, aflect and still the mind with a breathless sense of lmajesty, lihe the grandest scenery of mountains. -Again, the fainter wills that we shall consider the Vesta/s. Rome invents religious celibacy, a summit of furity never imagined by Greece; but in fleifecting this chaste ideal, her votaresses are Romans still. As the beautiful youth in the arena is INTRODUCTORY AND CRITICAL. bestridden by the monstrous Gaul, theirs is the arbitration of life or death; and behold! the arena whitens with their leafling arms and fills with their breath, all demanding his destruction. What painter, what playwright, ever imagined such 4 situation, as these furest creatures, immaculate as ermines, bloodthirsty as tigers, throng the ficture with their consenting harmony of vindictiveness ? When was ever such a pencil of light concentrated on one of the moments that paint an epoch ? It is not the correctness or incorrectness of the archeology that aflects me in this fainting. Ge‘ro‘me now says that the archdology of the “Ave Caesar” is defective, and that of the “Po/lice Verso” much improved. It is neither for better or worse antiquarianism that I aflpreciate the fictures; if they were as ignorant as a fair of Rembrandts, the great brain which found such a theme as either would still seem to me astonishing, one of the rarest of human intelligences. In similar fre— eminence of invention the painter deals with the “Death of Cwsar.” How the architecture focuses with the scheme, fills it out, gives it em- fhasis and order! What painter ever invented such a combination, in which tessellated floors, and colonnades hung with the galley-prows of the pirates, seem to assist the drama, and to surge and cluster with the groups ? In the “ Casar,” as in the “Ney,” the device of leaving a dead body alone with the sfiectator in extremest foreground, and sefarated by a void space from the other personages of the scene, is used with bewildering efect, the impression being helfled by the inexorable reality with which the bodies are designed. At another time he determines to elucidate the Greeh temfler, throwing over every consideration for that of beauty, as no other historical temper ever did. He might select Helen and the Elders, but that is an old story ,' he tahes the majestic Areopagus, forgetting Eumenidean justice and hoary order before the bosom of Phryne ./ In the “Nile Prisoner” he shows some proud Mametuhe carried to Alohammed Ali for a sentence of injustice, with a smiling Sfahi playing the mandolin in his ear, lihe a musical insect that sings and stings. In the “ Egyfltian Recruits,” the free men of the desert render themselves up to military slavery, fatient and sad, with the liberties of the desert around them. In “Dante” he has revealed the curse of human loneliness of the man who had seen hell. In fifty at least of his more deliberate inventions—and, I refeat, I would judge no producer by his ejfihemeraz—this great inventor, in whose mind Heaven has placed the tower of tragedy, has created a tableau of consum- INTRODUCTORY AND CRITICAL. mate composition, of daring choice, of incisive relevancy, of memorable influence. . These pictures are fainted in the manner of the grand stylists, without the least concession to the painters of “bits,” who turn all question of merit into the treatment of still-life or bric—a—brac. To these he is as deaf as was Ingres, or David, or [Michael Angelo, or Leonardo. I am not saying which coterie is right, and I appreciate as highly as any one the marvels of the “morceau,” as represented by'able realists. But I have observed that epic fleets have a diflerent choice of words from vernacular and dialect fioets, and I do not look in the flages of my Dante for the terms of Pulcinello. I have observed that the best old frescoes discard bric-a—brac representation; that Raphael, even when he flrefares so small an easel-ficture as the “ Vision of Ezekiel," adheres V to his grand statuesque manner, his reticence Qf trivial statementsor facts about texture. I observe that Baudry, decorating the Oféra, goes to Rome. for years to catch “le pli de [Michel—Ange," and comes back, fainting texture/essly without blame. In his case this seems to be accefted as a concomitant of the grand style. At. the present day easel-fictures must be fainted, and not grand walls or big altar-flieces. Perhafls, on reflection, the critics will kindly allow these to be executed sometimes in the grand manner, with the Dantean or Leonardesgue choice of terms, as kindly as they allow Raphael’s little “ Ezekiel” to be so painted, or Baudry’s great ceiling. I enjoy with all my caflacity the works of the greater realists, and when a bit of execution comes before me that just hits a nail on the head—gives me a “bit” hafpily mastered, a texture luckily imitated, a scheme of values maintained to the faint of illusion—no sflectator is more delighted. But I have had the pleasure, on the other hand, of studying certain temjéeraments, and from what I observe cf the methods by which the bric-a-brac painters work, I am certain that there are minds that would never stoop to their successes. Gérbme, I am con- vinced, would hardly care to learn the tricks of texture, if they must be got with devices, or by the use of implements, that would make him lose absolute control over his drawing at every point. If the public knew the arts by which texture is commonly got—the wiping away (i bitumen with rags, the notching of flat brushes into something like garden-rakes, the scratching