Jean-Leon Gerome’s Mesmerizing Orientalist Paintings…Before the Audience, ca. 1881, Naj
Jean-Leon Gerome’s Mesmerizing Orientalist Paintings…Before the Audience, ca. 1881, Najd Collection, Switzerland, Metropolitan Museum of ArtThe Almeh, 1873, Najd Collection, Metropolitan Museum of ArtPrayer in the Mosque, 1871, Metropolitan Museum of ArtJean-Leon Gerome was one of the preeminent Orientalist painters of the 19th century. He traveled to Turkey and North Africa, bringing back sketches and accessories used to produce his Orientalist paintings, which would constitute one-third of his oeuvre.Gerome’s Orientalist paintings are beautifully rendered with intricate details that are authentic in their color and forms. As with most Orientalist paintings, Gerome’s works are composite pictures that are finished to perfection - a Western fantasy of the exotic East. According to Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website the mosque depicted in Prayer in the Mosque had fallen to disuse by the time Gerome had visited Egypt in 1868. * The brilliant colors, decorative backgrounds and the exotic figures are so splendidly rendered that it is hard to imagine it is in some part make-beleive. *www.metmuseum.org -- source link
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