REDO - REALISTIC

1) Description

“Jean-Léon Gérôme, View of Medinet El-Fayoum, c. 1868–1870”

In this piece, Gerome creates an imaginary scene to replicate what life would be like in ancient Egypt, in a city close to Cairo. In this scene, there seems to be a procession headed towards a temple. I assume that this procession might be a wedding procession, because the two people at the back (on the brown and black horses) of it are wearing the brightest clothes and based off of the dresswear of both people, it looks like the person to the left could be female, because they aren't wearing a white headwrap like most of the other people there.

2) Analysis

Because Gerome is considered to be a great painter in the "Academicism" field, I assume that the point of his piece is to accurately depict what life in Egypt would be like at that time. I think Gerome wanted to accurately capture this by being as realistic as possible. When I was viewing works in the gallery, I was immediately drawn to this piece because of how clear the image appeared to be, despite how small it was. In the piece, one of the things that I almost immediately realized was how Gerome created rhythm in the repetition of the bodies moving in the procession. Their darker value in contrast with the lighter color of the sand creates a separation that guided my eyes to the white building in the background. Another thing Gerome uses to his advantage is space. In this context, I consider the mostly flat, non-textured parts to be negative space. Gerome balances the positive and negative space in a way that dictates how the viewers eyes should move. I believe that he intentionally uses the negative ('empty') space of the plain sand and sky to shape the rest of the scene. And although (most) of the lake could be considered negative space, the bridge with the person standing on it, and its reflection included move towards the temple.

3) Interpretation

I feel that a word that comes to mind when I view this piece is "regality". I think that this is a depiction of a very dignified ceremony and/or group of people. I think that the richness in the tones of the sky and sand, in addition to the pops of color across the crowd gives a very crisp and purposeful feeling to the painting.

4) Judgement

I'm not sure of a lot that can improve this piece, but one thing that comes to me is the background shading. I understand that the background isn't supposed to be the most prominent part, but I think that it should be given something else. Possibly a darker shade than the foreground sand, or some type of better fading. I'm not exactly sure how clear that day is, and how far I'd actually be able to see if I were standing at the perspective of this piece on that actual day, but something about the background feels slightly off to me.

Despite that minor detail, I think that this work of art is incredibly successful in achieving its goal - to inspire and educate. And it is definitely a valued work of art because it's part of a very important movement which valued clarity of facts and the work itself that attempts to illustrate these facts.