GENTZ, WILHELM (1822-90). A German genre and landscape painter, noted for his delineations of Oriental life and scenery. Born at Neu Ruppin, Brandenburg, he turned from his studies at the University of Berlin to take up painting at the Academy and in the studio of Kloeber, then frequented the Academy of Antwerp, and from 1846 to 1852 studied with interruptions in Paris, first under Gleyre, later under Couture (1848 and 1853). In the meanwhile, he had traveled in Spain, Morocco, and Egypt, which he subsequently revisited five times, attracted mag ically by that Oriental world and scenery which he afterwards depicted with such consummate skill and brilliancy. Trips to Nubia, Asia Minor, Turkey, and Algeria followed later, after he had settled in Berlin in 1858, and begun the long series of his remarkable delineations of life in the Orient. His early pictures, biblical subjects with life-size figures, such as "Christ Among the Pharisees and Publicans" (1857, Chemnitz Mu seum), met with scant appreciation, and even his Oriental scenes worked their way to success only gradually, as their realistic treatment did not at first appeal to minds in which an ideal con ception of the Eastern fairy world was deeply rooted. But the true merit of his faithful charac
terizations once understood, his fame grew apace with the appearance of each new picture, and he was deservedly ranked on a par with the foremost French artists in that line. Among his numerous paintings, in which figures and landscape are treated with equal mastery. the most prominent are: "Transportation of Slaves Through the Desert" (1860, Stettin Mu seum) ; "Prayer of Mecca Caravan" (1868) ; "Evening on the Nile" (1860) ; Funeral Rites near Cairo" (1872, Dresden Gallery) ; "Meeting of Two Caravans in the Desert" (1873) ; "Entry of the Crown Prince of Prussia into Jerusalem, 1869" (1876, National Gallery, Berlin), one of his masterpieces, for which he made special studies in Palestine in 1873; "Market Scene in Algiers" (1879) ; "Memorial Service at Rabbi's Grave in Algiers" (1881, Leipzig Museum) ; "Palm Sunday in Early Christian Times"(1886) and "Evening on the Cataracts of the Nile" (1887). He also contributed illustrations to Ebers's Egypt and to some of his novels. He was professor at the Berlin Academy, and since 1877 member of its senate.