Pajou (sculptor), which he left at the end of two years for that of the painter Brenet, whom he quitted almost immediately to place himself under David. In 1789 he competed for the Prix de Rome, which was carried off by his comrade Girodet. In the following year (1790) he again presented himself, but the death of his father prevented the completion of his work, and obliged him to accompany his mother to Rome. In 1791 he returned to Paris; but his poverty was so great that he was forced to forgo his studies in favour of employment which should bring in immediate profit. David at once availed himself of his help, and one of that master’s most celebrated pictures—Le Pelletier de St Fargeau—may owe much to the hand of Gérard. This painting was executed early in 1793, the year in which Gérard, at the request of David, was named a member of the revolutionary tribunal, from the fatal decisions of which he, however, invariably absented himself. In 1794 he obtained the first prize in a competition, the subject of which was “The Tenth of August,” and, further stimulated by the successes of his rival and friend Girodet in the Salons of 1793 and 1794, Gérard (nobly aided by Isabey the miniaturist) produced in 1795 his famous “Bélisaire.” In 1796 a portrait of his generous friend (in the Louvre) obtained undisputed success, and the money received from Isabey for these two works enabled Gérard to execute in 1797 his “Psyché et l’Amour.” At last, in 1799, his portrait of Madame Bonaparte established his position as one of the first portrait-painters of the day. In 1808 as many as eight, in 1810 no less than fourteen portraits by him, were exhibited at the Salon, and these figures afford only an indication of the enormous numbers which he executed yearly; all the leading figures of the empire and of the restoration, all the most celebrated men and women of Europe, sat to Gérard. This extraordinary vogue was due partly to the charm of his manner and conversation, for his salon was as much frequented as his studio; Madame de Staël, Canning, Talleyrand, the duke of Wellington, have all borne witness to the attraction of his society. Rich and famous, Gérard was stung by remorse for earlier ambitions abandoned; at intervals he had indeed striven to prove his strength with Girodet and other rivals, and his “Bataille d’Austerlitz” (1810) showed a breadth of invention and style which are even more conspicuous in “L’Entrée d’Henri IV” (Versailles)—the work with which in 1817 he did homage to the Bourbons. After this date Gérard declined, watching with impotent grief the progress of the Romantic school. Loaded with honours—baron of the empire, member of the Institute, officer of the legion of honour, first painter to the king—he worked on sad and discouraged; the revolution of 1830 added to his disquiet; and on the 11th of January 1837, after three days of fever, he died. By his portraits Gérard is best remembered; the colour of his paintings has suffered, but his drawings show in uninjured delicacy the purity of his line; and those of women are specially remarkable for a virginal simplicity and frankness of expression.
M. Ch. Lenormant published in 1846 Essai de biographie et de critique sur François Gérard, a second edition of which appeared in 1847; and M. Delécluze devoted several pages to the same subject in his work Louis David, son école et son temps.
GÉRARD, JEAN IGNACE ISIDORE (1803–1847), French
caricaturist, generally known by the pseudonym of Grandville—the professional name of his grandparents, who were actors—was born at Nancy on the 13th of September 1803. He received his first instruction in drawing from his father, a miniature painter, and at the age of twenty-one came to Paris, where he soon afterwards published a collection of lithographs entitled Les Tribulations de la petite propriété. He followed this by Les Plaisirs de toutâge and La Sibylle des salons; but the work which first established his fame was Métamorphoses du jour, published in 1828, a series of seventy scenes in which individuals with the bodies of men and faces of animals are made to play a human comedy. These drawings are remarkable for the extraordinary skill with which human characteristics are represented in animal features. The success of this work led to his being engaged as artistic contributor to various periodicals, such as La Silhouette, L’Artiste, La Caricature, Le Charivari; and his political caricatures, which were characterized by marvellous fertility of satirical humour, soon came to enjoy a general popularity. Besides supplying illustrations for various standard works, such as the songs of Béranger, the fables of La Fontaine, Don Quixote, Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe, he also continued the issue of various lithographic collections, among which may be mentioned La Vie privée et publique des animaux, Les Cent Proverbes, L’Autre Monde and Les Fleurs animées. Though the designs of Gérard are occasionally unnatural and absurd, they usually display keen analysis of character and marvellous inventive ingenuity, and his humour is always tempered and refined by delicacy of sentiment and a vein of sober thoughtfulness. He died of mental disease on the 17th of March 1847.
