Sensual, realistic and faithful to every detail: Jean Leon Gerome's paintings are based on an immediacy of presentation that touches and surprises the viewer. At a time when Impressionism had already gained a foothold in painting, Gerome's works are outsiders, relics of historical pictorial art - yet not simply backward or even nostalgic.

In focus Geromes is often the female form. Here she makes the center of the portrait in her uncovered, bright and smooth physicality. It is precisely these strong light-dark contrasts that highlight the figure of the galatea. Still half-stoned below the waist, so statically fixed on her pedestal, she leans out of her hip towards the artist Pygmalion. In the otherwise dim light of the studio, it almost merges with her, in a movement facing the beloved, but unstable when standing. The persons and objects are highly naturalistic, but their meaning is fictitious. The antiquarian depiction goes back to a narrative from Ovid's Metamorphoses, in which the artist Pygmalion falls in love with a female statue he has created and brings it to life through the mediation of the goddess Venus. An arrow-shooting Cupid points to the love relationship of the main characters, an ancient shield for a fight. Masks with wide-open mouths remind of Medusa images; they dramatize and comment on the scene in a negative way. All attributes are evidence of ancient mythology, which is hereby cited and puts the couple in this context.

The reception of antiquity in the 19th century is an expression of historical ideas, but it was barely up-to-date in the visual arts towards the end of the century. Gerome lets her be brought to life through his painting in two ways: through the illustration of the literary model as well as through the visual inscriptions of Cupid, shield and masks. Here, the painter put together two of his typical pictorial themes, in addition to the inclusion of antique motifs and the representation of an artist.

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Pygmalion and Galatea by Jean Leon Gerome. Available as an art print on canvas, photo paper, watercolor board, uncoated paper or Japanese paper.
famale · blocks · sculpture · artist · pedestal · embrace · studio · naked · woman · steps