with sticks and matches, the waiting for megilp to get tacky, and then the torture of it into superb efects ,' the INTRODUCTORY AND CRITICAL. ignoble roughening of impasto into arbitrary representations of earth or wall, the shetching with the edge of the thumb-nail in wet color, the trowelling with a spatula, and other trichy juggles, more worthy of the wood-grainer than the artist—he would resfect less than he does some of the most wonderful pieces of illusion in the galleries. He would see, at least, that a certain class of tempers, and those not the meanest, ' will always scorn to be carried away one inch from controlled con— struction and drawing by a device for texture, however brilliant; that the rapturous enjoyment of chiaroscuro and harmonious values is a distinctly sensual pleasure, while that of noble composition and lucid statement is an intellectual one; that .Michael Angelo will never bring himseb‘r to sacrifice his modelling of Moses’ fudic cheeh for a device to scramble with the hair upon it ,' that the grand style, in fact, is a style of selections and of reticences, and that they are blessed who have chosen the better part. ‘3 ED WARD STRAHAJV. 19 LAFAYETTE PLACE, 188I. IDYL. g HIS graceful scene in the idle and ' " dreamy life “in the great kingdom of Nomansland,” was painted in 1852, only five years after Géréme’s first picture of the Cock-fight. We believe that it is one of his few “poesy” pictures, that is to say, not belonging to the group of classical, or historical, or Oriental. The date of this far- away scene cannot be placed by any of the histories; the country in which it takes place is visited only by dream— ers, poets, and painters, and not always with profit by them. In Sparta the young virgins ran naked in the races once a year, but they never idled under the sun in this way with young men and fallow-deer. It is not Sparta; it is nowhere, the country back of the north wind, the land east of the sun and west of the moon, a region where all things are enchanted, and where nothing is tangible and certain save the absence of the commonplace. Lucky are they whose eyelids are anointed like M. Géréme’s, who can penetrate into this delectable land and bring back to us outside barbarians such pleasant scenes of the life there, the manners and customs and people whom we may never see. And indeed, M. Géréme does not make this voyage very often—there are those envious who say he cannot—he prefers the tangible lands that we may all see, the streets of Cairo, and the Desert, and the Bois de Boulogne in the_ early and snowy morning. But, once in his life at least, when he felt the stir of a young man’s life in his blood, he made the voyage which is not included in “the grand tour,” and this is the scene that he saw there. A ID YL. semicircular fountain set in an arched niche of stone-work, overgrown with broad-leaved aquatic plants, and presided over by a carved figure of Eros sitting cross-legged and Buddha-like in a circular recess. On each side of the fountain, after the manner of heraldic supporters, a young man and a young woman, smooth-limbed and shining, and between them a spotted deer, who comes up to drink and lifts her graceful head inquiringly to the damsel. The pavement on which these three stand is composed of long, narrow bricks, which, if they were of this world, would be called Roman; by the side of the young woman stands a water-jar; her companion holds in his hand a bunch of flowers; he looks at her and she looks down, after the manner of young people in all countries, known and unknown. The light which falls on their bodies is soft and diffused, neither sunlight nor moon— light; their beautiful feet cast no shadows. There they stand, graciousand idle, no vulgar cares to wrinkle their young foreheads, no material and un- welcome duties to call them away; and the moral they preach unspeaking is that there are such things in the providence of nature as Peace and Beauty and Serenity, for if they are there in that distant country, they must be here in this world somewhere, all attributes there being but projections and shadows of some good things here, and it may be well worth our while to pause a little sometimes in our portentous bustle and seek out the better part, which is somewhere around us. It is rather curious that the head of the girl in this picture bears some resemblance to that in the por- trait of Rachel, which M. Gerome has placed in the foyer of the Theatre Francais. The young man, like his companion, has evidently devoted some unctuous attention to the arrangement of his hair, and his smile is not quite so open and pleasant as we should expect to see in fairy-land. To us the young man seems to have the bad “French” look, furtive and pre- cociously libertine. The painting of these nude figures is worthy of a professor in the School of the Beaux-Arts in Paris, and the girl’s thighs and the shoulder supporting her weight are especially fine renderings of the character of flesh, its texture and color and form. This little-known painting is of special interest, because it is an out- come of the golden period when Géréme led his small coterie of Neo-Grecs in the “chalet” of the Rue Fleurus. The young men, Hamon, Picou, and our painter, working, as Gautier euphemistically declared, with ivory palettes at tables of citrus, from unprofessional models which the theatre and opera were proud to furnish, turned out canvases of which this is the typi- cal pattern. Nothing had then been done in modern