GEROK, ga'rSk, KARL ( 1815-90). A German preacher and religious poet. He was born at Vaihingen, Wurttemberg, January 30, 1815, stud ied at Tubingen, became chief Court preacher in Stuttgart, 1868, and died there January 14, 1890. His sermons, and particularly his religious po etry, were much admired. The chief collection of the latter was entitled Palmblatter (1857), English translation by Brown (London, 1869).
GERoME, zhAfrOm', JEAN-LEON ( 1824— ). A French painter and sculptor, one of the most eminent artists of the nineteenth and early twen tieth centuries. He was born May 11, 1824, at Vesoul, Haute-Saone, France. His father, a gold smith, encouraged the artistic tendencies of his son. Leon's copy of a picture by Decamps was seen by a friend of Delaroche, which led to Ge rome's entering the atelier of that master in Paris, at the age of fifteen. Three years later he went with Delaroche to Rome. With the exception of a few months with Gleyre, all Gerome's early training was received from Delaroche. He assist ed Delaroche on his picture of "The Passage of the Alps by Charlemagne," now in the Versailles Museum. In 1847 Gerome was unsuccessful in the competition for the Prix de Rome, but the picture, a "Greek Cockfight," now in the Luxem bourg, which he exhibited at the Salon of that year, was the sensation of the day. This picture was followed by the "Anacreon, Bacchus, and Cupid" (1848), now in the Museum of Toulouse. In 1848 he won the second-class medal at the Salon. In 1850 he exhibited the "Greek Interior," and in 1855 the "Age of Augustus," an immense picture now in the Museum of Amiens.
All the most splendid qualities of the art of Gerbille appear in the great picture of "Morituri to Salutant" (the "Gladiators Before Caesar"), which was exhibited in 1859. In 1854 Gerome visited the Danube provinces, and in 1857 Egypt, stopping at Constantinople on the way. He was made professor of painting at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1865, and won a medal of honor at the University Exposition of 1867. He was
made chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1855, officer in 1867, and afterwards commander.
Gerome has painted an enormous number of pictures, which are largely held in the museums of France. A partial list only can be given. He exhibited the "Phrvne Before the Tribunal" in 1861; "The Two Augurs" and the portrait of Rachel in 1861; the "Cleopatra and Cnsar" in 1866; the "Slave Market" and the "Death of Caesar" in 1867 ; and the "Promenade in the Harem" in 1869. He painted the "Plague at Marseilles" as a decoration in one of the chapels of the Church of Saint-Severin in Paris.
Gerome exhibited his great picture "Pollice Verso," companion to the "Gladiators Before Caesar," in 1873. These two pictures are con sidered by the painter himself his best works.
Of his later pictures the most important are: "Eminence Grise" (1876) ; "Rex Tibicen," "Fred erick the Great Before the Bust of Voltaire" (1876) ; "Saint Jerome" (1878) ; "Slave Market in Rome" (1884) ; "Great Bath at Bnisa" (1885).
At the Universal Exposition in Paris in 1878, Gerome made his debut as a sculptor of the first rank. He reproduced in bronze, and larger than life, the central group of the "Pollice Verso," a gladiator standing over his conquered antagonist, and awaiting the signal of the Vestal Virgins, the thumb turned down, which was, ac cording to a supposition now superseded, the death-sign in the arena. The best of GerOme's later work is in sculpture. The most character istic is a series of bronze equestrian statuettes, among which are "The Entry of Bonaparte Into Cairo," "Frederick the Great," and "Tamerlane." Consult: Claretie, Peintres et sculpteurs con temporains (Paris, 1884) ; Cook, Art and Artists of Our Time, vol. i. (New York, 1888) ; Low, "Gerome," in Van Dyke, Modern French Masters (ib., 1896).