The Carpet Merchant By Jean-Léon Gérôme, Oil Painting
Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904): The Carpet Merchant, c. 1887, oil on canvas, 86.04 x 68.74 cm (33.9 x 27.1 in), Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minnesota
Jean-Léon Gérôme was a leading figure in the French Academic community and peerless as an artist, whether historical, portraiture, or Near Eastern scenes. Like Delacroix, he traveled extensively in North Africa and the Middle East.
The slice-of-Iife subject matter, brilliant colour, and attention to detail make Gérôme’s Carpet Merchant an iconic Orientalist canvas, depicting rugs traders at an old Arab bazaar. The scene is the Court of the Rug Market in Cairo, which Gérôme had visited in 1885.
The beautiful thing about Gérôme's realism is that he breaks the barrier between the subject and the viewer. In so many of his paintings, you can actually feel yourself in the picture as an onlooker of what is going on. Everything about the picture the figures; the texture of the carpets; and the light etc is convincing.
Gérôme created depth and atmosphere by muting the colours of the background, and bringing up the intensity of the colours in the figures of the foreground. It creates a beautiful 3-dimensional effect that makes it such a convincing setting.
The depth in the painting is wonderful. It's like you're in the room. You can feel yourself being drawn in by the carpets in the foreground.