Jean-Léon Gérôme Prints

Jean-Léon Gérôme remains as popular now as at any point in the last century, with his unique combination of Orientalism and Academic art styles proving charming to many around the world. Prints of his original paintings remain in high demand.

Gerome's paintings have a charm and exotic vibe which few others can match. Academic art is more accepted now than in some previous decades, with a wider variety of artistic taste now prevalent. Himself and Bouguereau delivered art which many find beautiful and hark back to a time of innocence. They are both reproduced in large numbers, with a large collection of their work available from several significant online stores. For many followers of this artist you will uncover new artworks from their careers that you hadn’t discovered before, such is the prolific nature of their careers.

The female figure has always been regarded as a symbol of beauty, even going back to the Renaissance with artists like Sandro Botticelli who gifted us The Birth of Venus, Primavera and Mars and Venus. Alma Tadema created a similar use of female portraits to Gerome, with both using classical settings. The latter, though, would go on to add North African influences as well which produced an entirely new dimension to his overall oeuvre. Few notable Europeans have taken on some of the content in which he was involved and the technical brilliance of the artist will also attract the purists.

How might you customise your print? Many aspects of them can be customised, particularly with the international retailers who seem able to offer near limitless choices over style and material of frame, size of print, additional covers to protect the print and even the type of paper on which it is delivered. Typically your choices will be tailored by the setting in which the final product is to be hung. An oversized print can be too dominant and reduce the impact of the rest of the contents of the room, where as one too small will lose the qualities of the original painting. Also the composition itself will suit different sizes, such as a complex history painting or single figure portrait, for example.

Which artwork might you choose from the massive selection of around 700 oil paintings? The most popular tend to be his beautiful female portraits, particularly the exotic harem scenes. There are also the interiors of various mosques which attract both Islamic art followers but also those who appreciate architecture more generally. In terms of where classics inspired him, you might instead be interested in The Death of Caesar or Pollice Verso. In all, there is a good variety of work to be enjoyed here, with the artist making use of travel as a form of inspiration and choosing to go further than simply dipping into other regions of Western Europe, as most others had done.