art so Greek in spirit. “.4, 1 :‘T SAINT JEROME. T different periods M. Ge'rome has de- . voted two paintings to his patron saint—this present one, exhibited in 1878, and a much larger figure executed for the Church of St. Sev-' erin. It was our fortune first to see this canvas on the walls of one of the smaller, semi-public exhibitions opened by certain of the artists’ clubs in Paris during the season when the Salon is closed, and-to see it in company with a group of the él‘eves of M. Carolus Duran. Their technical scorn of Géréme’s f‘ color” was naturally something impressive; they complained that the saint’s reverend stomach was bluish- green, and that his thighs were far too yellowish. “No wonder the lion will not touch him, 'he will soon be in the state in which Lazarus was found at his resurrection!” And they protested further that the halo around his head was composed entirely of a greenish worsted material; in which latter opinion we are bound to say they had a certain amount of reason. But they found the manner in which the lion was “put in” “bien fort,” and before the modelling and foreshortening of the old man’s body they took off their hats. Ge'rome’s undisputed skill in drawing the human body is nowhere better shown than in this most difficult academy-study; there is not a marking or a sinew, from the worn and earthy feet to the unmistakable sleep in the closed eyelids, that does not bear witness to the surety of his knowledge. The lion, too, is a noble beast faithfully given, and the spectator accepts it as a new truth in the world that the soft and SAINT yEROME. tawny side of the sleepy monarch would really make an excellent pillow for a tired head. But they who are nothing if not critical, may well be dis— posed to doubt if the painter has succeeded in giving a “ picture of holi- H ness” “tableau de sainteté, technically speaking. That the venerable hermit did not really bear in his figure or form any more direct evidences of his divine mission than M. Géréme has given us is more than probable, but when he comes to be represented in “ art ” he must be made to trans- late himself in more subtle fashion than by merely putting a ring of fire around. his head. This materialistic démz’llemem‘, this lack of ideality, is not at all confined to the French school of the present day, though it is often a very great sinner in this respect, and Géréme is by no means the most hardened. Compared with Bouguereau, for instance, who gives us Venus born from the sea—foam, and Hamadryads tormenting a satyr, with‘ the faces of pretty Parisian ladies, the Vesoul painter rises very much in our esteem; but if we place his mystical and religious paintings by the side of those of Puvis de Chavannes, or Olivier Merson, or Bastien-Lepage, we cannot but be struck by a certain want of spirituality in his style that has provoked numerous criticisms from the best Parisian writers, criticisms that, as a matter of history, have a certain value. “M. Gérome does not know either the transports of the imagination, nor the transports of the technical execution; he has the spirit of the Parisian, alert, light, and sceptical; he lacks absolutely the ideal in the sense which the Academy gives to that word; he renders marvellously that which he sees, that which he observes, but he is incapable of elevated conceptions. . . . . The internal sense of sacred subjects, as well as the sense of decorative art, fails completely in this painter.” Perhaps, but we doubt; if a painter “fails com— pletely ” in a sense of sacred things, and in a sense of decorative things, it comes to- pass that he paints vulgar and ugly subjects; e.g., subjects like M. Manet’s “Un Bon Bock.” But Géréme, who is always dignified and refined, whose style is so clean and accurate and bloodless and decorous, whose compositions are always so skilful and harmonious, he is to be set a long way from the sweaty and realistic crowd who do “lack absolutely the idealf” In fact, the critic whom we have quoted wrote before the days of M. Manet and M. Zola, or he might have modified his language. .1 J .T A, S rerr 2.3x: L— L4 $ 1‘\ MOORISH BATH. Gerome is fond of occasionally grazing one of his victims several times, a dozen variations on one theme, possibly as an opportu- nity of exhibiting the versatility of his skill, like Paganini’s concerted piece on one string. Among these subjects of his predilection is the ingenious presentation of Eastern women in the bath-houses, and indeed the contrast of graceful, warm-tinted nudity and the coolness of color and largeness of space in those vaulted marble halls, with the occasional and exceeding blackness of the Nubian slaves to give an accent, this contrast and harmony is enough to tempt a painter; and the skill of this particular painter is such that we are not at all troubled by the reflection that neither he nor any other man ever actually saw this Moorish lady at her luxurious ablutions. We may be sure that by a skilful combination of chosen models and studies of interiors the painter obtained data for something exceedingly like the scene he chose to illustrate. And it may be said that the shrinking and doubtful glance of this, slender young woman is much more like that of a beauty unaccustomed to finding herself uncovered even in privacy, than like that of the professional model, to whom her habit of nudity becomes almost as much a matter of indifference as to our lady mother Eve. An evidence of the painter’s distinction, which a surprisingly large number