Gerome in Burbank

Artist Ralph Allen Massey (born 1938)

Date2020

MediumAcrylic on panel

Dimensions40 x 29 3/4 in. (101.6 x 75.6 cm)

ClassificationsPainting

Credit LineGift of the artist

Object number2026.004

DescriptionARTIST’S STATEMENT:
Contemporary downtown Burbank takes part of the stage here, including the Islands restaurant, but I’ve added a couple of cars from the 1960s. The characters in front at the bottom are gladiators in the Colosseum in ancient Rome, as filtered through the eyes and brushes of the French artist Jean-Leon Gerome (1824-1904). In his famous painting of games in the ancient Colosseum, the gladiators are looking up to see if they get a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down from the nobility and the crowd in the stands. Gerome didn’t just invent the gladiators; he did a lot of research and tried to make them as authentic as possible. He even had actual Roman gladiator helmets and pieces of armament in his studio.

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