Why the Arab world is reconsidering the artworks of Jean-Leon Gerome

In-depth exhibition in Doha presents history's most influential Orientalist painter in a new light

Jean-Leon Gerome's Rider and his Steed in the Desert is on display in Doha. Photo: Sotheby's

Paintings like The Snake Charmer or The Black Bard are recognised by millions around the world, but few will instinctually attribute them to Orientalist painter Jean-Leon Gerome. Though not as famous as Vincent van Gogh or Claude Monet, Gerome was a unique painter who revolutionised Orientalist artwork, influencing thousands of artists.

Now, an exhibition in Doha titled Seeing is Believing: The Art and Influence of Gerome seeks to unpack this master painter and examine the last impact his work had on not just the art world, but western society’s perception of the Middle East for generations to come.

“Gerome was the most influential, marketed and successful artist in 19th century France,” curator Emily Weeks tells The National. "His reputation was international. His prestige, his fame, became also incredibly great throughout America and Britain, more broadly throughout Europe, even reaching Japan and Russia.

“His visions and creations shaped a world view. It shaped people's perceptions of the Mena region, so to present Gerome and his artworks in an Arab country, at an Arab institution, is of great significance.

“He taught over 2,000 international students during his lifetime, including very notable women artists, and they all bear the indelible handprint of Gerome. I would argue that every Orientalist work that was created after Gerome bears his handprint. He was that important, that influential.”

Organised by the Lusail Museum and Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, where the show is staged, more than 300 artworks will commemorate the 200th anniversary of the artist’s birth. The exhibition will run until February 22 and is curated by Weeks, Giles Hudson and Sara Raza.

Gerome's work made him perhaps the most popular painter of 19th-century France. Photo: Qatar Museums

The show is divided into three interconnected sections that invite viewers to reconsider Gerome's art and impact through both historical and contemporary lenses. The show brings together works from Mathaf’s Arab modern art and Qatar Museums’ general collections, alongside loans from institutions such as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Malaysia’s Islamic Arts Museum, as well as private collections.

Historically, he was a lauded figure, but in a post-Edward Said world where Orientalism is strongly criticised, his artwork has come under scrutiny for taking liberties with the truth and painting a skewed image of the region. However, Gerome was one of the few Orientalist artists who actually travelled to the Middle East and gathered source material from what he witnessed.

Orientalist paintings were in high demand, sometimes serving the purpose of "educational" windows into a region most people would never travel to, but were curious about all the same. Many painters created imaginary scenes, drawing from stereotypical images and archetypes to create their works.

Gerome was the best technically, and he also created dramatic, perfectly staged paintings that were a delicately made-up collage of images, but his puzzle pieces were also real. Those with a keen eye will notice the same helmet, rugs, figures or background scenes reproduced across different works in different ways.

Gerome's work was harshly criticised by writers such as Edward Said, but he has been re-evaluated by the art community more favourably in recent years. Photo: Qatar Museums

Weeks, who curated the first section A Wider Lens, A New Gerome, explores this. The section presents new research on his life, artistic techniques and travels, showcasing works that illustrate his influence on generations of artists, including some never-seen-before works.

“He went seven or eight times to the region, particularly to Egypt and Istanbul," says Weeks. "His student, Stanislaus von Chlebowski, introduced him to the Ottoman Palace and Sultan, and Jerome not only sold his artworks, but he became the curator of their collection and their buyer. He is embedded in Ottoman culture and society. We also have these fantastic photographs from the Musee d'Orsay with Gerome on his donkey in Egypt, in the desert.

“Does he replicate the Orientalism of his predecessors? No, he does something entirely different. We have four examples here of artworks with themes that would become important to him, The Marketplace, Arms Dealer in Cairo from the Lusail collection, Prayer in the House of the Arnaut Chief, one of Gerome's earliest Orientalist works from 1859 and The Grave Threshers from 1869.

“What do critics say? Suddenly there is a realistic technique so painstakingly detailed it looks like a coloured photograph, not of harems, huntsmen and Bedouin horsemen, but we have scenes that seem like glimpses through a window into everyday life. Jerome marries these two; real life, or so it seems, and a real technique, and audiences love it.”

The second section, Truth is Stranger than Fiction, curated by Hudson, seeks to highlight the relationship between Gerome’s paintings and photography from the time, offering insights into how the medium influenced his artistic practice and perception of the East.

When creating his works he would have been plucking bits and pieces of imagery to compile in his paintings. Photography was invented in 1839 when Gerome was 14 and with the explosion of photography, many French photographers were active in the Middle East, with large archives available to the public.

The exhibition in Doha not only presents some of his most famous work, but puts it in context with its influences past and present. Photo: Qatar Museums

“The first photo in this section comes from the studio of the Abdullah Brothers in Istanbul, who were a group of Armenian photographers, it shows the Topkapi Palace,” Hudson says. “If you look closely, you might recognise the tile pattern here as being the same tile panel that Gerome copied for The Black Bard painting.

“Photography in the 19th century was a black and white process as colour photography was not invented until after Gerome’s death, so he had no colour reference. The colours he actually paints in The Black Bard are different from the colours in reality at Topkapi Palace, which are in greens and yellows, but Gerome used blues in the tile.”

He also made great use of photography to publicise his work, intentionally choosing colours that reproduced well in photography. Certain hues were hard to pick up through the capabilities of the time, and some of the photos Gerome used as a reference also had missing parts that didn’t appear in development – including part of the Topkapi Palace tiles.

To make up for the missing section, Gerome instead took a pattern from the Blue Mosque in Cairo for The Black Bard painting. This is merely one example of the ripple effect photography had in relation to his work and beyond.

The final section, Truth is Stranger than Fiction, curated by Raza, takes a more modern approach. The section looks at the lasting impact of Gerome, but also how regional artists are reclaiming their image and disputing Orientalist impressions, with newly commissioned pieces from artists like Babi Badalov and Nadia Kaabi-Linke.

“There are 25 artists in my section, and each one of them is a single idea, but collectively, they come together to rethink Orientalism in the plural,” Raza says. “It becomes a conversation between East and West, rather than a one-way street. We start to think about the arbitrary nature, space, human geography and so on.”

The exhibition poses many questions but rather than give a definitive answer, it arms the viewer with information, multiple perspectives and the means to critically engage with Gerome’s legacy, which has constantly been reshaped by politics, global narrative and of course, the viewer’s gaze.