of his fellow-craftsmen entirely miss, is this supposition of a native timidity in undraped womanhood. In the East, the hammam, or bath, is a favorite resort of both men and women of all classes among the MOORISH BA TH. Muslims who can afford the trifling expense which it requires; and not only of human beings, but of evil genii, unfortunately, on which account, as well as on that of decency, several precepts respecting it have been dictated by Mohammed. It is frequented for the purpose of performing certain ablutions required by the religion of the faithful, or by a regard for cleanli— ness and its salutary effects, and for mere luxury. ' Edward William Lane, the distinguished Arabic scholar, says that the public bath comprises several apartments, with mosaic or tesselated pavements, composed of white and black marble, and pieces of fine tile, and sometimes of other materials. The inner apartments are covered with a dome having a number of very ' small, round windows for the admission of light. It is through these open- ings that the long and vapor—powdered rays streamidown in our present scene, and splash in brilliant little ovals on the wall and the floor and in the damsel’s hair—an effect of light which Ge'réme has amused himself more than once by depicting, with varying success. The baths in private houses are similar to the public ones, but on a smaller scale, generally consisting of only two or three chambers. It is probable that this Light of the Harem is in her own private establishment, as the chambers in the pub— lic bathing—places are much larger than the one in which she and her dusky attendant find themselves. The slave has rubbed her mistress’ supple form all over, the soles of her feet possibly with a coarse earthen rasp, and her limbs and body with a woollen bag which covers the hand as a glove, has kneaded her flesh like good dough, and is now carefully preparing the lather with soap and water and fibres .of the palm—tree, to complete the ablutions. Then will follow a cup of fragrant Coffeelfor the fair bather and I the delightful and dreamy relaxation which ensues. Let us hope that in her idle waking dreams she may have no knowledge of the barbarians and unbelievers who have ventured to profane her privacy. is, 4 12% 1:. . aflflnfizpwwwfi. $.st MOORISH BATH _ AVE! CESAR. 333 g t» OMEBODY has declared that there is more “" " ‘ ' of Rome in this painting than in avolume of Gibbon, which is a good deal to say. Most of us can remember the vivid effect it produced when first‘exhibited, and al- though the painter has since said that he ‘ had not sufficiently studied the types of his gladiators at that date, it remains undoubtedly one of the most tre-i mendous presentations of an aspect of ancient civilization that the genius and research of a modern has pre- sented to his time. The composition of the drama is broadly simple: the first series of fights in the arena is ended, a second band of gladiators, heavy and light—armed, march in for their combat, and, as they pass before the throne of the emperor, they salute him with uplifted weapons and clanging shields: “Ave! Caesar, morituri te' salutant!” “Hail! Caesar, the dying salute thee!” The yellow afternoon sun sifts down through the great purple and white awnings; the vast valley of the coliseum rises tier over tier, crowded with spectators; and slaves and attendants are dragging away with ropes and great hooks the bodies of the slain, and sprinkling fresh sand on the bloody footprints of the former struggle. In the drawing and grouping of this band of hoarse, shouting gladiators, GérOme has exhibited even more than his usual very great skill in design, and the additional figures which complete the compo- sition, the unarmed and draped [am'sz‘a or trainer who conducts them, the monumental bulk of the fallen giant in front, and the three figures of the dragging slaves in the background, are put in with the consummate skill A VE.’ CAESAR. of this draughtsman lzors contours. The lolling Vitellius abOve, behind the figures of the four flying victories which adorn the front of his tribune, and with his flabby countenance like that of a retired army commissary, receives this tremendous salute with a Roman’s complacence. To his right are the Vestals in their white robes, and to his left the temporary favorite turns her long neck slowly to listen to the idle compliments of a bearded senator. The perfumed smoke from the burning censers in front of the emperor drifts idly in the air, as he sits between chastity and its opposite; it is truly the lust of the eye and the pride of life, the world, the flesh, and the evil one. But already the brief eight months’ reign of this cruel and coarse emperor are drawing to their close, and the imperial messengers are i now waiting at his chariot-wheels to announce to him that the legions engaged in the Jewish war in Syria have proclaimed their general emperor, and, with Vespasian at their head, are on the march for Rome. The gladiatorial combats of the Romans, which they derived from the Etruscans, and they from the far East, were originally only funeral games —sacrifiCes of slaves and prisoners to the manes of a departed Chieftain. Achilles is shown adopting the Asiatic custom at the funeral of Patroclus. Virgil speaks of captives sent to Evander to be sacrificed at the funeral of his son Pallas. After a time, all considerable funerals were solemnized by human sacrifices, which, in Etruria, finally took the form of combats. These contests