Artist of the week
Palms, a tiger and a sculptor’s studio
Jean-Léon Gérôme
Jean-Léon Gérôme, a French painter with a smooth, exact finish, from the 1850s to about 1890. Fan palms stand against a pale violet sky, and a tiger lies with her cubs above a dark pool. Men pray in rows under red and white arches, others cast bullets at a stove in a Cairo coffee house, a soldier in pink satin wears a tall wrapped headdress, and a woman in a green scarf leans on a carved wooden balcony. In a studio, Pygmalion embraces his statue as she comes to life.
As a puzzle
Start with the clearest shapes: the striped arches and the prayer rug in the mosque, the pink satin jacket, the sculptor’s blue tunic, the gold coins at the woman’s neck. The tiger’s den is nearly black above her, and the coffee house is dim and brown, so both are slow. The palms are one soft green on a plain sky. Prayer in the Mosque takes a high count; keep the others moderate.
A good size here: 40–200 pieces.
Also filed under Academic Painting
Subjects here: PortraitsAnimalsInteriorsMyths and Legends
7 pictures, pick one to build