A short notice of Gérard, under the name of Grandville, is contained in Théophile Gautier’s Portraits contemporains. See also Charles Blanc, Grandville (Paris, 1855).
GERARD, JOHN (1545–1612), English herbalist and surgeon,
was born towards the end of 1545 at Nantwich in Cheshire. He
was educated at Wisterson, or Willaston, 2 m. from Nantwich,
and eventually, after spending some time in travelling, took up
his abode in London, where he exercised his profession. For
more than twenty years he also acted as superintendent of the
gardens in London and at Theobalds, in Hertfordshire, of William
Cecil, Lord Burghley. In 1596 he published a catalogue of
plants cultivated in his own garden in Holborn, London, 1039 in
number, inclusive of varieties of the same species. Their English
as well as their Latin names are given in a revised edition of the
catalogue issued in 1599. In 1597 appeared Gerard’s well-known
Herball, described by him in its preface as “the first fruits of
these mine own labours,” but more truly an adaptation of the
Stirpium historiae pemptades of Rembert Dodoens (1518–1585),
published in 1583, or rather of a translation of the whole or part
of the same by Dr Priest, with M. Lobel’s arrangement. Of the
numerous illustrations of the Herball sixteen appear to be
original, the remainder are mostly impressions from the wood
blocks employed by Jacob Theodorus Tabernaemontanus in
his Icones stirpium, published at Frankfort in 1590. A second
edition of the Herball, with considerable improvements and
additions, was brought out by Thomas Johnson in 1633, and
reprinted in 1636. Gerard was elected a member of the court of
assistants of the barber-surgeons in 1595, by which company
he was appointed an examiner in 1598, junior warden in 1605,
and master in 1608. He died in February 1612, and was buried
at St Andrews, Holborn.
See Johnson’s preface to his edition of the Herball; and A Catalogue of Plants cultivated in the Garden of John Gerard in the years 1596–1599, edited with Notes, References to Gerard’s Herball, the Addition of modern Names, and a Life of the Author, by Benjamin Daydon Jackson, F.L.S., privately printed (London, 1876, 4to).
GÉRARDMER, a town of north-eastern France, in the department
of Vosges, 33 m. E.S.E. of Epinal by rail. Pop. (1906)
of the town, 3993; of the commune, 10,041. Gérardmer is
beautifully situated at a height of 2200 ft. at the eastern end
of the small Lake of Gérardmer (285 acres in extent) among
forest-clad mountains. It is the chief summer-resort of the
French Vosges and is a centre for excursions, among which may
be mentioned those to the Höhneck (4481 ft.), the second
highest summit in the Vosges, the Schlucht, the mountain pass
from France to Germany, and, nearer the town, the picturesque
defile of Granges, watered by the Vologne, which at one point
forms the cascade known as the Saut des Cuves. The town
itself, in which the chief object of interest is the huge lime-tree
in the market-place, carries on cloth-weaving, bleaching, wood-sawing
and the manufacture of wooden goods; there is trade
in the cheeses (géromés) manufactured in the neighbourhood.
Gérardmer is said to owe its name to Gerard of Alsace, 1st duke of
Lorraine, who in the 11th century built a tower on the bank
of the lake or mer, near which, in 1285, a new town was founded.
GERASA (mod. Gerash or Jerash), a city of Palestine, and a member of the league known as the Decapolis (q.v.), situated amid the mountains of Gilead, about 1757 ft. above the sea, 20 m. from the Jordan and 21 m. N. of Philadelphia. Of its origin nothing is known; it has been suggested that it represents the biblical Ramoth Gilead. From Josephus we learn that it