at first took place at interments, but afterward in the amphi- theatre; and, in process of time, instead of a funeral rite became a common amusement. The first recorded in Roman history is a show of a contest of three pair of gladiators, given by Marcus and Decius Brutus on the death of their father, in the year of Rome 49b. Our painter has neglected history for purely artistic reasons. It suited his antithesis to select Vitellius, whose name is engraved on the podium of the imperial tribune; but Vitellius never sat in the coliseum, which was not begun until the reign after his own, nor finished until the time of Titus. It is not known that there was any stone amphitheatre existing in Rome in the time of Vitellius, that of Statilius Taurus having been burned in Nero’s fire, and even the wooden ones of Scaurus "and Curio hav- ing been of a temporary nature for special celebrations. Our artist can hardly mean this grimlesson of Roman power to utter itself anywhere but at Rome. We are, therefore, to suppose that, choosing Vitellius as the type of imperial degradation, he boldly projects him into the typical amphi- theatre of the future. NT. sALUTA \ E, ? I , ..A _, 0,. A“. ‘ p r .1 [thz‘énm AVE CESAR ~ k Sirmu-I L HAN SOUVENIR or CAIRO. EROME, in this bit of Cairene street-life, exhibits some of his best flesh painting and some carefully studied drapery, and if his lovely sitter is not of the very best Arab society, she is certainly picturesque and poses very well. She is veiled indeed according to the law of the Koran, but her veil is of the slight- est, and her oval and indolent countenance may be seen by all, even by the two Bashi-Bazouks, who come down the .dark little street in their curious tight trousers. She is probably a slave and a dan- cing-girl. Eastern ladies still ob serve faithfully enough the injunction to keep their faces covered from all men, although of late years the demoralizing progress of Western ideas has altered even the observance of this custom. By the strict law of Moham- med a man is allowed to see unveiled no woman but his own wife and slave, and those female relatives to Whom the law prohibits his uniting himself in marriage; nay, he may not even see his own niece unveiled, though he may not marry her. A slave may lawfully see the face of his own mistress, but this privilege is seldom granted to any slave but'a Chamberlain. The Mussulman is allowed by the law to see the face of the woman he proposes to marry before the contract, but in practice this liberty isiseldom obtained except among the lower orders. An infringement of this commandment for the veiling of women is held by the orthodox to be extremely sinful in both parties. “ The curse of God,” says the Prophet, “is on the seer and the seen.” l—r ‘dA‘ ,. . . SOUVENIR 0F CAIRO. Yet it is very often disregarded, as in the case of our present damsel. She sits carelessly on the mastabah or stone bench outside the house, trussing up one knee with both hands in an attitude that is only ungraceful in con- ventional salons; her long pipe rests on the ground beside her, her slippers drop from the toes of her supple feet, and the multitudinous folds of her heavy trousers make a capital scheme of drapery about her lower limbs. Her dimpled and well-rOunded arm is excellently rendered by the painter’s technic, and the blank space of wall behind her gives due effect to all her “values.” The wealth of her warm and glowing color lights up the sombre and bare little street like a flame; it is worth while stumbling down the narrow passage—way, braving the many odors and scattering the many dogs of an eastern city, to come upon such a Fatimeh as this. And we hope that the coffee—house or inn in which she exercises her terpsichorean profes- sion is near by, that we may have an opportunity to rest our wearied limbs while we sip the black decoction of the Arabian berry and watch her supple dance. In 1857, three years after his trip to the Danube, Gérome visited, for the first time, both Upper andgLower Egypt, and brought back from thence a great store of sketches, studies, and souvenirs like this present canvas. Whether he verified in so doing the Arabs’ opinion of their own countries he has nowhere recorded, but it would be interesting to know if he found, with Kaab-El-Ahbar, that treason and sedition are most peculiar to Syria; plenty and degradation, to Egypt; and misery and health, to the Desert. Of women it is said by the same wise man that the best in the world (except- ing those of the tribe of Kureysh, mentioned by the Prophet) are those of Bassorah; and the worst in the world, those of Egypt. It has been the fortune of other Franks voyaging among the Arabs to hear those clever Mohammedans confess that their nation possesses nine—tenths of the envy that exists among all mankind, but there is still enough of that useful com- modity left in the Western world, among the Giaours, to induce some of them to wish that the streets of their own too practical cities furnished such brilliant artistic motives as this girl of Cairo hugging her knees by the wayside. DONKEY-BOY OF CAIRO. ALF the Orient is symbolized in this dappled beast, with its red head-gear, and the other half in this sleepy rascal, with his head of a young Memnon in ebony. The patient endurance of the ass is not a bad type of the Egypt of the present day, bullied and over- loaded both by its own masters and those coming from the greedy bourses of Europe; while the boy’s face is a revelation to eyes from