From the outset, however, his success met with critical hostility. Émile Zola, champion of Édouard Manet, dismissed Gérôme as a cynical manufacturer of anecdotal images for popular consumption—a critique repeatedly echoed by historians of modern art. In light of revisionist and postmodern trends over the past four decades, however, Gérôme’s work is now being approached with unprecedented seriousness and refreshing creativity. The ten essays in this volume go far in challenging critical biases against the artist and suggesting new avenues of research. These papers indeed suggest that we are just beginning to learn how to “read” Gérôme’s paintings in their full complexity.