The Menil Collection The Menil Collection

Born in Vesoul, France, Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824–1904) went to Paris in 1840, where he studied painting at the École des Beaux-Arts. He became one of the most prominent painters of his generation, known for exotic and sometimes provocative history and genre scenes painted with great technical refinement and meticulous attention to detail. Based on its small size and lack of narrative subject matter, View of the Gorges of Apremont was probably intended as a study or a sketch to be used in a later composition. Here Gérôme depicts the rugged sandstone boulders found in the forest of Fontainebleau near Barbizon, a village just outside of Paris. The natural beauty and varied topography of the area began attracting artists in the 18th century. In the 1830s, regular train service from Paris made travel to the region easy and affordable, and by the mid-19th century, the park had been photographed and painted by dozens of artists. In this scene, Gérôme invested the familiar landscape with drama by contrasting the sunstruck highlights with the shadowed foreground. Although this study cannot be linked to a single finished work, there are several similar promontories in the artist’s oeuvre, especially among his many lion scenes.  Examples of single sprigs of foliage silhouetted against the background are also found in works from this period.