the frozen North. Nothing less than a thousand years of sun could have produced him. His is like one of those faces of the colossal figures that front forever the burning sands of the desert; his mouth is like the Sphinx’s, but open, and with no secrets to utter. Truly, the wonders of this land of heat and fire are worthy the painting. As for that patient and much-abused animal, the donkey, he is almost as well adapted for pictorial purposes as for those of transportation, and the apologies of the artists are due .him for their unreasonable neglect. Who that has ever seen a neat specimen of the Equus Asz'mts, and has an eye for structural beauty, has not stopped to admire his gray and yellow dappled coat, with the black cross forever laid on his shoulders, his mincing pace, his clean little legs, and the mingled patience and thoughtfulness in his fine dark eye? Do we not learn in Judges, v. 10, that the great of the earth were accus- tomed to ride on white asses; is not the wild ass of the wilderness chanted by Job, who had the “barren land” forflits dwelling and “ the DONKEY-BOY 0F CAIRO. range of the mountains” for its pasture? Does not Xenophon, ,in his Anabasis, describe the wild ass as swifter of foot than the horse, and its flesh as like that of the red deer,,but more tender? Go to! is not this domesticated onagra worthy of having his portrait painted by Gérome? And painted here he is, to the life. Our Memnon-headed philosopher is deep enough, seemingly, to devise some such cunning scheme of plunder as that with which two of his compatriots are credited. They saw one day a countryman walk- ing along, dragging after him, at the end of a rope, his ass, and one of them said to the other, “I will take this ass from this man.” “ How wilt thou take it?” “I will show thee.” And he quietly loosed the donkey from its halter and gave it to his companion, who rode quickly away with it, while the first knave, inserting his own head insthe noose, followed the countryman till his friend was out of sight. Then he stopped, and when the donkey-owner looked around and saw his halter upon the head of a [man, he said, “What art thou?” \“I am thy ass, and my story is wonderful, and it \is this: I had a mother, a Virtuous old woman, and I went to her one day in a state of intoxication; whereupon she said to me: ‘O my son! turn with repentance unto God (whose name be feared!) 'from these sins.’ But I took a staff and beat her with it; and she uttered an imprecation against me, upon which God (whose name be exalted!) transformed me into an ass, and caused me to fall into thy possession. To—day, however, my mother remembered me, and God inclined her heart toward me; so she prayed for me, and God restored me to the human shape as I was.” And the countryman said: “ There is no strength nor power but in God, the High, the Great! By Allah! O my brother, absolve me of responsibility for that which I have done unto thee in riding thee and in other things.” Then he left the sharper to go his way, and returned to his house, distracted with anxiety and grief. His wife therefore said to him: “ What hath afflicted thee, and where is the ass?” And he related to her the story. But after some days, when he went to the market to buy himself an— other beast, 101 he beheld his own ass for sale. And when he recognized it, he advanced to it, and putting his mouth to its ear, said: “Woe to thee, O unlucky! Doubtless, thou hast returned to intoxication and beaten thy mother again. By Allah! I will never again buy thee!” And he left it and departed. 71-: x ”1... x - < ‘ (3,0meme !’ mm par f]. Gcr‘éme DONKEY BOY AT CAIRO NewYmk,, Samuel L Hall Phozoérsvurc Gouptl 2: c b . :2 ax ‘. i r . A ‘. 3 . » , i!" (e L KING CANDAULES. VERYBODY has heard (at least since this picture was painted) of the story of Candaules, King of Lydia, his beaua tiful wife, Nyssia, and the captain of his guards, Gyges. We think it is Herodotus who first tells it, how that, some twenty-five hundred years ago, when the manifold tribes of Asia Minor were in the midst of that complex stir —-nationa1, social, and dynastic—out of which afterward arose the great Persian Empire, the foolish Lydian monarch was quite “damned in a fair Wife.” Proud of her beauty, he was found one day drunken enough to vaunt it over their cups to his officer, and to put the latter under royal orders to watch that night when the queen dis- robed; and when his astonished consort detected the spy fleeing from his place of concealment, the end of that dynasty was accomplished. For, the next day, Gyges, sent for by his imperious mistress, was given the choice of his own instant death or the putting away of his master and the reigning in his stead. Like the lover of the Lombard queen in the last days of the Western Empire, the soldier chose the latter alternative, and was crowned red-handed. Naturally this subject offered many attractions to M. Gérdme: the dramatic interest of the scene, the study of the nude, and the archae— ology of an unexplored period. It was painted in 1859, the year of the “Death of Caesar,” and was one of the most notable of those paintings in which the critics protested that he had sacrificed everything else to a desire to amuse the public. It could not be denied that he had succeeded in so doing. The king, one of those broad—shouldered, narrow-witted men of KING CANDA ULES. whom history is full, is already stretched on the royal couch, and his action of watching with some apprehension the result of his plot is