A Favorite Painting

Jean-Leon Gerome, The Grief of the the Pasha 1882

I pass through Omaha every couple of years or so and always try to stop at the Joslyn Art Museum. I've been there often enough to have adopted some favorites that I like to revisit and even look forward to seeing again like old friends. One of them is the Gerome pictured above, which I find by turns comic and touching. It's a kind of ambiguity that arises, I think, from the artist's perspective as an outsider (a Frenchman among Turks) who can't entirely see past the exotic trappings to really emphasize the universal human emotion on display. It isn't that Gerome misses that emotion, but dwarfs it underneath the ornate arches, giant candles and behind the tiger who appears at first glance to be merely asleep. But just as I'm sure his contemporary audience of the late 19th century was fascinated by this glimpse of a strange oriental world, I find it compelling for its attempt to make that world accessible, whether through humor of pathos-- it suggests an engagement with "the other" that even today seems difficult for a lot of people. When I showed the animated feature Persepolis recently to a class of mine, it was disappointing to hear some react as if just the effort to see Iranians as fellow human beings was some kind of affront to their sense of patriotism. One hopes that art can contribute to eroding such close-minded bigotry, and I think Gerome's painting works toward that goal, even if it does fall prey somewhat to stereotyping.