8 Comments
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Pedro Lourenço's avatar

What a tremendously informative article. I know more than half of those films quite well and had no notion of their link to the fine arts.

Sera's avatar

Is cinema not a fine art? I think the classical disciplines of painting sculpture are ready to be joined by what Gore Vidal called “The only art form of the 20th Century that also makes money”.

Margo Rife's avatar

Thank you for this guide. I reread the entire essay. Could this art inspiration spill into theatre? Made possible onstage with set design and lighting?

Ecuador's avatar

I learned a lot. Thanks for great article.

Wandering Back-Roads W.Va.'s avatar

Check out Portrait of Jennie. The dockside scene is so beautifully composed, the whole film is a painting.

Laurel Vincent's avatar

Great piece! My Uncle, Art Historian, Gerald M. Ackerman, wrote the best book on Gerome: for more of his wonderful paintings and sculptures - Gerome was the last of the “realists” before the impressionists dominated and was the first to sell lithographs (copies) of his works: his exotic animals were most popular!

Joy in the Morning 44's avatar

My cousin worked as a movie decorator. She bought a flea market/ antique shop painting for a few hundred dollars for one of the films she worked on. It turned out to be a lost artwork worth a quarter of a million dollars. I'm pretty sure she wishes she had bought it with her own money and kept it. It does appear in the movie.