ingeniously given. The queen, in the act of lifting the last of her draperies over her head, stands with her graceful back to the spectator, and the captain of the . guard is escaping by the chamber door, but so openly that his discovery seems inevitable. It is perhaps worthy of record that the; painter has changed the figure of the queen since its first painting. In its former state, when the picture was engraved, the lady stood in a somewhat dif- ferent pose, with both arms elevated, and no part of her face was visible, only the back of her fair head covered with a sort of close turban. The reason for the change was evidently to complete the action by showing her in the act of detecting the unwelcome intruder. A sword, a harp, and some sprays of palm are suspended on the fluted Doric column at the foot of the alcove in which the bed is placed; at its ,head is a tripod- stand, on which rests the perfume-burner; and the tall candelabrum against the wall is ornamented at its base by a four-winged, four-armed figure, similar to those of the genii on Assyrian bas-reliefs. The coffered ceiling of the room looks very Roman, and the ornamentation of bucklers, honey- suckle-pattern, and laurels over the bed, forms a very good decorative “motif” indeed, whether it be Lydian or Parisian. The year 1859, the epoch when this picture was produced, hardly saw M. Géréme at the climax of his powers as a restorer of archaeology. The task was a difficult one, documents for the representation of a Lydian court being absolutely wanting. If the Cyprian excavations had then been made, our painter would probably have inspired himself from those treasures to represent a period of art when Eastern craftsmen borrowed Assyrian and Egyptian forms, combining whatever was decorative in those types with an unscrupulous spirit of eclectic Phoenician appropriation. Using the material at his hand, the painter seems to have arranged a scenevin French taste, the trimmings only being antique; the rue/[e for the royal bed, with its columnar forms and heavy canopy, is simply a Louis Quatorze idea, curried off with archaic ornaments. Yet the combination was more striking and ingenious than any that had then been produced, and the “King Can- daules ” was particularly praised for its archaic air. Since then, the Tana- gra figures have been discovered, and have made the modes and habits of Greek life familiar to us; and our painter, in the year of grace 1881, has undertaken a journey to Greece, whence he will doubtless be inspired with_ some hitherto impossible realizations of old Greek life. i.§.cia , J. v.7 [Mb ‘1’ L _ NC CANDAULE K1 L‘- ”1-“ film 44.... »- “- DIVERSIONS OF THE RUSSIAN CAMP. URING the year 1854, M. Géréme made a journey into Turkey and along the banks of the Danube, in company with M. Got, of the Theatre Francais,—the ‘ same actor who, only the other day, as the first of his profession ever so distinguished, received the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor. This present picture of “Camp Recreation” is one of the souve- nirs of that voyage, possibly inspired by the old story of the Czar Peter the Great, who, in his determination to have an orchestra that should be perfect in its drill, arranged one in which each performer was to have but one note in the scale for his portion, and to strike in with that note whenever required, under peril of Siberia. In the present military scene each per— former of the concert devotes himself to his part of the score with true Tartar imperturbability; only the leader in the centre of the oval which they form beats time with his two triangles, with a swing of motion that may bring him off his feet. A stout fellow aids the wind instrument by inserting the fingers of both hands into his mouth in the fashion known to whistlers all the world over. The others chant under their long moustaches with a sort of solemn enjoyment. As you follow the impas- sive physiognomies around the ring, you are reminded of Kinglake’s description of the sea of high—checked, pallid, tallow-color faces, under the same flat caps that the allies saw rise over the slopes of the Alma only DIVERSIONS OF THE RUSSIAN CAMP. the next year after Gérome’s visit. Behind them, to the right, we see the low bank of the Danube, a vessel at anchor, and a sentry; on the other side a group of their comrades, the encampment, and an officer in an uncommonly tall helmet, standing solidly with his back toward us, and the inevitable knout in his hand. Overhead is a clear gray sky, and the wild geese flying in their long V-shaped flock. The whole scene is of a sincerity and a realism which the French call “seizing.” But what won- derful portrayal of character in these small faces, many of them only half visible, but each one struck from a separate die! The “ Diversions of the Russian Camp” is probably the only picture of its artist which has never received an adverse criticism. On its ap- pearance in the Universal Exposition of 1855, along with the “Pifferaro,” the “Shepherd,” and the enormous “Century of Augustus,” Edmond About wrote as follows, embalming the present painting‘in his most aureate amber: “The ‘Century of Augustus’ is thirty-three feet long, and the public, which has a lively liking for the artist, whispered to him, with— out other criticism and without reproach, ‘Now make us more of those little pictures you do so well!’ How has Géréme acted? He has con- tributed, along with that enormous canvas, two excellent little studies,— a ‘Shepherd’ and a ‘Pifferaro.’ He has again gone bravely to work. See how criticisms are best answered! His musicians are, deliciously ugly; their big, innocent heads would do honor to an animal-painter. Their backs, familiar with the knout, bow with all complaisance under their gray hoods; they whistle and snuffle and sing, perfectly detached from every- thing of this world; their single care is to avoid a false note, which would resolve itself into blows of the knout. This military exercise they go through with the same precision as any other, while waiting for the drum to call them to the whistling concert of the bullets. The Muse who inspires them is an orchestral corporal, who struts a few paces off, in com- pany with a leaded cat-o’-nine'—tails. How finely he draws, M. Gérdmel Each fold of these soldier—coats might be signed by Meissonier. M. GérOme will go far, very far, in the art of genre—painting; but each of his forward steps carries him away from his point of departure—the simplicity of the Greeks.” The artiSt did not see fit to fulfil this prophecy of a mighty advance in genre—painting. He never painted another crowded genre-scene; for surely the Eastern subjects are not to be called so, pre— occupied as they are with the research of beauty. The “Diversions” re-‘ mains unique, universally praised—never followed up. . w...- RECREATION 'York ‘ IN THE CAMP Sam \ch 1‘ Hail TURKISH WOMEN AT THE BATH; Y this painting, the bold artist, with the privilege of his profession, takes us into an Eastern privacy most strictly forbidden to men of all kinds, and most especially to unbelievers. We can imagine some zealous, but trav- elled follower of the Prophet, attached to the embassy at Paris, for instance, gazing on this canvas, and cursing in his heart the unspeakable insolence of the Giaour who would thus lay bare the most guarded penetralia of the private life of the faithful. And if he should find in the infidel’s re- g; production of this bathing-scene a truthfulness of description that'star- tles him, he may be well inclined to attribute it to the agency of the Jinn, ' of whom bath-houses are a favorite resort, and who alone could have given to the Christian his skill and his knowledge. These ivory-skinned beauties and their attendant in obsidian are in the hararah, the principal and central portion of the bath, which generally has the ground-plan of a cross, and which is lighted from above by a number of small, round, glazed apertures. In its centre, and to the right in the picture, is a fountain of hot water rising from a base enclosed with marble, and which serves as a seat. These ladies have been through the various rites and ceremonies of their , ablutions; they have had their flesh kneaded and rubbed and soaped and cleansed again, and now, according to custom, they are reposing after their exercises and soothing themselves with fragrant coffee, while the slave _ 4;. ' my...“ a: ’ ,. m. TURKISH WOMEN AT THE BATH. brings them in the long-stemmed pipes, and the tobacco that the inter- preter of the Prophet does not forbid to his daughters. Turkish women are especially fond of the bath, and often have entertainments there, taking . V with them fruit, sweetmeats, etc., and sometimes hiring female singers to accompany them. As may be supposed, an ample period of time is devoted to their toilet: an hour or more is occupied by the process of plaiting the hair, applying the depilatory, etc., and, generally, an equal time is passed in the enjoyment of rest, of recreation, or refreshment. Lane, who spent so large a part of his life in the East, says that decorum is observed on these occasions by most females; but women of the lower orders are often seen in the baths without any covering. Some baths are appropriated solely to men; others, only to women; and others, again, to men in the forenoon, f and in the afternoon to women. When the bath is appropriated to women, a napkin, or some other piece of drapery, is hung over the door to warn men from entering. Before the time of Mohammed there were no public baths in Arabia; and he entertained such a prejudice against them, on account of the abuses to which they were liable, and because they were the haunts of evil genii, that he at first forbade both men and women to enter them. Afterward, however, he permitted men to do so, if for the sake of cleanliness, and on condition of being decently apparelled; and women also on account of sickness, etc., provided they had no suitable places for bath- ing at home. But, notwithstanding this license, it is held to be a charac- teristic of a virtuous woman not to go to a bath, even with her husband’s permission; for the Prophet said, “Whatever woman enters a bath, the devil is with her.” And as the bath is a resort of the Jinn, prayer should not be said in it, nor the Koran recited. The Prophet said, “All the earth is given to me as a place of prayer, and as pure, except the burial-ground and the bath.” Hence, also, when a person is about to enter a bath, he should offer up an ejaculatory prayer for protection against evil spirits, and should place his left foot first over the threshold. These fair daughters of the Prophet do not seem to entertain any thought of his prejudices against their luxury, nor any fear of supernatural intelligences haunting the marble corridors, unless indeed in the attentive regards they turn on the negress may be read the vague apprehension, of which indeed the Oriental is never quite free, that she may be a fflnneeye/z/ I 1; Hemline