GROS, ANTOINE JEAN, BARON (1771-1835), French painter, was born at Paris on March 16, 1771. His father, who was a miniature painter, began to teach him to draw at the age of six. Towards the close of 1785 Gros entered the studio of David. The death of his father threw Gros, in 1791, upon his own re sources. In 1793 he left France for Italy. He studied Rubens at Genoa. He was presented to Josephine Beauharnais and through her to Bonaparte. On Nov. 15, 1796, Gros was present with the army near Arcola when Bonaparte planted the tricolor on the bridge. Gros seized on this incident, and showed by his treatment of it that he had found his vocation. Bonaparte gave him the post of "inspecteur aux revues," which enabled him to follow the army, and in 1797 nominated him on the commission charged to select the spoils which should enrich the Louvre. In 1799, hav ing escaped from the besieged city of Genoa, Gros made his way to Paris. His "esquisse" (Musee de Nantes) of the "Battle of Nazareth" gained the prize offered in 1802 by the consuls, but was not carried out, owing it is said to the jealousy of Junot felt by Napoleon; but he indemnified Gros by commissioning him to paint his own visit to the pest-house of Jaffa. "Les Pestif eres de Jaffa" (Louvre) was followed by the "Battle of Aboukir" 18o6 (Versailles) and the "Battle of Eylau," 1808 (Louvre).
These subjects painted under an impulse of real events made him the artist of the Napoleonic epos. As long as the military ele ment remained bound up with French national life, Gros received from it a fresh and energetic inspiration which carried him to the very heart of the events which he depicted ; but as the army and its general separated from the people, Gros ceased to find the nourishment necessary to his genius, and the defect of his artistic position became evident. Trained in the sect of the Classi cists, he was shackled by their rules, even when—by his natural istic treatment of types, and appeal to picturesque effect in colour and tone--he seemed to run counter to them. The decor ation of the dome of St. Genevieve (begun in 1811 and com pleted in 1824) is the only work of Gros's later years which shows his early force and vigour. The "Departure of Louis XVIII." (Versailles), the "Embarkation of Madame d'Angou leme" (Bordeaux), the plafond of the Egyptian room in the Louvre, and finally his "Hercules and Diomedes," exhibited in 1835, testify that Gros's efforts—in accordance with the frequent counsels of his old master David—to stem the rising tide of Romanticism, served but to damage his once brilliant reputa tion. Exasperated by criticism and the consciousness of failure, Gros sought refuge in the grosser pleasures of life. On June 26, 1835 he was found drowned along the Seine. Although a classicist, he encouraged young Gericault; while his own treatment of colour made him unwittingly a precursor of the romantic movement. See Delecluze, Louis David, son ecole et son temps (1855) ; Julius Meyer, Geschichte der Modernen franzosischen Malerei (1867) ; Jean Baptiste Delestive (pupil of Gros) Gros, sa vie e ses ouvrages (1867) ; G. Dargenty, Le baron Gros (1887).